Hotel Mangalam - Bhuj — Hotel in Gujarat

The room a/c's remote wasn't responding and on calling upon the house keeping, we were told that when you feel cold just switch the a/c off. Upon me demanding to change the remote, it was. The soap dispenser in the bathroom wasn't functioning correct so i called for the house keeping and was told that it will be done in 5 mins. We waited for 1 and half hr and then continued with our tour. Even when we were back at night, this wasn't corrected.|The cups and glasses in the room not changed/washed even once for 3 days. |The restaurant Saffron, the tables weren't even wiped for a single time in our 3 days stay. Food was almost evertime without salt. Same taste for all veggies. There were cockroaches roming around on the breakfast buffet table. Ridiculous experience!|Rental car experience: we rented a duster car from the hotel for our tour to narayan sarovar, lakhpat, mata no madh, dholavira, etc. for the next 2 days. We fix up the price for lakhpat. While fixing the price for dholavira, I suggested that we take the route via khawda which will be 125 x 2 ie 250 kms return journey. But the driver told us that route is not good and added 250 x 2 ie 500 kms for return journey to dholavira via Rapar. We had to agree. |The 1st day to lakhpat etc went well. On our return, the driver started telling us that there is nothing to see in dholavira (for a world unesco site this is the most bizarre thing to hear from locals). But we insisted on going. He said ok and asked us to be ready at 8:30 am as the journey would be long.|Next day we were ready at 8:30am and waited for the driver till 10am. I checked with the reception and they told me that he has gone for airport duty. The driver wasn't even picking up my phone till 10am. At 10 am he picked up my call to tell me that he is sick and will not be able to come. Completely ridiculous, that the reception was also not informing us about this despite them knowing. |They, then told us that they will send someone else. Some other driver came in with the Duster. I was angered but I didn't want to loose out on site seeing so continued. I told this driver that we take the khawda route, but he said that it will be your risk if something happens to their car. So we told them to take the longer rapar route. After driving little further, he started telling us that we should take the khawda route now. |At this I had to put my foot down and insisted on the agreed rapar route. This new driver kept stopping and talking over the phone (despite the fact that we were late due to him and the site has a closing time) and was completely rash in his driving, jumping over speed breakers at a speed of 100kmph. We told him a couple of time to be careful since we had a senior lady travelling but to no heed. We had to hurry with our site seeing due to all this. He even made us miss out on many tourist spots and wanted us to skip chipper point as well just because he wanted to get back to bhuj. However, I Said I won't. If this wasn't over yet, now he insisted that we take the khawda route to bhuj (the same route which I had insisted on taking at the time of fixing the price and they had denied). Finally he fought and brought us back from the khawda route without a/c from a mud road again driving in a senseless manner.|I paid them the agreed price though but I now put up my point at the always arguing reception. There was this one person (hindi speaking) who started banging registers on the reception desk and yelling while talking to 2 lady traveller's. It's quite shameful on the part of the management of this hotel for such behaviours. We just cleared our dues and concluded our stay there. |Not at all an experience that I would ever like...

