Jacaranda Villa! Beyond Imagination — Hotel in Tamil Nadu

We(3 families - 10 Adults, 2 children) stayed in Jacaranda for 2 nights 3 days in Aug 2018. Among these, one family came from Dubai for vacation. We enjoyed a lot in Kodaikanal.

I booked this Jacaranda by seeing the online reviews(AIRBNB And Booking.com) by seeing this 5 star rating almost by every guest. Almost, every one gave good rating on this property and praised Syed(owner) for his customer service. These guests would have excellent stay here because they might be they knowing Syed personally or through referral. To my case, he was not at all accessible through phone when it was required.

He responded only at the time of receiving initial advance amount. Other than that, I need to follow him up more than once to get any response. I asked to send email with whatever facilities available. He did not send anything on that. ===Many times, I wondered i am a guest or he is?=== I was forced to stay on this house because i paid more than 50 % of advance. On the day before check out, he asked caretaker to collect the remaining stay amount. That amount was more than what was agreed at the time of booking. When i called him on this, he did not respond. When I asked caretaker, he said he had to check with Syed( Then it was resolved). There are many things(could not write because it will be too long), which i asked for details regarding this stay. Syed ignored my queries and did not respond during the stay. I think he responds only to his known guests.

Knowing all these negatives, i decided to just ignore this and enjoyed the stay in kodaikanal.

Now, you understand the hospitality and customer service of this guy. I then realised we should not book this type of house in future unless you know the house owner personally or through referral.

There are many good 4-5 star resorts available with the the SAME AMOUNT he charged.I was fooled by seeing the online reviews.

Below are the positives from Jacaranda:

1. Location of the property is excellent.
2. Food is awesome (i can give this rating alone as 4*). We tried South Indian and Barbeque(though some items are little expensive). Thanks to caretaker Murugesh and his family
3. Dedicated house(I cannot call this as Villa). So, we enjoyed with good privacy and spent good time in lawn and bonfire(again little expensive).

Below are the negatives from Jacaranda:

1. Nothing extraordinary inside the house. (Very very normal typical homestay). When we checked in, we found, one flusher was not working in the bathroom and then it was resolved.
2. Only in one room, wardrobe facility is there. In another big bed room, no wardrobe facility for the guests. Only open shelves. We kept our luggages in the shelf only. Wardrobes available in that big room is locked. When enquired with the caretaker, we came to know that will be used by the owner only.
3. One night, bathroom door was locked automatically and not able to open.We had to call caretaker in the early morning and it got resolved. So, you understand the type of class of this house. Overall poorly maintained bathroom.
4. Stay charge was too high even though they claim as SUPER. It is not a villa but typical house with lawn. Thats it.
5. Very very poor accessiblity and commitment from Syed.
6. Many local cab operators did not know the name of this jacaranda.
7. He referred one Travels based on my requests. That travels also was not easily accessible. Luckily, I cancelled this initially and booked kodaicab(google kodai cab). This travels only made my trip memorable this time.
8. Home service was poor.
9. Poor response to the guest from Syed and hardly cares about guest concerns.
10. Most of the Amenities mentioned in online website is either not available visibly or not updated to guests by caretaker during checkin process.

I have no option to give less than 1 star.

To the common guests(I mean people who does not know Syed or Jacaranda), stay away from this type of stay. Don't fool yourself by seeing the reviews on Airbnb,booking.com,agoda.com and other online reviews. Many genuine resorts are available at this...

Pros : good food :bbq dinner and breakfast well maintained lawn , can play badminton with family and friends close proximity to city and the transit path to the property is also fine. breakfast ( idli , dosa ,drinks ) was complementary flexible checkin and checkout( depends on arrival of next guest ) owner and manager is very approachable for any issues.

Cons : i had booked for 18k per night , we went family of 7 and stayed a night and booking was done over the phone.However the price at make my trip was less than 15k and i realised it later after paying the advance, so always book it online rather than direct . So stay was atleast, 4k more expensive , it's worth under 15k regardless of people count based on online pricing of various other home stays nearby.

owners reasoning for his final price of 18k was because we booked only one night of the weekend , which is absurd from my point of view. only two bedrooms , one of which is 2 pax and the other is 4-5 pax , so not the best option if you are travelling as group of couples in terms of privacy.

Some extra details : bbq dinner costed around 1.7k which included chicken bbq of 1.5kg(1k) , baby potato of 0.5kg(0.2k) , pineapple x 1 (0.2k) and panner of 0.25kg ( 0.3k) camp fire will cost you extra 1k. tooth brushes are provided for max...

The place has two bedrooms with one double bed in one room and two double beds in the other with two dewana (single bed ) in living room and has attached restrooms with hot water facility round the clock.The villa is equipped with a kitchen where the guest is not allowed to cook . The living room is equipped with a TV (tata sky ) and wifi which works good . The property has a place to park two cars inside and has a beautiful lawn to the size of small shuttle court and guests have the option to play shuttle , carom board , playing cards (no kids area) .

The food is being prepared by the care taker family who live behind the property and the whole family is very good , the food is as equal to our home made food in terms of taste. (Specially the BBQ Chicken , BBQ PINE APPLE are awesome) the charges for the food is nominal when compared to the prices at restaurants in such tourist place.

The overall experience was rocking ... ..great.

Note : The price for the property seems to be high (26000 for two nights) as the maximum guests could be 8 to 9 adults or 8...