Casa Galgibaga — Hotel in Goa

Pros: Location: We wanted a quiet peaceful stay by Galgibaga beach and that is what this place offered. Garden: They really have a beautiful porch and a lovely garden.

Cons: The house: The house needs some serious fixing! They have leaky roofs. One of the bedroom doors is super small and it's an effort to open the door fully and get in. The roof will often shed debris which keeps falling on the bed! The kitchen is filled with fruit flies and roaches which is mainly because they don't have a proper waste management system. It's borderline unhygienic! Water frequently runs out and we had to call the caretaker to check the supply, while we were in mid shower ! Overall the house is not very neat and clean and feels like a one time effort which was made years back, but the upkeep hasn't been that great.

Amenities: They call themselves a bed and breakfast but they provide breakfast raw materials ONLY for the first day! I did not get this logic at all!

The towels were dirty and nothing about their linen will make you feel comfortable about their hygiene standards.

There is a pretty bad mosquito problem, but they do not even provide repellents. Only mortein coils if asked for. (not sure who lives in that pre historic age to use coils any more!)

There wasn't even anyone at the door to help with the luggage even though we informed them constantly when we are reaching up until we were 10 mins away.

There is no feeling of warmth you'll get which is so critical to a good Airbnb.

Owner's Attitude: The owner is pretty defensive and does not take suggestions in the right manner. His first response when we tried to talk about our issues was "please check out immediately, I'll repay you the entire sum". Although he did apologies for this later, he clearly doesn't seem fit to be in the hospitality sector. I think the owner hardly visits the place, and treats this more as a money making motel rather than a home which has the potential to be something truly beautiful.

Overall I feel this place is definitely not worth 12k per night. You cannot pass an unkempt dilapidated house as a "true Goan experience" that's just disrespectful!

There are several other places nearby to stay which would be much better options had we known before.

If you want a Goan house experience, try out Villa de Silva on Polem beach. Or even Sabina homestays on the Galgibag river. (Both much cheaper than this)

If you want a nice stay with good amenities which is also super close to the beach, check out Casa Rosa which is marginally more expensive, but is much bigger and offers way more amenities!

If you want a luxurious stay at Galgibag (also super close to the beach), check out Villa Galgibag! Super nice hosts and beautiful pool villa.

All in all, given Galgibag has a lot of options to stay, I'd definitely not pay 12k for this one.

You'll probably see a lot of reviews with good ratings on Google and get fooled, but many of them are travellers reviewing the Galgibag beach instead of the bnb, and hence...

I don't mean to exclude people but this place/ the beach is not for everyone. If you are someone who genuinely appreciates, old Goan charm, lazy beach life, lots of dogs for company and privacy and independence, a genuine curiosity about exploring local areas, then this place is a great find. If you are looking for a great variety of food options, drinkeries, bar hopping, this is not the place, there are other parts of Goa where you can experience this. If it's activity you want in Galgibaga it would be exercise!

As for the property. I haven't stayed in the main house but it looks great for families or larger groups of people. It's vintage Goan villa with a beautiful garden. The stone rooms look pretty great too but our pick has always been the beach huts Oyster Shell and Sea Salt.

Our first experience was in Dec 2022 when we stayed in Oyster Shell and it was breathtaking. The room was very well decorated, had a lot of amenities like AC, mini fridge, drinking water can with dispenser, coffee tea, running hot water, a sit out in the front, and a private backyard and garden. It had everything we could have asked for. Fast forward to 2023 Oct and we stayed at Sea Salt cottage, which was also a nice experience but we definitely missed few of the charming elements from last time. For starters, another hut was being constructed next to the oyster shell hut so there was some noise during the day time, luckily we were out most of the time so it didn't bother us much. However due to the ongoing construction set up, the facade from the beach looked unpleasant with tarpaulin covered areas. The nice sky light in the bathroom was also covered with tarpaulin which gave the nice bathroom an odd green colour that was being reflected and the backyard garden had it's partitions removed so it was no longer as private as before.

However these were minor inconveniences we had to face. There were some new services available as well. A breakfast service was introduced, which is nothing fancy but a nice simple breakfast to start the day. The staff was very helpful in fixing anything we needed. The kitchen menu is limited but the food is very good and we really loved it!

Other food options include few shacks on the beach which may or may not be open depending on the time of the year / season. All the food is quite simple and homely in all the shacks, which we felt was a refreshing break from constant restaurant quality food during a vacation. If you feel the need for more, Talpona beach is pretty close and has a couple of joints where you can find more diverse food and drink options with the same laid back Galgibaga vibe.

A must visit for people looking for isolated and secluded travel experiences, that looks like reading a book, petting dogs, go for jogs, swims, appreciate nature and eat some fresh sea food!

PS. It is a beautiful beach please do not litter or ruin the sanctity of this place. It is also a turtle nesting site so please...

When I was looking forthe google reviews for thos house, I was surprised to see that many reviews are about the beach and not about the house. Well, I spent 6 nights over there along with my friend's family. First of all, the house is situated right beside a church, pretty close to the Galgibaga beach. The church has a parking space of its own, and the house doesn't have facility to park in premises. So one opruon is to leave the car outside of the gate, but sometimes you may return and find that someone else has taken it. Or else it can be parked undee the bridge - about 50-60 mtrs from the house. The problem is, from all website images, you won't find a single image of the front portion of the house, and it may not match expectation of being at a lonely place. The house is pretty nice, the two things to be prepared for are: Power outages. But it does come back soon. Other thing is water - ensure that the house keeper fills the tank before leaving. Otherwise you may run out of water and the owner is going to be far away. There is a caretaker I heard, but he doesn't care. One of the AC was not working and sone repairmen came over, but there was no sign of a caretaker to take care of that, instead we had to stay back and wait for them to finish the job. Otherwise the house is a nice stay, close to beach, you need to walk about 50 meters. And the beach is beautiful. One caution: the owner of the house is a gentleman, and responsive, but bit defensive. So any criticism or comment about his house or services would be countered rather than solution. One last thing about the house: one of the rooms have a small bed. Not easy for two people. Overall, I found the stay okaay type, I enjoyed the beach, stay could have been far better. Google says it's a three star hotel, not sure why. I guess, the house is bit overpriced in comparison to my other stay...