Lillywoods Zac Beach Resort — Hotel in Goa

I was visiting Goa and decided to stay in a ‘nice’ hotel for one day on our trip. We booked 2 rooms in Lillywood Zac Beach Resort for the 28th to 29th December 2024. This has been the worst experience for me and my family. The whole management is terrible with terrible rooms.

The location of the property on Google is wrong, you have to call up the property and they tell you to come to some other parking location. If you are travelling by car like we did, you will get stuck in the single lane roads and it is extremely taxing for anyone to travel to this place.

⁠when we finally made it to the parking lot, which is of some other NV resort, a single person was sent to take our bags (remaining we had to carry ourselves, because how much can one person carry) and it is a 5-7 mins walk from the parking lot to the hotel via a narrow lane and the beach.

Checkin was at 1 pm but we reached at 7pm (because we were visiting the St. Francis Xavier exposition) they gave us one room and said the other room is yet to be cleaned!

⁠The rooms were horrible, it’s nothing like what you have shown in the pictures online, The rooms smelled like mould.

⁠the AC doesn’t work, they acted like they are fixing it but didn’t end up doing anything. It was so hot in the room all night. There was water leaking from the dis functional AC.

⁠there was a generator running all night so loudly outside our rooms.

There are no photos of the bathrooms online, they look so tacky and dirty you don’t feel like using them. The toilet seat cover kept shutting even when you are sitting on it. The basin counter had mould even the frame of the mirror above the basin had mould. There was no hot water.

the deluxe rooms which were apparently cheaper than the super deluxe rooms that we booked, booked looked better from the outside but they kept insisting that our rooms were better and the whole property is booked out, when it didn’t look like anything was booked out. I asked them if they could change our rooms but they said none were available.

there was no wifi working either and there’s no network.

⁠we couldn’t contact the reception because there is no phone connection to the reception and they give a number which does not respond or pick up. The person at the reception told me to send him a WhatsApp message but didn’t reply to any message.

⁠when we told the person at the reception to change the rooms we would even have paid more just for a good experience, he said they couldn’t change because it’s booked out.

after hearing our complaints and not paying attention to even one of them, the person at the reception tells us that they will adjust this in the food bill, when we asked them they said they would give us a 5% discount like they were doing us a favour! We refund that puny amount of discount and paid full price for our bill. They were insulting us by giving a discount of 5%, that’s so disgusting.

we asked for breakfast earlier because we had to leave for Mumbai early, they said that we could have coffee tea in the morning. But when we went they said nothing is available it will only be available at 8.30am and refused to give even tea and coffee.

There was no fridge in one of the rooms. And no glasses to drink water even after asking for it.

when we checked out, they gave us a bill of the person staying there the previous night saying we ordered it at 8.30am when we checked in at 7pm! It’s...

Been there. It seems the struggles and disappointments on different reviews may be true.

Here is my experience in total –

LOCATION: It is practically impossible to locate this property if you are coming on your own with a car. No signs maintained anywhere to indicate the direction. Google map does not help. Only a local taxi driver can locate this property. Roads are narrow as a pipe. If you are not looking for any unpleasant experiences, hire a taxi to reach the property. Couples with maybe one luggage can get through with a two-wheeler after multiple enquiries.

CHECK-IN/OUT: It was NOT smooth as the property is clearly mismanaged.

IN-HOUSE RESTAURANT: Reasonably priced, good quality food with hygiene. Hard working staffs. Orders may be delayed as it seems that the kitchen is small with very limited people. We liked the food overall.

BREAKFAST: I was a bit surprised with the breakfast quality. Looking at the earlier reviews, we didn’t expected much. However, all the items were fresh and tasty. Hygiene maintained accordingly. Very limited buffet options. As the dishes were freshly cooked, it tasted excellent though. A big round of applause to the hardworking staffs again.

BEACHFRONT: Proximity to the beach is about a minute. This is a beachfront property. The rooms are not. Lots of reasonably priced good Shacks are available on either side of this property.

