Ravine Hotel — Hotel in Maharashtra

We stayed at the hotel from 8th October 2020 to 10th October 2020. We booked the valley side room and had a great view from the balcony. Tennis courts and half valley view so you can watch the sunrise and sunset and also some guests playing tennis. The hotel is located just on the main road but there is no road noise that you can hear in the rooms. The exterior appearance may not be appealing but the rooms are good in general. Safety In this post covid era, hotel staff took utmost precautions and care for the guests. All staff were wearing masks and gloves which they used to change daily. Disposal bins for masks and gloves are present at each floor also Sanitiser machines automatic and manual are present at various places, reception, elevators, stairs etc. Temperature checks were done when we arrived at the hotel and our luggage was sanitised as well. They also ask for fitness certificates from all guests for advance bookings at least. Not sure about ad-hoc bookings though, as guests would be unaware about this policy. We did notice some on the go tourists checking out the rooms. Food Our stay included breakfast only, lunch and dinner was not included. Breakfast varieties were quite good with veg/non-veg combinations. They also serve few live order dishes like dosa and omlette. All breakfast items tasted great , I would recommend their taco, upma, medu vada sambhar and cheese omlette. With shortage of staff in the post covid era, there were limited menu options for lunch and dinner. We did lunch once and twice dinner considering that it is a safer option instead of venturing outside. Veg items were good one can try paneer khurchand and dal khichdi, non-veg we tried the chicken biryani and it was okay. I might add that the charges were slightly on higher side (not for all dishes though) Facilities Clearly with restrictions and guidelines from the government, we knew only limited facilities are available for guests due to safety. The hotel has a Spa, Salon, 4 tennis courts (Only 2 seemed usable), Swimming pool, games room and gym. For safety reasons only Tennis courts were available. They charge 200 bucks for tennis equipment on hire. Playing tennis was good, but due to some unruly guests we could not play for long as they were disturbing and passing comments. A good time to play with privacy would be early morning. I suggest management to keep some staff near the court to manage some unruly characters. Rooms Rooms were very clean and we were assured they were sanitised 24 hours ago post which no one enters the room. This is to have minimal contact. No one is allowed to enter the room technically if there is no problems. We faced problems with the air conditioning. Since we couldn't keep the window open at night A/C not working was a problem, technician was called but he couldn't fix the problem well. Since the weather was not that hot, we were able to manage with less cooling. There was some irritating sound also from the indoor unit. The hot water kettle was also not working, we ordered for a replacement. Same for the TV set top box, it was replaced on first day. Great balcony and view was great from the valley room, this was the USP I would say. One one of the nights the electricity got tripped at 3:30 am and sleep was disrupted, we waited for a hour patiently to see if it gets restored but was not. After calling reception they explained the problem and sent an electrician after. He later fixed the problem so close to 2 hours sleep was disrupted. The problem was not the hotel's fault so can't really blame them for it and they probably did not go around calling the rooms to avoid disrupting guests. Sightseeing. Nearest to Sydney point, one can go walking. All other points are closed due to pandemic situation. Therefore the hotel being good is...

What Works? Location: Close to the Panchgani market, Table Land, Sydney Point, and Parsi Point. The view from the room (Valley View) is quite good too.

Food at the in-house hotel Melting Point: Pretty decent food for a touristy place like Panchgani. The variety will surprise you. They have everything from Hyderbadi to Italian and from Indian to Chinese. We ordered quite a few things but everything tasted good. However, the downside is that the hotel DOES NOT serve alcohol at all.

What Did Not Work? The property is NOT well kept or maintained, unfortunately. Sad but true. A quite walk around the resort will open your eyes how the property looks beautiful from the outside but in reality needs to well maintained. Everywhere there are wild shrubs, dried plants, branches, stinking water in the fountains, fountains covered with green algae. I instantly lost all the love for this place.

Rooms: The rooms (valley view rooms) are small and lack bright lightning. Just enough to make you claustrophobic.

