Hotel Lal Kothi — Hotel in Jammu and Kashmir

I booked this hotel via MakeMyTrip for 1-night stay on 25-Dec-2017 and paid approximately INR 7.5k for this hotel (including 2 meals, bk'fst & dinner). I usually search through a lot of hotels on Tripadvisor before finalizing on anyone, and for the kind of reviews this hotel had, paid this amount seemed appropriate at the time of booking. However what urged me to come here & write this review is to warn anyone booking this hotel to do so at their own risk, as ideally, this hotel should be in the range on INR 2.5k-3.0k max. Below are some of the salient features:||1.) NO RUNNING WATER - Yes, you heard that right. For a hotel charging almost 8k for a room, there was no running water in the bathroom as well as the washroom. Now you can imagine how difficult it was for us to even think about spending a day at a hotel where there is no water in the toilet flush.!! Upon asking, the staff casually lied to us saying that in winters the water freezes in pipes across all hotels, however, I got to know this is a lie as I went to another hotel during lunch time, & they had running water everywhere. I wanted to ask the people in other rooms about this, however, I was feeling too ashamed to ask about running water in the toilet. Even more, Gulmarg has a much lower temperature but no hotel has this problem of freezing pipes (we were in Vintage Gulmarg). Thus, at the entry only, we wanted to just run from this hotel, but were forced to stay as payment was already done.||||(2.) Pathetic food quality: I wish I had not opted for dinner & breakfast, as both of these were of extremely poor quality, & is not expected from a hotel charging this much money. I regret not taking a picture of the food that was served, however, I can assure you that even a local roadside dhaba would serve better food than what these guys provided. Additionally, casseroles had no lids on them, and rice quality for extremely poor. The food was what I would expect from a 2k rate hotel/B&B.||||(3.) Unprofessional & unfriendly staff: Lastly, the staff here is not at all professional in any way, and people working here are more like majdoors or construction workers, who don't have any sense of how to talk to a customer and are rude in their behavior.||||(4.) No wifi: Though the hotel advertises free wifi, however, that was not the case. we came back to the hotel at around 5 PM, and the wifi did not work until 9 PM. The manager said that there is some issue with the line. Then we did get some signals around 9:00 PM, however, the speed was that of 2G network (which makes you further frustrated) and thus we decided to use our Jio 3G instead which worked fine here.||||(5.) Lastly, the heating arrangements in the room were substandard as well. Our room was a four-bedroom, however, we were only provided 1 blower, which was also in a rickety condition. Hot water was present but it was stored in a big tank in the bathroom and we had to take it out from buckets. Electric blankets worked, but the switch to change the heating settings were all broken.||||||||All in all, a really sour & pathetic experience at this hotel, and I really-really regret paying 7.5k for a hotel like this. Had I paid 2-3k for the same services, I would've not been so dissatisfied as I would've expected such services. I paid almost same rate for The Vintage Hotel in Gulmarg, and you can check my review for that hotel as to what mind-blowing services that hotel offered. Uploading a few pics only that I took casually, and really regret not taking more pics to further justify my review; though only this 1 fact is enough for you to understand my poor ratings for the hotel: using buckets to flush down our poo in the toilet for an 8k hotel. NEVER STAYING...

We were provided this hotel by our tourist operator, though I read through reviews on TripAdvisor and said okay for the hotel, in experience, I'd say the service, the comfort, food, etc. could always be better. This hotel was chosen for a family trip for 6 adults and 1 kid, in short, we took 3 rooms altogether. There is no lift in the hotel, mind you, if you're given a room on the first floor and have elderly people, imagine taking luggage also the elderly people.||||The views from the hotel are wonderful. We stayed there during Nov 1st week, it had snowed heavily the previous day, and hence there was too much of snow everywhere. The room heaters provided could be better, the electric blanket used to help us keep warm only one portion of the bed. The room heaters were switched off during the night hours after 10 PM when it was most required. Agreed, that the power cuts were to be blamed, however, it could have been better handled. The bathrooms were not clean, the doors and the latches are very old. Some of the bathroom doors/frames were almost hollow due to termites. In all, suggest you avoid this hotel, if you can.||||The staff is warm and helpful, however, they do demand for a huge amount of tips assuming tipping (asking for a huge sum of money is their right), which is actually a put off for any traveler, after a...

I was stayed with my family on 25/10/2023. Hotel is in very good place. Mountain view. But room is very small and bathroom is also average, it was very cold at night about -4degree .I think management is very careless.3 year boy is with my family, they kept only air conditioner in room, no room heaters are there. A/c not worked properly throughout night. But I carried a heater then no problem, if not it was horrible. This is only thing I feel bad. Rather than this, Food is very good and tasty, staffs are very friendly. Receptionist is very kind person. My 3yr son crying for room key to take home, I tried lot to convince him but i didn't. Receptionist (I forgot his name) is kindly given a room key to my son than he become calm. This is most memorable, thank you sir. Overall it...