Secret Garden — Hotel in Kerala

Cute place. But management very unreliable. Your reserved and confirmed reservation may be sold to someone else!

We saw the place in February, very cute, and decided we wanted to book it for guests of our wedding trip with friends and family in February 2019. It took a few weeks to reach out to a person responsible for group bookings (!!) but ok, they ended up confirmed availability price and conditions, we negotiated and accepted final offer and it was a done deal in March, in written. Then my travel agent tried for weeks to reach out to Secret Garden to do contracting and advance payment, but no one responded. 2 months later and many many phone calls and emails, Secret Garden ends up admitting they had overseen our reservation - although confirmed in emails - and sold out rooms to other people (maybe at a higher price, I don’t know!). Once this was realized and understood, we got 2 apologies messages but Secret Garden didn’t want to cancel their new reservation and take back ours, not did they suggest other similar hotels, leaving us and our group with a mere « sincere apologies, we hope you and your group find other alternatives in Kochi » (like... really??!!! That’s it? You mess up my group reservation and don’t do anything else than wishing me a great holidays?) Anyways, if you have a confirmation with Secret Garden, be aware that they may sell your room to other people and leave you in a terrible situation!! So be careful with your confirmations... apart from that, it’s probably a lovely place to stay in, but for us, the incompetence of management / reservation system (or lack thereof) has ruined our project...

The place is really a secret. It's quietly tucked away in the interior lanes, but once you get into the gates, it's a whole new world in itself.

There's a lot o f thought that has gone into making the place. There's an entire photobook that talks about how the house was transformed with lots of love and attention to detail.

We enjoyed our conversations with Faizal, who hand-built this place 15 years ago. You can see the love and care that has gone into building the experience.

We stayed for two nights, and had the entire place to ourselves since they didn't have any other bookings. We enjoyed the pool, the courtyard and everything else.

Sunesh, the caretaker is wonderful. He has that meditative gaze that puts you at ease. He was kind enough to make us lovely three course breakfast every day. He really enjoys what he does. He also helped us catch the Kathakali show and helped us get a cab to the airport at a reasonable rate. He and Faizal made our experience very memorable. Thank you so much, both of you. We really had a lovely time. We are leaving with lots of...

The Secret Garden accommodated us as a walk-in (our booked hotel had a damp problem) and we were delighted with our stay. The staff were really keen on making sure we were happy, and it’s clearly very well run. Our room (the Romantic Suite) was really well furnished with local pieces, and it was clean and comfortable. As so many reviewers have said, the pool really is lovely. Watching hummingbirds sup from flowers from a warm pool after a delicious breakfast is a memory we’ll savour.

The only area for improvement would be to provide some insect netting so that windows can be opened to air the rooms, and perhaps the mattresses need to be changed more often than is usual because of the damp climate, though the smell wasn’t as strong as in a couple of other heritage properties we visited in the town. But neither of those things would stop us recommending this place. It really is fantastic.

Bring lots of mosquito repellant and a plug-in. Fort Kochi has more mosquitos than anywhere else we’ve visited in Kerala and they seem to be hungry...