Kashi Vilaa — Hotel in Uttar Pradesh

My friend and I had the absolutely honour of staying at kashi Vilaa at a time when the city was bursting at its seams due to unprecedented crowds triggered by the Maha Kumbh Mela.

We picked this hotel because the reviews were great and the location was close to the ghats as well as the temple. The hotel lived up to the reviews! The staff were courteous and ever smiling. And the location was fantastic. The room size was a little small, but its worth it for the location.

Even before we left home, the courtesy and service mindset of the staff was evident. They answered my repeated phone calls patiently and helped arrange a taxi for us to get to Ayodhya - even though cabs were in demand and very hard to obtain. Somehow the owner Dev ji managed it for us!

He was concerned about our safety and comfort the entire time and did his best to ensure that all our requests were fulfilled. When we wanted to do a boat ride along the Ganges, he sent his nephew with us (at no extra cost) to help us find a good boat.

He also helped us get into the iconic Kashi Chaat Bhandar. As guests at his hotel we had special access and could get past the queue of hundreds of people waiting to get in (i kid you not, it was hundreds of people!). We later found out that Kashi Chaat Bhandar is another business that Dev ji owns! :)

This aside, he advised us on where to go when and how to get there. His tips and advice were invaluable! Finally, when we were checking out we had to get to a point from where we could hop into our cab. Dev ji personally came with us and tried to get us an auto, when that did not happen, he caught another biker and then the two of them took us in their bikes to the taxi pick up point. This was not done for money, it was done just to ensure that we were not inconvenienced.

This is the kind of love and affection one finds in Kashi and thanks to Mr Dev we have amazing memories of our stay in this wonderful city (despite the crowds and the chaos that reigned the streets!).

Thank you Dev ji for going out of your way to make us feel comfortable. We hope to come back soon to stay in your hotel for a longer duration and explore...

The property is located in a narrow lane, so we had to get off at the main road and walk for a bit. Hotel staff helped in getting the luggage from main road. We had booked executive room for stay.

Room: The toilet/wash basin area is congested. The length of the tap was not suitable to the size of the wash basin. The taps, water mixer in bath area, water hose all had hard water stains. The toilet did not have a lock. We had informed about it twice to the staff. They did not bother to look into it.

It was very hard to get smallest things done by the staff, like get an extra bed laid, get bath towels, drinking water, for getting the rooms cleaned we literally had to ask 6 times to have it done, we stayed in the hotel for 3 nights so you can imagine the difficulty. On top of this, there was some construction work going on nearby the property because of this my elderly parents were not able to rest. When we informed the staff the noise would stop for a short while and then continue again. For this also we had keep calling them and asking them to stop the work. It was bothering to stay at this place because of the pathetic service by the staff. The price is too high for the location and level of...

Location - 2.5/5 Cleanliness - 5/5 Service - 4/5 Food - 5/5 Staff - 3/5 (The management and staff were quite cordial but I’d still like to rate it low because I feel the manager overcharged us for additional services that we booked through this reference)

Overall, it was a lovely experience. Though the rooms are small but they are well maintained and clean. We booked 5 rooms and for 3 of then the door card wasn’t functional. Also, the water in the washroom was hard which was causing an unpleasant experience. This is something which can be improved by the hotel management.

We had breakfast included, though they don’t have a proper set up for this but the food and the service was amazing,

The staff of the hotel was cordial, polite and helpful but a word of caution - Don’t fall prey to any additional services being offered by the manager (like boating). We were charged 5k for 12 people and they insisted that we watch the evening aarti on the boat which seemed like a total money waste. Later on I found out that the boating charges are usually less and we paid a huge amount. Recommendation - You can easily bargain the boating charges near the ghats and get...