ROOM: We actually got a decent room. It says, “deluxe room”. However, there is not much of a walking space. There is a room service menu card but no telephone in the room. So, I cannot comment anything on the room service. They had given me the cell phone number of the reception though, we thought of not troubling them. Bedsheets, pillows, blankets were clean and tidy. No spots or any sort of marks were visible on them. Super clean! Air Con worked fine. We had about 8-10 different incidents of power outages during (3pm-5pm). It came back after 5-6 mins. No power outages post sunset. Maybe there were and we do not know it as we were on the beach post 8PM till about 2AM. Room was reasonably clean overall. There is no option to lock the bathroom door. No locks at all. We never bothered to contact the reception and ask for the Wi-Fi password.

We managed everything except the hot water coming through the bathroom taps. We had booked a taxi to the airport to pick us up in the next morning. We were unable to take a shower before our check-out as only boiling hot water were pouring in through the bathroom taps including the wash basin. Complaints did not worked. After waiting for about 40 minutes, there were no water in the bathroom itself. Imagine if you were with a small kids or a senior citizen here. We paid over 7k for a night for one room with breakfast. We weren’t expecting much as we had booked it at the last moment to extend our stay in GOA while in GOA. However, one can definitely expect the basic necessities to be working accordingly in a paid stay.

Management is completely aware of the issues. I do not recommend this property to Couples & Families and definitely not to Senior Citizens. You can give it a shot if you are a stag or maybe with a group of close friends.

Giving it a 4/10 only for the hard-working staffs trying to keep this place from...

Worst Hotel Experience – Avoid at All Costs

First of all, this is NOT a hotel. It’s a glorified shack, utterly devoid of basic facilities or even common decency in management.

The Pathway to the Shack:

Getting to this place is an ordeal. There is no proper access road. You’re forced to navigate through unmaintained paths filled with spike bushes—a constant hazard for kids. The lanes are filthy, with no lighting at night, making it unsafe and unpleasant. The pathway tiles are horribly placed and poorly maintained; my family member even got a cut on her toe due to the negligence.

The Rooms:

Calling them "rooms" is a stretch.

Everything is falling apart—touch anything, and it’s likely to come off in your hands.

The pillows were so filthy they looked like they’d never been washed.

The mattress had blood stains, and I dread to think when it was last cleaned.

The duvet smelled like cigarette smoke, torn bedsheets adorned the beds, and curtains with broken hooks hung pathetically.

AC and lights were either missing or malfunctioning.

The rooms were infested with cockroaches and rats. At night, hundreds of cockroaches would emerge, creating a horrifying experience.

Even in a seaside property, they didn’t bother providing a single clean foot mat. We were forced to use towels in desperation. The room screamed negligence and lack of basic hygiene.

The "Restaurant" and Room Service:

If you think the rooms are bad, brace yourself for this joke of a restaurant.

The tables were broken, menus and cutlery rusted, and chipped glasses and plates with a disgusting yellowish texture were the norm.

Hygiene? Forget about it. Bubble tops contained spoiled water that left me with an upset stomach. Glasses were left exposed and uncovered, making you think twice before using them.

The menu was a mockery—200 items listed, but only 20 were available, of which barely 4 were edible.

Room service was nonexistent after 10:30 PM, which is absurd for a property in a remote and isolated area. Cold, tasteless food was served, and any requests were met with loud arguments and shouting matches among the staff, including slangs from the kitchen.

Overall Experience:

This stay was an utter nightmare. The place looks good only on booking platforms, but the reality is far from it. Goibibo, you seriously need to start auditing the properties you list because this one was a complete scam.

Special Thanks:

The only silver lining was the staff who tried their best despite the atrocious conditions:

Teju Bihari,

The blue-shirted restaurant staff (apologies for not catching your name),

Ravi,

The porter who carried our bags.

These individuals deserve much better than working at a...