This is a longish review based on my experience at Hotel Mangalam of my 3 nights stay at the hotel from Dec 22 to 25th 2021. On the onset let me emphasize that it’s a 3 star hotel and should be reviewed as that, not to be compared with 5 star hotels. I was sceptical reading some of the negative reviews before I booked. But we have had a good experience from day one even before we reached the hotel. We checked out different hotels on different websites. I zeroed in on this one because it seemed to be well located, and had parking space for your car and based on a review which said they have sleeping facility for your drivers. Since we had hired a taxi with us from Ahmedabad for the 4 days it was useful. ||||The hotel:- We had called the hotel before booking with some queries. They attended to our queries very nicely and gave us a good rate too so we booked with them directly with a 50% advance. The staff at the reception always helped us with all other general information about Bhuj whenever we called. Even while at the hotel the staff at the reception desk was always friendly, courteous, helpful and cooperative. It’s centrally located in a decent area of Bhuj. All popular tourist sites are pretty closeby. ||||Room:- Our room for 2 guests was pretty large and neat and clean for a 3 star. No complaints whatsoever. Bathroom was also very clean and mercifully I had hot water whenever I opened the tap. I had read negative reviews about this and was very worried. But we got piping hot water every night for a bath after we came back from our touring around the town. The blankets, bedsheets, towels, etc were all neat and clean. ||||Food:- We had a room and breakfast plan. We could have breakfast only on one day (which was very good) as we had to leave early in the morning before breakfast started. But the kitchen staff was very sweet and prepared sandwiches for us to take and eat on the go. We had planned to go out and explore different places during our stay but because we used to come back tired every evening we chose to eat at the in-house vegetarian restaurant “Saffron” every single night. A very good decision. It’s a very good restaurant and whatever food we ate was excellent. Portion sizes were also good. The staff was superb and looked after us very well every day and pampered us. Would like to mention specially a young lady Ms. Manika Burman. She would attend to our table everyday and also take care of our small needs. One day I had a bad throat so Manika offered to get me hot water to drink. She not only just got a glass of hot water, she got a small flask with it and kept refilling my glass whenever it got over without my even noticing it. Its little things this, when staff takes care of you, that makes your stay memorable. I wish this young lady well and pray she does well wherever she goes. Don’t remember everyones names but all the restaurant staff was very very helpful and welcoming and attentive. A young boy Mukesh Tiwari also helped us with food service. The restaurant basically serves a north Indian menu but they served us idli, wadas and dosas one evening from their franchise restaurant ‘Sankalp Express’ next door. And chaats, sandwiches etc too. It was all very good quality food every single meal. Enough options and total value for money. ||||Overall a good experience and I think I will definitely go back to Mangalam every time I am in Bhuj and recommend...

This is a longish review based on my experience at Hotel Mangalam of my 3 nights stay at the hotel from Dec 22 to 25th 2021. On the onset let me emphasize that it’s a 3 star hotel and should be reviewed as that, not to be compared with 5 star hotels. I was sceptical reading some of the negative reviews before I booked. But we have had a good experience from day one even before we reached the hotel. We checked out different hotels on different websites. I zeroed in on this one because it seemed to be well located, and had parking space for your car and based on a review which said they have sleeping facility for your drivers. Since we had hired a taxi with us from Ahmedabad for the 4 days it was useful. The hotel:- We had called the hotel before booking with some queries. They attended to our queries very nicely and gave us a good rate too so we booked with them directly with a 50% advance. The staff at the reception always helped us with all other general information about Bhuj whenever we called. Even while at the hotel the staff at the reception desk was always friendly, courteous, helpful and cooperative. It’s centrally located in a decent area of Bhuj. All popular tourist sites are pretty closeby. Room:- Our room for 2 guests was pretty large and neat and clean for a 3 star. No complaints whatsoever. Bathroom was also very clean and mercifully I had hot water whenever I opened the tap. I had read negative reviews about this and was very worried. But we got piping hot water every night for a bath after we came back from our touring around the town. The blankets, bedsheets, towels, etc were all neat and clean. Food:- We had a room and breakfast plan. We could have breakfast only on one day (which was very good) as we had to leave early in the morning before breakfast started. But the kitchen staff was very sweet and prepared sandwiches for us to take and eat on the go. We had planned to go out and explore different places during our stay but because we used to come back tired every evening we chose to eat at the in-house vegetarian restaurant “Saffron” every single night. A very good decision. It’s a very good restaurant and whatever food we ate was excellent. Portion sizes were also good. The staff was superb and looked after us very well every day and pampered us. Would like to mention specially a young lady Ms. Manika Burman. She would attend to our table everyday and also take care of our small needs. One day I had a bad throat so Manika offered to get me hot water to drink. She not only just got a glass of hot water, she got a small flask with it and kept refilling my glass whenever it got over without my even noticing it. Its little things this, when staff takes care of you, that makes your stay memorable. I wish this young lady well and pray she does well wherever she goes. Don’t remember everyones names but all the restaurant staff was very very helpful and welcoming and attentive. A young boy Mukesh Tiwari also helped us with food service. The restaurant basically serves a north Indian menu but they served us idli, wadas and dosas one evening from their franchise restaurant ‘Sankalp Express’ next door. And chaats, sandwiches etc too. It was all very good quality food every single meal. Enough options and total value for money. Overall a good experience and I think I will definitely go back to Mangalam every time I am in Bhuj and recommend...