Bathroom: The bathrooms in valley view rooms are the worst. The most basic of bathrooms one can come across at this price point. There was no glass parition between the shower and the toilet. So everytime anybody showered, the water made it difficult for walking and using in the toilet area.

Bathroom Toiletries: Absolute were third-class grade toiletries given in re-usable bottles with tin-caps which can be refilled 10,0000 times till the bottles are thrown away voluntrily. Typically, all the toiletries provided are sealed like brand new but in Ravine except the miniture soaps everything was in a reusable bottle. Let me put it this way: not only did I not dare to use them but it did not even remotely cross my mind to take some for my vaniety.

NO Fridge in the Room: Okay, you dont serve alcohol in the resturant, we get that. But whats the logic of NOT having fridge in the room? People come to relax, enjoy, and have a quite drink...why deny them the pleasure of not keeping their drinks in the cool by not providing the fridge? At the price point of the room, this was unfathomable. I could not comprehend this at all.

NO Room Service: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTT ???????? Yes, you cannot order food in the private confindes of your room. Again, this is something I have not even heard in my lifetime.

The Sitout Balcony: Provides you with great views of the valley and the mountains, but thats about it. The gutter-like smell does NOT allow you to sit beyond 5 minutes. And what are you going to do sitting there? Watch the mountains with nothing in your hand to drink or nothing in your plate to eat? So the sitout is pretty much useless in my honest opinion.

Wifi: Although you can connect to the hotel wifi, but it doesn't work at all. You will be hard pressed to even open the Google homepage with this insipid thing. Utter waster of time.

The Swimming Pool: You have to see it to believe it...the area is littered with old, unused chairs which are in bad condition. Thrown around recklessly upon each other!!!! The pool itself is so small that a few a kids jump in, it will be full...

Bad bad time we had there. We booked executive rooms costing 19470/- per night for 4ppl. Expecting it to be good serviced and good amenities. But both bathrooms had water logging issues. Water use to fill and come out in rooms. Bathtub was name sake. Very bad condition. Water was full brown and after many calls his technicians came but problem was not resolved. Beds are over springy. Even a slight movement springs the whole bed. And cherry on top something worst happened. All their cakes (even rasagullas) have eggs as per mentioned by their chef staff. We ordered VEG grilled sandwich that is suppose to be VEG. We wanted to order pizza but their pizza base had eggs. So we ordered veg grill sandwich. That time also the waiter did not tell us that their white breads have eggs. Food came and unknowingly we ate the sandwich. (We still regret) After sometime one of my friend did raise a question how come these breads r tasting so different. We immediately thot to crosscheck so we called the waiter and asked does your breads have eggs, and immediately he said yes they have eggs in everything here. If u wanted veg sandwich u should have ordered brown bread. We were so irritated by this answer as we clearly told them we wanted VEG sandwich. Then again after 5 mins we couldnt resist this injustice so we called again to talk to head chef. They cleverly understood we will now make a scene and blast on them, so he manipulated us by saying no mam we do not have eggs in white bread that u had. Somehow he convinced us by saying many things and his waiter dinesh or dipesh told us sorry too and we left the chapter their. But still we couldnt digest so next morning again when we went for breakfast, i randomly asked few waiters who are regulars their, they all agreed that all breads have eggs here. Hence now agitated we barged in their kitchen and spoke to the head chef. He just kept on saying the same thing "nahi hai" "nahi hai" Then the manager/owner came in and we told him the whole scenario. Their entire staff was agreeing that it had eggs but the head chef was constantly denying the fsct. Manager then asked me to talk to their bakery guy if we wanted, but common how easy it is to manipulate. He could have easily told his "years-long" supplier to just tell one sentence 'we dont hv eggs' and keep us (customer) quiet. So their was ablsolutely no point. They just dint wanted us to make a scene and kept on manipulating us. They kept on giving us different different answers. Finally what had to happen, hoteliers are use to handle such situation finely with their manipulative ideas. But no matter what, genuinity will always lead. So definitely worst experience we all had. And hoping to never go there. Bad bad day and bad rooms. Not at all...