We wanted a short 2 night getaway at Kodai in Feb, as weather would be nice and it wouldn't be noisy & crowded like in April-May. Debated between the tried & tested albeit a little aged Carlton & what promised to be a peaceful & scenic stay in a timber chalet, far from cbd at Great Trails by GRT, despite seeing some red flags in TA reviews. Dithered,dithered and finally booked for Great Trails for what we saw in their website ! I know, falling for website is :)
The place has everything that is needed to keep the customers happy, excited & engaged. Unfortunately, the mgmt just lacks the energy, imagination & application to bring it alive. So many tick marks on paper but practically useless.
After check-in, we were taken to Chalet 209, which was getting a rich coats of varnish both inside & outside the room and the whole timber chalet and the one beside it(208) was shiny & the whole air around was strongly smelling go Wood Varnish(pics attached) ! The person who came with us was shocked & ran back to reception(as none would pickup the phone) and came back saying we could stay at 2012. I said, how can you carry out such major work as the air is full of varnish and we wouldn't be able to use the sit out area, facing the scenic area. He insisted that we check out Chalet 212. Next Horror, the wooden floor in Chalet 212 was unbelievably dirty & toilet wasn't cleaned & ready for use. The Tissue box had no Tissues & the shower gel dispenser was almost empty. Some housekeeping guys came after few minutes and started cleaning the room and we were requested to see Chalet 211. We were physically & mentally tired and we settled down at 211, as it looked cleaner than 212. At the end of our stay, i can only say we dont remember staying in a more dusty room ever.
There are no transport options outside the resort, no restaurants and we felt absolutely trapped, as our experience got worser. One way cab drop to Lake area was Rs.200/-.
Food was unbelievably bad, many reviews have highlighted how ridiculously expensive it is but for that price, atleast the food should be good? To rub it in, the food portions size is miserly. We were served raw uncooked idli's during breakfast, the chef just apologised and said maybe we should drop the idli and go for dosa ! The lunch/dinner menu is the same and has such terrible mix between street food, to south/north indian dishes. Snacks was a big joke. Even the tea bags/Coffee kept in the room is almost near expiry date ! You can't go out and eat because every other place you will want to eat at is 8-10 kms away !
Their idea of fireplace was to burn 5-6 logs of wood near the reception and play some really terrible music from a laptop and one is expected to stay around and most of the time, you will find the staff warming themselves ! Hilarious part was when we heard lots of noise around 4.30 pm,below our chalet. We see that the badminton court has been occupied by the employees and they are having a gala time ! iam all for employee motivation but what about us, the customers. There were just about 4-5 rooms occupied. The crew could have done so much for customers. Anything to keep the customers engaged.
On our 2nd day, at around 11 am we saw from our window, thick smoke billowing at one end of the hotel. I thought something has caught fire and went out to check it. i was told, no it is the hotel staff during the garbage ! iT WENT ON TILL EVENING. The entire place was filled with smoke the whole day ! One couldn't sit in the open area of the restaurant because the smoke. So both days, we didnt venture to our sit out area, thanks to abundant supply of varnish & smoke by the hotel, to the otherwise crisp fresh air, thanks !
The only warm gesture was the chef gave us some local fruits after we told him instead of serving out of season watermelon&papaya, they can serve local produce like plum,pears,orange,longan etc.
Overall, i thought it is the off season laxity that hits the hotel crew in many places. But even discounting that, our experience was horrible. I paid my price for ditching Carlton. What? Carlton in more expensive? Wait till you add up your food bill from Great Trails, to the room tariff !
This is the worst GRT experience of my life, in an otherwise pleasant experience with GRT. This property needs Management attention.