Raj Palace Resort — Hotel in Rajasthan

We booked this hotel in Ranthambore from Booking.com & had a confirmed reservation. I confirmed the reservation telephonically with their representative Akshit who deals in online bookings. The numbers that are provided in the booking.com & hotel confirmations are good to call but the hotel front desk will direct you to another number & the other will direct you to a 3rd number for online booking confirmations. The whole Ranthambore was packed due to weddings & this hotel was still available. On reaching in the evening, we were told that they had no booking for us, which was astonishing since I had even confirmed the bookinf before coming. They couldnt find our names, confirmation number nothing. However, they eventually did show us a room, which was average & then on request showed us a room, which was better than the earlier one & we took it. This process took more than an hour. The hotel was totally booked & they were short staffed & it was being difficult managing everything. The guy at the reception was quite good. Serving everyone with a smile, trying his best to accommodate all requests, listening to everyone, managing with less staff. We personally had no service issues. Montu at the front desk who manages the hotel was quite nice & spoke & served well. Gave us a discount too on the room booking. Since they couldnt find our online reservation, we directly dealt with them. At the time of checkout, he gave us a decent discount. They have a nice lawn, nice dew, weather was pleasant. They could do better with a bonfire. On checking they said, they do it on request. Had we known, we would have requested before. Also, because of the rain the previous day, wood was all wet so they couldnt. The rooms are big. The ground floor rooms have better balcony & chairs & table should you want to enjoy an early morning tea. The terrace is big but needs cleaning. Lot of old broken stuff lying. Its an old hotel. Rustic. Centralized heating of water so it takes some time to get hot water. Either you wait or inform before. There is a small pool. A small bar. The buffet breakfast is very limited. We liked omelette toast & tea. Poori, paranthas were ok. Overall a nice stay otherwise. I am a blogger on instagram as the @the_food_date. You may check my food & travel blogs on instagram at the following link ...

We stayed here because our tour company arranged it for us. Our first initial thoughts were great as staff were friendly and it seemed like a nice place. When we got to the room, it was nice but our bathroom smelt horrible and someone’s chunks (and I seriously mean chunks) of hair were all over the walls of the shower. We let this go. We asked about a washing service and we were told 80 rupees for a large load and 60 for a small. So we took a small and large load over. We were told to pay in cash when we got it back which was fine. Picked it up and the bill was 2240 rupees. Almost $50NZD for two loads of washing. They then told me the prices were actually 80 rupees for large items PER PIECE and 40 rupees for small items PER PIECE. We couldn’t believe it. So we felt ripped off. Whilst we were there the prices on things on the menu had doubled or tripled. On our last morning there, we were rudely woken up at 6AM to a phone call from the reception saying we had a safari. We weren’t ever told about this safari, so we said no. They hung up. Then the door bell rings 5 minutes later. We ignore. It stops. Another 5 minutes later, someone calls again. We tell them no again. Same thing, they hang up. Then about 10 minutes later someone comes to our door and smashes it. I was so angry. NO ONE listened to us on the phone. I opened the door and someone asked if we were going. I said no?!? I’ve told you so many times. Shut the door. After about 30-40 minutes of telling several different people no, on the phone and in person, they finally got it. This place is OK but the wifi doesn’t work and your lucky if you have...

We booked to stay in this hotel for 3 nights but had to leave after one. After reading the reviews we thought we’d have a nice time here but I can only guess that most of the reviews are fake. Or like one reviewer said they take the phone from your hand and write the review for you.

The problems we had: there was animal poo outside our door from the moment we arrived and wasn’t cleaned for more than 24hrs, spilt drinks outside the room when we arrived, dirty rug, dirty pillows, no hand soap and when we asked for soap they brought shower gel so we had to go and buy soap, dirty sink, dirty shower, there was a loud wedding venue next door that went on into the evening and was so loud our bed shook, they wouldn’t let us order from the menu at dinner for ages and insisted on the buffet which was more expensive than ordering one dish each, when we arrived back from our safari several different people tried to get us to go for dinner or go for drinks like when you’re walking down the street and restaurants harass you to go in. The staff also hung around on beds under the staircase to the rooms (pic attached) and generally loitered around not doing anything. It surprised us that there were so many staff and the place was so dirty.

This place was worse than any place I stayed when backpacking around India a few years ago when the most we spent on a room was £15. Overall, really shocked by the experience. Avoid...