I stayed at this hotel one night this week.

The rate we had included 2-way airport transfers. I called ahead to arrange for a car to pick me and my colleague up from the airport. The driver was there but the car was pretty much a private car, not a hotel car. It did the trick but it wasn't exactly the type of pickup I was expecting.

We arrived after midnight. I inquired about a suite and was told there were none available. The lobby looks nice and is spacious. My colleague commented that the hotel seems very "Taj-ish" as in the Taj chain of hotels. There appeared to be a bar off the lobby with a sign that said "Couple Entrance". It was there in the evening and gone in the morning. No clue what that meant.

The local amenity choices were a tie or a clock. I took the points.

I was assigned a room in a wing that surrounds the lounge. The lounge is located on the 5th floor and there is an atrium above with rooms around the atrium for another few floors.

The room itself was fine. Not very modern, not too run down. The large bathroom included a shower in the bathtub. The toilet had a handle in the wall for flushing and when I flushed the toilet it never stopped running. Luckily this was before my suitcase arrived. The bellboy fixed it temporarily and then called engineering to come and take a look. The gentleman from engineering came within a few mins and apparently fixed. it. I say apparently because in the morning when I used it the next time, the same happened. The water just wouldn't stop. I called engineering and they came are repaired it.

In the second instance I got a call from the Service desk to make sure that it was resolved.

We had breakfast in the lounge though our rate included breakfast in the main cafe. the breakfast buffet was pretty extensive and we were able to order omlettes which took about ten minutes to arrive. Perhaps they were made at the cafe. Generally I can't imagine that the main cafe breakfast could have include much that wasn't already present in the lounge breakfast.

After our meetings we returned to the hotel and had lunch. The lunch buffet was about INR 680 per person. As the property participates in Starwood Privilege we got 50% off. It took three levels of hierarchy in the cafe to establish that they did honor the card. I guess it is just rare for them to have someone trying to use it. The buffet was pitched as an Italian Festival. One pasta dish was the only thing I could recognize as being Italian.

The hotel is only about 20 minutes from the airport. The hotel had a shuttle going back and forth to the airport pretty frequently. I was taking a bit longer to checkout so we missed one, but another was along soon afterward.

The property is fine and I'll have no qualms staying there again. An interesting thing to note is the new branding being done by Le Meridien seemed a bit out of place. First there is the Soundscape in the elevator. It annoys me in general but it was funny for me to hear the same Soundscape that I'd heard two weeks ago in the Plaza Athenee. The artsy keys, Jean Georges placemats and juice cocktails, the black holders for the room service menu on the bed... all these things seemed out of place at this property. I'd first seen them in Le Meridien Chiang Mai and then in Chiang Rai and they fit well with the modern design of the rooms. But in this property they just seemed out of place.