Park Plaza Kolkata Ballygunge
Feb 22, 2014, 5:30 am
#1
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Join Date: May 2009
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Park Plaza Kolkata Ballygunge
This hotel is relatively new (the duty manager told me it opened 15 months ago), but already has numerous maintenance issues. I stayed for four nights for 4500 Rs. per night plus taxes (and see below).
Check-in. It already started less than promising. I walked up to the registration desk and greeted the check-in agent with a smile; she did not greet back, but grabbed my reservation wordlessly. After a long and very awkward moment of silence during which she tried to find my reservation on her computer, she asked "is this reservation in your name?". Given that I had just handed her a print-out of the reservation confirmation from the CC website, a rather pointless question. Breakfast and wifi were included in the package (although I got the impression that they are offering breakfast and wifi for free for everyone).
Room. Not terribly large, but sufficient. Large bed, no luggage rack. Odd door system for bathroom and cupboard: when you open the cupboard, the sliding cupboard door closes the bathroom. Large walk-in shower.
Location. A rather busy area of Kolkata with lots of shops around. Right next door, there is a hotel called the Park Palace: slightly confusing.
Restaurants. There are two restaurants, a pan-Asian restaurant with mostly Thai and Chinese dishes, and a multi-cuisine restaurant with everything from pizza to Indian dishes. The latter doubles as the breakfast rooms. Both restaurants are fine but quite pricy for India (mains around 400-550 Rs.). The restaurants tend to be quite empty, so it's not unlikely that you're the only customer.
Gym and roof terrace. On the 7th floor, there is a roof terrace with swimming pool, relaxation area and a gym. The gym is rather small, but OK.
Breakfast. Breakfast has plenty of options: eggs made to order, many Indian and Western options. But service was disastrous: most of the mornings, I was completely alone in the breakfast room with two, sometimes three waiters standing behind me watching the television screen. They never proactively approached me: since you needed them to order coffee or tea, I needed to chase the waiters in an empty breakfast room (who were apparently trying to avoid me) in order to get a coffee.
Hot water. The big issue: on the evening of my second day, the hot water boiler broke. A few hours later, I had a letter from the management informing me that "Our team is working on the same; however there are chances that the supply may not be restored early. In the meantime call One Touch Centre for requirement of hot water. We promise hot water will reach your room with the next 10 to 15 minutes of your call."
After I asked for an explanation, I was told that this meant "in a bucket". I decided that I rather have a cold shower. When after 24 hours, the hot water hadn't been restored, I talked to the reception and they said that it would be fixed "by tonight".
Needless to say, the hot water was not restored by the time I checked out (three full days without hot water). After two days, I had talked to the duty manager and told him that I find this unacceptable. He said that it would be repaired quickly, and said he'd look into compensation.
Of course, when I checked out, no offer of a compensation was made. I reminded them of the offer of the duty manager, and some other duty manager came to talk to me. He decided to give me a total of about 3,000 Rs. of discount (about 15% of the rate for the three days that I had no hot water).
Other issues. I don't think that I have seen a one year old house in such a bad shape: there was a water leakage in the breakfast room, the paint was peeling off the walls, one of the glass panels of the gallery was broken and replaced by wooden boarding, the marble floor was dirty and worn in many places. I got the impression that the hotel is falling apart -- I don't even want to know what it looks like two years from now.
Summary. The stay was not as bad as it sounds from my report; the cold showers were annoying but didn't kill me and for 4500 Rs. what I got was still better than what you'd get in Europe for this price. But still, it's certainly not a "luxury hotel" (this is the phrase they use on their webpage), and for only a little more, you can get an infinitely better hotel (say, the Hyatt Regency in Kolkata).
Check-in. It already started less than promising. I walked up to the registration desk and greeted the check-in agent with a smile; she did not greet back, but grabbed my reservation wordlessly. After a long and very awkward moment of silence during which she tried to find my reservation on her computer, she asked "is this reservation in your name?". Given that I had just handed her a print-out of the reservation confirmation from the CC website, a rather pointless question. Breakfast and wifi were included in the package (although I got the impression that they are offering breakfast and wifi for free for everyone).
Room. Not terribly large, but sufficient. Large bed, no luggage rack. Odd door system for bathroom and cupboard: when you open the cupboard, the sliding cupboard door closes the bathroom. Large walk-in shower.
Location. A rather busy area of Kolkata with lots of shops around. Right next door, there is a hotel called the Park Palace: slightly confusing.
Restaurants. There are two restaurants, a pan-Asian restaurant with mostly Thai and Chinese dishes, and a multi-cuisine restaurant with everything from pizza to Indian dishes. The latter doubles as the breakfast rooms. Both restaurants are fine but quite pricy for India (mains around 400-550 Rs.). The restaurants tend to be quite empty, so it's not unlikely that you're the only customer.
Gym and roof terrace. On the 7th floor, there is a roof terrace with swimming pool, relaxation area and a gym. The gym is rather small, but OK.
Breakfast. Breakfast has plenty of options: eggs made to order, many Indian and Western options. But service was disastrous: most of the mornings, I was completely alone in the breakfast room with two, sometimes three waiters standing behind me watching the television screen. They never proactively approached me: since you needed them to order coffee or tea, I needed to chase the waiters in an empty breakfast room (who were apparently trying to avoid me) in order to get a coffee.
Hot water. The big issue: on the evening of my second day, the hot water boiler broke. A few hours later, I had a letter from the management informing me that "Our team is working on the same; however there are chances that the supply may not be restored early. In the meantime call One Touch Centre for requirement of hot water. We promise hot water will reach your room with the next 10 to 15 minutes of your call."
After I asked for an explanation, I was told that this meant "in a bucket". I decided that I rather have a cold shower. When after 24 hours, the hot water hadn't been restored, I talked to the reception and they said that it would be fixed "by tonight".
Needless to say, the hot water was not restored by the time I checked out (three full days without hot water). After two days, I had talked to the duty manager and told him that I find this unacceptable. He said that it would be repaired quickly, and said he'd look into compensation.
Of course, when I checked out, no offer of a compensation was made. I reminded them of the offer of the duty manager, and some other duty manager came to talk to me. He decided to give me a total of about 3,000 Rs. of discount (about 15% of the rate for the three days that I had no hot water).
Other issues. I don't think that I have seen a one year old house in such a bad shape: there was a water leakage in the breakfast room, the paint was peeling off the walls, one of the glass panels of the gallery was broken and replaced by wooden boarding, the marble floor was dirty and worn in many places. I got the impression that the hotel is falling apart -- I don't even want to know what it looks like two years from now.
Summary. The stay was not as bad as it sounds from my report; the cold showers were annoying but didn't kill me and for 4500 Rs. what I got was still better than what you'd get in Europe for this price. But still, it's certainly not a "luxury hotel" (this is the phrase they use on their webpage), and for only a little more, you can get an infinitely better hotel (say, the Hyatt Regency in Kolkata).
