Villa Du Ocean — Hotel in Puducherry

So, my review is extremely honest and real. I stayed here 3 nights with spouse and a 5 year old child. ||The experience was very sad. The hotel is operating out of bare minimum staff. Room cleanliness was very bad, I think they just broom it off half heartedly and no wiping floor with water or disinfectant. Anything you ask for takes ages. ||Breakfast service is bad, and below average quality of food. They barely manage cutlery during breakfast. We and other guests experienced at times no plates, no spoons or forks, no bowls, no tissues. If they get, they get a couple so some use that and others wait. Breakfast time is 8 am and by the time everything is ready it’s 8.30 minimum. All guests get up and go into the kitchen to ask for cutlery. ||Restaurant service is bad even for dinnertime. For 1 night we decided to eat in in-house restaurant, and they took ages for food and quality and taste not good. All the guests were irritated as everything took time. We then realized and learnt that they had 1 person to take order and serve and 1 (literally) person in kitchen who is cooking for all orders and hence all delay. Not to forget, restaurant cleanliness of tables floor etc. as bad as room floors. ||The same single staff who was there at night at the restaurant is there for breakfast. The entire hotel operates with so few staff (in single digits) that everything is slow. ||If you are going for vacation and spending for a hotel, you first expect good service and warmth from staff. And basic hygiene factors in place like cleanliness. ||My recommendation is that no one should decide to stay here. Unless you are a student and literally will go there to sleep at night and be out from sunrise to midnight. For them too decide to take the risk. ||Main problem - the moment there are more guests, they cant handle.. If there are only 2 or 3 rooms of occupancy, maybe they can be better. | |I paid 20k for 3 nights, and trust me it felt like, a place which ideally should be 7.5k for 3 nights. It also came across that all the staff were amateurs and didn’t even know how a hotel industry functions. Didn’t mean to rip a hotel down, but this is me being real and wanting to save people who may stay there...

Google review summary|3.9|619 reviews|5 ★ |4 ★ |3 ★ |2 ★ |1 ★ |Reviews on other travel sites||Goibibo.com|3.9/5 · 102 reviews|Reviews|Search reviews||Vrushali Surve|1/5|13 hours ago on Google|Very bad experience. Their rooms look pretty only on the website. We had booked a room a month in advance, by looking at the website, a handful of positive reviews, and on my friend's recommendation. However, our experience was totally opposite of what we had in mind. We have stayed in all sorts of stays in different parts of India but this was a total no-go, especially for the price they charge. Despite booking a month prior, we got to hear from the receptionist "We do not have rooms available right now. We will accommodate you in a basic room tonight and tomorrow we will shift you to another room." The room they showed as "basic" did not even have the most basic thing: cleanliness. It seemed like they opened that room after ages; it had leakages, cobwebs, and a bad bad sting. They were not ready to commit to an upgrade the next day, not agreeing to refund when we decided to cancel our booking, or give us some assurance of providing a better room. The room's window opened into their restaurant's kitchen! It had no balcony. Linens seemed to be not changed for years. There was absolutely no network in the room, no light, no ventilation. We decided to chuck it and save our anniversary day and night by booking with The Promenade. They boast their about prime location, but Pondicherry is quite small in itself and there are 1000 times better stays around. Not at all...

As an individual committed to a vegetarian lifestyle, I found myself drawn to the hotel's breakfast buffet. To my dismay, the arrangement was far from the norm, lacking the customary distinction between vegetarian and non-vegetarian offerings. This deviation led me to encounter a disheartening dish: dish X, which followed after sambhar and boiled vegetables and in between Idli (all vegetarian dishes), was, in fact, a chicken sausage (the dish X).

The inadvertent consumption of this non-vegetarian item left me deeply perturbed, for it is a disservice of the gravest kind that a hotel can do to people who are vegetarians by "choice" and from the day they are "born" . Upon voicing my concerns to the manager, I received an apology acknowledging a breach in their protocols. However, such an apology hardly suffices to rectify the emotional distress incurred . I earnestly request individuals to exercise caution when considering this place for staying.

Regrettably, my grievances extend beyond this shock. The absence of adequate parking facilities, inadequately ventilated rooms, and persisting issues with the exhaust and air conditioning systems render this establishment wholly unsuitable for anybody's stay.

I request fellow travelers to share this review widely, emphasizing that the inadvertent consumption of non-vegetarian dish is not a matter to be taken lightly, and the deficiencies in this hotel's amenities warrant serious consideration before any...