Le Chateau — Hotel in Puducherry

I had stayed in this hotel and had mixed views. When the opportunity came up to go to Pondy I checked with them regarding the current status of certain renovation they had taken up to refurbish one of their restaurants. They gave me the comfort that it is over and will have a better time this time around.We booked 5 rooms on 7th Dec, 2022 and paid a certain advance, the dates were 9th and 10th Dec, 2022. Our travel dates to Pondy were clashing with the approaching cyclone- Fandous. The hope was it would weaken as it approaches land and we can make it.That was not to be and we had to cancel our plans to Pondy on 9th afternoon.

This is where the true colours started surfacing. We requested for the refund and we we were shown the cancellation policy.they wouldn't refund. While the cancellation policy says any booking done can be cancelled 7 days prior to the check-in date. In our case we booked just 2 days before our travel date and the cancellation policy is silent on this one.

I wanted them to know if I had cancellation in mind I wouldn't have paid in the first place and would have negotiated to pay at the property. We are equally disappointed as we couldn't make it and the team of 8 from Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore had to rearrange their travel plans with a lot of difficulty and head back to their respective location in the wake of the incoming cyclone hitting Chennai. We possibly couldn't have travelled to Pondy on 9th evening with heavy rains, govt warning, red alerts and wind speed upwards of 80 Kmph.

Such an attitude was not expected considering the grounds on which the booking had to be cancelled.

I said my first stay gave me mixed feelings- pricey for the size of the rooms, they do nkt have central AC and the standalone units take crazy amount of time to get the room to comfortable temp zone. The breakfast is non descriptive.Obviously no parking as is the case in most such hotels in Pondy.

I hoped they would make it up with their service standards and customer first attitude. But then I was wrong.

Not the place I would recommend to my near and dear...

I had a real bad experience with these people at Le Chateau, Pondicherry. I had booked for 2 days for April 18th. The payment of 13K was made in advance. Because of the covid lockdown, the date was postponed to May 17th. However May month was also bad due to the pandemic. ||||I called them up to cancel and understandably, du to the lockdown, there was no one at the hotel. The owner Mr.Kevin replied over email that someone will reach out whenever they can. And then after around 42 days in June end they sent a mail that the booking is for July 15th. I never saw the email and they never bothered to call and inform. On July end, when the lockdown was better I decided to call them up for the stay. To my horror they reminded me of the mail and said they they have cancelled and my amount stands forfeited due to a no-show. I pleaded with them about my case, and the fact that all this is happening due to natural causes and not my personal issues. The hotel manager Mr. Udayshakar just gave me a cold shoulder||||I asked them how can they reply, after 42 days, over email and confirm on their whims and fancies. And then the most obvious question, if I was a no show on the first night(booking was for 2nights), why did they not reach the guest to see if everything is fine, what if I had an accident. The hotel management then started ignoring my emails and phone calls.||||I lost 13K, and worst it left a bad taste as I was not expecting such a behavior from the management of a so called luxury hotel. Its a community which is trying to come out of bad times (pandemic) and here we have an establishment profiting from it.||||Stay away from it, the only good thing is its location, But there are better and cheaper places in...

Stayed here for 3 nights (1 night in classic room and 2 in superior) with my family in Dec last week. The place's got nice location with close proximity from the beach. It's a busy street, and the commotion in the street is audible from the room facing the street. The classic room is extremely small with no ventilation whatsoever (if I don't count the small window that faces the drain pipes). The AC vent leaked. The superior room kept getting booked in middle of our the conversation, twice. But we did manage to get one on the second day. The superior room is decent, with a small balcony but well, it has a damp smell and stuffy smell. The bathrooms have no ventilation. The blankets seemed like they hadn't been washed well (or at all). But it does get better, when my mother tried to to talk about the bathroom smell to Emile, the receptionist, it didnt exactly go well. He even suggested that the it stank cos she used it (yes, the highlight of our stay!). I reckon she would have received a rather different response if she were a foreigner or could speak fluent English. The housekeeping & restaurant staff are polite and prompt. (An additional star just for them). Network in the room is low but they've pretty good WiFi in the hotel. The breakfast menu could do better, the menu each day remained the same and could have atleast some variety of baked item provided that theh have an amazing cafe of their own. While, it is understandable that post covid time has created a tough situation for most of us, the hostility on multiple occasions was completely uncalled for. Our experience at Le Chateau was rather unpleasant and unsatisfactory and definitely NOT...