Guest User
January 31, 2023
The palace and attached grounds were beautiful, the room we were allotted was huge with high ceilings, antique furniture so typical of heritage properties. The vintage car museum & the Navlakha palace are absolutely worth a visit. There is a scenic garden that provides good photo ops. From the staff, Jeetuji was very helpful. The thing is that the museum, the palaces etc can all be visited by non residents so you don't really need to stay there. What we stayed there for was the food & the dining experience and both were disappointing. This wasn't even a fraction of what was shown on Curly Tales ( a popular travel vlog ). The write up in Conde Nast should also be taken with a 'pinch of salt' ( forgive the pun ) because the food spread, cutlery used, the overall experience was very ordinary & not worth the price. The other disconcerting aspect was the attitude - Indifferent with a very visible lack of hospitality...no check on time of arrival / menu options, no welcome drink ( they reserve it only for guests of the king it seems ). There was hardly a smile & everyone ( other than Jeetuji ) made us feel awkward, unwelcomed. On to the bill - they charge for every bottle of water consumed. Even Taj offers a couple of bottles complimentary in every room! The tea served in breakfast was watery, flavor less and obviously different from the one we paid for separately. I felt shortchanged and am not alone. Some reviewers in the past echoed these thoughts. I had asked for a discount on the food because it wasn't worth the price we paid and in fact we would have been happier to pay more only if the experience was worth it. To summarise, i WILL NOT recommend staying the night here...visit the palaces and museum and move on. The staff needs to get over their colonial hangover and earn the patronage of their customers!