Hotel anatomization : Leisure Vacations Woodstock villa, Coorg

Posted by Anonymous August 02, 2015

Hotel anatomization : Leisure Vacations Woodstock villa, Coorg

Being a resident of Bangalore, this was the much-awaited trip to Coorg.
You can read about it :
https://xylo742.blogspot.in/2015/08/travelogue-road-trip-to-coorg.html

After hunting for a lot of places to stay on the internet - we found this fabulous place Woodstock Villa. It just looked absolutely stunning in the pictures.

Since we were unaware of the location of the hotel, we decided to reach Coorg and see the hotel for our self and book accordingly. 😒

So Woodstock villa is located right beside the road leading to the city of Madikeri. It is an apt location - noticeable by all. It is quite a quaint hotel. 💝

On reaching there, we checked out the rooms - we liked it and hence we went ahead to book the rooms.

We were being offered some discounts when we were booking from MakeMyTrip, so instead of booking at the hotel, we resorted to booking on the net which was obvious.

Why would one pay more - if you are being offered discounts elsewhere. The manager there - tried to strike a deal, but we were still getting it at a reasonably lesser price on the site, so we made our attempt at booking from the site itself.

The location of the place is such that getting a signal on the phone is an uphill task and trying to connect through 3G data just seemed impossible. A heads up for all, this can indeed make your vacation peaceful! 😉

So two issues that I would like to highlight are –

The only phone from where we were able to connect to the net slightly was running out of battery, so we tried to put it in charge, but in the meantime, the power at the hotel went off. So now unable to charge the phone, we requested the manager about the electricity backup. Astonishingly he said they did not have power backup.A three-star hotel and no electricity back up at all! 😱

Then somehow there were some other staff, who helped us with connecting the phone via USB in their computer(which apparently was running - but the sockets would not run on backup). This helped the phone finally getting 5% charge.

Next issue was connecting to the net, yet again we requested could we use the Wi-fi, to which again he resisted saying it is not working – there was a considerable amount of irritation on his face by now. Surprisingly, again some other staff came and helped us with the WIFI. Due to network issues – WIFI also gave up in 10 minutes!

What I am trying to highlight is that just because we did not book the hotel on spot and did the bookings via the site , we could sense a deep resentment by him and he was not offering to help us at all(since we were booking from the site at a cheaper rate).

I mean network issue is something which is uncontrollable, but the willingness to help must be the part of hospitality.
This probably, can be changed slightly - to be more receptive and unbiased towards people booking via the site or on the spot, at least the consideration must be given to families. And I also they had various certificates and awards from Makemytrip, and still such hostility - UNEXPECTED!

Somehow I managed the bookings finally, after calling a friend, and it was almost 7 by the time we checked in.

Reception:

After inquiring from the staff, we came to know this place had started up recently, mostly a year back.

They have around 6-7 villas, each villa having 2 rooms each. Since we booked two rooms – we had one villa totally for ourselves. 😊

But they did not have anything additionally – like the pool or any sort of entertainment place.

It just had a kids playing area and an in house restaurant which was a savior. 😮

After we checked in, we really liked the rooms – they were spacious, well kept totally. 💟

Each room was 2 floored, a double bed on one floor and another double bed on the second. This was mostly for kids accompanying along. I really liked the concept.
They had adorned the walls all over from the reception to the villas with varieties of rifles which gave a royal vibe.

The villa had a beautiful porch with tables and chairs kept, where you could relax – enjoy the breeze and the view. This is one place, that will give you a complete feel of holiday and chilling out. Peace of mind!
Each villa could accommodate only 2 adults and 2 kids.

Now the staff were very cordial(bookings were done 😜), they kept inquiring about any help that is needed from them, in that respect I would say the staff was very well trained and friendly.

Facilities:

King and queen size bed
Television
Telephone
Complimentary breakfast
Tea and coffee maker
Water bottle

The rooms:

Their in-house restaurant is named the Mahagony with an open kitchen concept. I liked the placement of their restaurant.

The food that they serve is decent – just that we found that the dinner served was a bit oily. But from the taste perspective – the dishes that we ordered were good.

We ordered for the paneer chilly - it was awesome but oily and non spicy.

Then we had the chicken biryani and veg biryani respectively. The chicken biryani was okay-ishly good - the pieces of chicken were little more than par boiled, which was the reason I did not enjoy it thoroughly.

The veg biryani was a tasty dish, with ample of vegetables and nuts.
They even provide room service for the dinner.

From their Mahagony restaurant :

Paneer chilli

Veg biryani

Chicken Biryani

It gets really cold in the night, literally in the monsoon season we were covered with winter clothes – it was actually fun. Do carry some jackets to be on the safer side.
The chilly night was making the whole experience even better!

Another problem was that – the bed in our rooms which were on the first floor were kind of smelly – this was due to the rain water dripping in probably. It was kind of uncomfortable due to that. Rest assured, the night passed well.

Ok, yet another major issue was that you could clearly hear whatever is being done or said in the adjacent room. Since we were a family – it was not a problem. But this is a major drawback, which needs to be fixed – else it would ruin one's the privacy totally.

Again and again I would like to mention about the staff, highly satisfied by their service. They even adhered to the request of providing extra blankets.

I must also appreciate their chef who made dishes for breakfast as per my mom’s dietary needs. Kudos to that! A big thank you. 😊

For breakfast, they had a wide spread of food – toasts, sandwiches, wada, sambhar, upma, chole-bature, fruits, cornflakes and of course tea and coffee.

The breakfast was in all decent spread, just that all the food they served was kind of bland – felt the need for it to be little spicy and masaledar maybe.

There is scope for a lot of improvement for the price that they charge, moreover it is a three star hotel. 💫

There was some construction work going on. They informed us that the swimming pool is coming up there. If it comes up, it will add worth for the money one is paying.
And you have ample parking space, which is a relief.

The view from the hotel is just exotic. You can view the city downtown from here.

If you are looking to spend time away from your rote life – this is the place to be ~ the place for total relaxation, lazing and comfort and amidst natural landscapes!

Apart from the reception on arrival, rest of the experience was significant.

Re-kindling the mundane life...

Here are few pictures from the trip:

Children play area: