Kotagiri Belair Cottage — Hotel in Tamil Nadu

We (my family) decided to have a small vacation in the Nilgiri hills and our search for accommodation ended at BelAir. This place was suggsted by a colleague of mine, and looks he judged by requirements very correctly. ||||BelAir group of accommodation is located in Kotagiri town itself, but yet at a very calm and quiet location (on the club road). In the same premises BelAir has accommodation in various styles. The most prominent and eye catching building is an old British colonial bungalow. The rooms may not be furnished with modern amenities but it has the colonial look and feel to it. This accommodation may be more suitable for a group of travelers. Behind this and at an elevation is another building which is more suited for small families. This building is not very old one. Right behind the bungalow and at an elevation of 20-30 feet is a brand new building named "BelAir Resorts". This has been constructed recently, and the rooms are furnished like a typical business class hotel. Every room has big French windows, over looking the old bungalow below. BelAir has also got good parking space within the premises, which is an advantage. The price for each type of accommodation varies.||||Considering a two night stay, we were recommended to take the room at BelAir resorts. The room was spacious, and the big French windows ensured a very good natural lighting. The room had a wide bed, a big cupboard, chairs & tables and ambient lighting as well. A working intercom & wall mounted LCD television completed the electronic gadgets. There was a Wi-Fi internet connection listed, but I did not try to use the same. The bath room was big, and it was neat & clean. BelAir resorts also provides clean towels and a basic toilet kit. The hot water is said to be available 24 hours, but at times they may keep the geysers switched off. But a phone call should get that problem resolved. And every day at 0600Hrs they do switch on the water heaters any ways. Most of the Tamil TV channels are available on the television, but choices in other languages are less. ||||The BelAir Cottages & Resorts have a common restaurant operating in a separate building next to the bungalow. Guests can either have the food in the restaurant or order it up to their rooms. The restaurant offers typical North Indian, South Indian & the (Indian) Chinese dishes on its menu. The breakfast served mainly consisted of the South Indian breakfast dishes like Idlis, Vadas and Pongal. This was really well made, and tasty. Perhaps and area for improvement would be the other items, like soups. The restaurant staff is willing to provide any special menu items, provided they are informed in advance. The restaurant generally closes down at 2030Hrs so they expect dinner orders to be placed by around 1900Hrs. Yet, they were extremely cooperative when my daughter was in a mood to have extra Dosas at around 2100Hrs. ||||This facility runs with a minimum number of staff, but they are all very courteous and ever willing to help the guests. They can also arrange for drivers or vehicles for local sight seeing. Unfortunately we had to cut short our trip to a 2 day & 1 night; because of the weather conditions in Nilgiri district. Heavy rain fall had caused major land slides on the western side of Nilgiris and Ooty town had lots of cases of waterlogging. Nilgiri Mountain Railway canceled their train services also without much advance notice. In case I make another attempt in visitin Nilgiris, I may prefer to stay at Kotagiri and BelAir resorts; than trying my luck in crowded...

One of my friend referred this place as it is a budget resort and situated in a good location. Well, both the above points are correct. But where it went wrong was in maintenance. There is one cottage. We stayed in executive deluxe rooms. Room was clean with a king size bed. Bed, pillows and toilet were clean for a fairly cheaper hotel.||Food was home made but we have to give our preferences beforehand, like at 3PM for dinner, There weren't many choices but food didn't give us any problems. All these ideally should make us feel satisfactory. But below is the list of problems we faced, which also make me to rate this hotel poor.||1. Kotagiri's weather was very cold. 15 deg during day to 3 or 4 deg at night. And room heater wasn't provided in spite of requests. Finally after a day a heater was brought but it wasn't working. Shame. It was shivering cold in night.||2. There were two small huts, which were eating place. We couldn't go there during nights because of chill weather. We ordered room service and then realized what a mistake we did. Food arrived very late, around 11PM in night. To make things worse, two among us have diabetes.||3. This is very important. There is a small, beautiful lawn in that place. We had plans of going and sitting on lawn, play board games, take snaps etc. But to our utter shock we found 4 or 5 persons - one of them was owner or caretaker of that place - were sitting on chairs, playing cards and consuming alcohol !! We stayed in that hotel for two days and both days the same thing was repeated. A very horrible experience and disappointment.||So I won't recommend this place...

The place is really nice. Very friendly and safe. The pets are the cutest, the puppies the ducks and rabbits. Nice backyard for the kids to play and nice view. We took a cottage and the rooms are large with large beds where 3 to 4 people can sleep nicely. As we stayed for 2 days. The first day we stayed in the ground floor as no rooms on 1st floor were available. ButThey also gave us the room in 1st floor with the balcony the next day by themselves and that was very kind. But because of the trees in front of the room was blocking the balcony view.The food is amazing. They have nice commercial kitchen and proper hygiene and chef. The prices are reasonable. The restaurant has a projector screan too. The market and the park is nearby at a walkable distance. The hospitality of the staff is very nice and caring. They even arranged an auto for us for the travel and sightseeing. It was a great experience with them. Me and my sister would love to come back and stay here again...