Tiger Camp — Hotel in Uttarakhand

THE UGLY:

Room: My room was so dirty after check-in that dirt had turned into cotton-like dirt balls in the corners. The floor was full of dry stains. We made sure that the dirty floor rug was removed from the room. The electric kettle had to be changed as we found dirt inside, and the dirty coffee mugs & glasses had to be washed again. The refrigerator had to be changed as it had no cooling. The room looked like it had never been broomed, mopped, or dusted since Modi became our PM. My wife and I spent more than 1 hour in cleaning the room with the help of 2 housekeeping persons from the hotel, whom I had to pay extra for the hard work. The bathroom was worse than a Sulabh Shauchalya, I had to call for a harpic for the toilet seat and sink. Such low pressure in the taps that the average time for a simple handwash was almost 2-3 minutes, just imagine the flush speed. We decided to not take a shower in 2 days and restricted ourselves to a frugal hair wash on the bathroom floor combined with a wet towel wipe of the body. I clicked a picture of the dirt collected and shared it with the spectacled hotel manager, who just laughed it off.

Food: Here sits the plump kitchen in-charge who doesn't give a damn about hygiene. The pickles were never covered, the ice cream was kept in the open, and I saw insects dropping in it. The utensils were dirty, there were flies all around at night while eating, so much that we had to use a repellant. The dirty roadside table chairs were worse than the ones found in local village bars. The food menu was hardly a diverse spread compared to the money charged. The food that was on offer was tasteless, devoid of any flavor, dhabas give better food than this. The restaurant never called us for a reminder for any meal. The evening pakodas were besan and oil, they could not even fill them with standard veggies just to keep costs low. We had upset stomachs till 2 days after departure.

Staff: The porters at the hotel were not sufficient for the weekend footfall, I had to carry my luggage during both check-in and check-out. The guard at the gate didn't have clarity on where to get the cars parked, so I was asked to come from my room and park again for a bus to be accommodated. The housekeeping staff was hired just for the weekend, to handle the high footfall and were not motivated enough to provide clean rooms. The receptionists lacked empathy when asked for breakfast after the morning safari, dirty rooms, and early check-in, but were fully trained to call customers for timely check-out. The waiters took extra care of foreigners for extra tips compared to the domestic tourists

Housekeeping: Here sits the lanky in-charge who just doesn't want to work at all. All he does is smile and say sorry to every customer that he meets

Safari Concierge: Here sits the most straight-faced crook of the hotel, eyeing any opportunity to missell a safari, lying about tiger sightings in zones that are not known for tigers at all

Service: After all the above, the lesser I say the better. Hope it is self explanatory, else use your wildest imagination

THE BAD:

Sales Team: Express as expected in every sale, but no room for negotiations, targets trump everything else

Cost: Take it or leave it as per the rack rates, sold behind the veil of weekend packages

THE GOOD:

Location: The 1st good point is the 'PARTIAL' riverside location of the hotel amid dense mangroves

Facilities: The 2nd good point is the large swimming pool & strong wifi

Pets: The 3rd & last good point is that the hotel is...

After search through many of the resorts of Corbett short short listed few resorts. The main reason to select Tiger camp the large rooms, near to the river, green surroundings and attractive pricing. Even the feedbacks were good. The things which was not very clear to the website or even after talking with Bagtosh ji was difference between different rooms. We booked 2 cottages. With the Best available formation I went ahead with the bookings.

Booking process was simple enough and we reached the resort without much issue from Gurugram, following the maps. On reaching the place, we found it to be very nice, more green than expected and rooms were huge. The kids settled down well and we went for buffet lunch. We took a walk around the resort, it was not very densely occupied and found the place well set up. only thing, the river was bit far away than what we expected, but the riverside was clean and a nice walking area. Reaching the river was not very difficult.

Safari booking was also done from the resort, Manoj was very helpful for it. Initially it was told to us that we need to reach to the gate, but was able to get jeep on the day. The Dhela gate is pretty far away, Jhirna is close.

Swimming pool is decent, cleaning can be better. Though every morning it is cleaned but little more desired.

Website needs improvement for room details, room near resturant are good. There are terrace cottage (on 1st floor), superior cottage, Delux and super Delux cottage. Super Delux are very large with 2 queen bed and 1 sitting area with. The sofa can act as bed too.

Didn't try room service as restaurant was just in front of room. Live music in evening was good, bon fire can be added to improve the charm.

Other nearby good places that can be visited: Museum at Dhikala gate (45 min) River side elephant ride (3k) Amusement park Tandoori chai Organic food restaurant Local Kangra food restaurant Nainital (2hrs) Marchulla (2hrs) Bijrani temple (30 min) Relax at resort

Improvement areas: No wifi, but vi, airtel & jio worked well Beds could have been better Hidden dirty places (like below sink) Many of the switches not working Some overall maintenance required Strict implementation for swimming rules, few ppl were coming in regular dress and without pre-showers Better parking management, someone put a car behind ours, which took 30min to resolve. Another evening, the parking gaurd told to park another available place, as if the slot was reserved!! DON'T ALLOW drinking liquor in restaurant open area in day time atleast. A grp of young guys whole day used to sit and drink. More dustbins required, specially near the river lawn. Breakfast variety, need to add items like chicken sausage, salami, better idli. Missing play area for kids.

Major positive points Natural & green setup Cost effective Satisfactory food Helpful staff (though many are new) Location of resort itself, eateries, other good resorts, and play are around. not too far off like Marchula. Large open area, open resturant (good for Covid times) Daily change of food menu, we stayed for 5 days and everyday it was different Very spacious room (at least the one we stayed)

Other possible options in same vicinity: Manu maharani Infinity Club mahindra Taj Le Roi

Be ready to accept wild life, including spiders and insects. Large mango trees make the place beautiful and green. Overall very good choice, and good for short...

As we reached the hotel, Guy on reception has given us the rooms which was situated just on the entrance and they had a very high damp smell which we highlight to the management but they said they have those rooms available only all the other ones are occupied. We went and checked other rooms ourselves as well but they were not occupied which later on they said they are already booked by the their regular customer and they have asked us to adjust in other rooms just next to previous ones and promised us that they will change our rooms next day which they did not. Resort situated on good location full of greenery all around but as I spent 2 days there I feel these guys really need to work on their services as not only their services are quite slow but the staff is a bit rude and they never take a second before completely denying your request. I think they needed proper training to serve their guests. One night we called the restaurant on dinner time and asked them to send us the dinner on room as it was raining heavily which they said no and asked us to come to their restaurant and sent us few umbrellas. It was fine we understood their situation as well we went to the restaurant and started packing our food ourselves so we can take it to our room and asked them to give us “Tawa chapatti” which they said yes and confirmed us that they are sending in our room. Aftersome time when we no one came and we called them and it seems they forget it and said we cannot give you tawa chapati and gave us whatever they left with. On time of checkout when we asked them to give us some discount as we missed our lunch one day they completely denied it and gave us thousand reasons. I would like to try other options for stay on my next visit to Jim Corbett where I can get...