In a bid to get a first taste of India while retaining some creature comforts at night, my girlfriend and I embarked on a week-long quick tour of the standard tourist triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, using the Sheraton in each place (Maurya, Mughal, Rajputana respectively). All of the stays were awards: two nights in each of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, then back for one night in Delhi. The Maurya is a Category 2 hotel (3000 points for a weekend, 4000 for a weekday). Both the others are Category 1 (3000 points any night). All of these hotels are run by the ITCWelcomGroup in India, which, it became clear, is not as closely coupled with the Starwood systems as some other operators.

In summary, the Maurya in Delhi is a class hotel. It recognises Starwood status, upgraded me (as a Platinum) to a very nice room in the Towers wing, along with all the complimentary Towers goodies. I would rate it at least as good as all the Category 3 hotels I have stayed in and easily the equal of many Category 4s. The Mughal in Agra is a generic tourist hotel with poor restaurants, poor recognition of Starwood status, and not much going for it - I wouldn't stay there agin in the unlikely event of returning to Agra. The Rajputana in Jaipur is somewhere between the two: Starwood status was recognised once they were reminded of it, and the restaurants are much better than Agra.

In more detail:

Maurya Sheraton Delhi

The upgrade was not confirmed prior to arrival, but was immediate on arrival - we were escorted through to the separate Towers Wing for check-in. The room was large and well furnished, the bed (5 foot I think) comfortable. The bathroom was not the biggest, with a shower over the bath, but was nicely decorated and had a good range of supplies. The bath also had a jacuzzi built in, but we didn't get time to test it out. No choice of platinum amenity was offered, but the room came with a complimentary bottle of red wine (Indian (!) - not as bad as you might fear), a large fruit bowl, and three fairly large jars of different types of cookies (one jar of chocolate-coated - all were refilled daily). Complimentary cut-fruit was also available on demand.

The Towers package also included:
- access to the Towers Lounge including complimentary hors d'oeuvres and drinks in the evening
- buffet breakfast for two in either the Towers Lounge or the Coffee Shop
- limo transfer to the airport (which they happily made to the railway station instead at the end of our first stay)
- pressing of a few garments on arrival

The Towers Lounge was nice; the complimentary drinks offered in the evening included Indian wines, which were drinkable, but nothing special, plus the usual soft drinks, beers & spirits. Some nice spicy canapes were served - we eventually had to ask them to not bring us any more so that we would have room for dinner! Breakfast in the morning was a perfectly adequate buffet with hot dishes to order; the selection was not as extensive as the Coffee Shop (which we observed but didn't use) but the environment was very nice, and the service good.

We took dinner in the Bukhara restaurant, which friends have told me is renowned as one of the best in Delhi. Our experience certainly bore this out - North West Frontier style cooking done extremely well, with excellent and helpful service. Dinner for two including lassis but no alcohol came to US$58, which was great value for a top class restaurant. Most of the other customers were Indian.

All in all we throughly enjoyed our nights here. The only negative aspects were:

- the somewhat snooty attitude of the Towers Front desk staff, perhaps due to the fact that I arrived carrying a big rucksack which they seemed to feel was lowering the tone somewhat! The check-in and out process also seemed to take much longer than it needed to, for no readily apparent reason.

- the linkage to the SPG programme seemed to be less than perfect - i.e. none of my details were available on their system, so we had to go through the form-filling exercise, and there was some confusion over my multiple reservations which they blamed on Starwood. However, I note that points from my first stay have already posted on spg.com within a week of checkout, although as usual they are only for a portion of my expenditure, with both laundry and the health club charges excluded (I had thought laundry was valid for points...)

- the massage given at the health club was "not very good" as judged by my girlfriend who tends to take one wherever we go for a few days - she still goes on about the one at the Sheraton Laguna Nusa Dua in Bali which is apparently the best she has ever had.

- the internet terminal available in the Towers Lounge had a very intermittent connection, it was also overloaded with all sorts of software which it seemed users had accumulated over quite some time, and also copies of lots of documents which people had left there, including a number of documents on the desktop which I would have though the management would prefer not to be there (such as the detailed capex budget for the hotel for the next year).

Mughal Sheraton, Agra

Here the confirmation I had from SPG (rate details as specified on the website) was for an upgrade to a package including buffet breakfast for two. On arrival the check-in clerk said that the rate was room only, so I asked for the manager. There was much complaining about Starwood reservations, but fortunately I had a printout of the confirmed rate details and I stood my ground. Eventually, after offering me 30% off all F&B as an alternative, the manager relented and gave the complimentary breakfasts.

The room itself was fine; the bathroom well equipped.

However, the hotel appeared totally populated by British and Japanese tour groups and the catering was what I always envisage as a mass tourist hotel to be - i.e awful. We had dinner the first night in the Indian restuarant - after the delights of Bukhara this was a real come down. It was like one of the worst generic tandoori restuarants that you find in every town in the UK. Only the food was worse, much worse. So was the service.

In the morning we then had one of the worst buffet breakfasts I have ever had in any hotel anywhere. A poor selection, badly prepared, just generally yuk!

I guess this hotel knows that almost no-one will ever stay there twice (the only reason for people to be in Agra is to visit the Taj Mahal) so they don't have to worry about being so awful - they just get the one time business trading on the Sheraton name. But if I were Sheraton I would not be happy about the impression this hotel might leave with people who don't know how atypical it is for the brand.

Sheraton Rajputana, Jaipur

Again I had a confirmed upgrade from the SPG website to an Executive room, with lounge access and evening hors d'oeuvres/drinks. On check-in, the agent confirmed that they recognised my Platinum status, looked at the printout and said that this was what I would get, except that he said that the hotel no longer offered the evening hors d'oeuvres/drinks (which I could only accept at face value). However, when we got to the room it became clear that it was just a basic room. I returned to the front desk and spoke to a different clerk - again showing him my printout of the confirmation. He spoke to the manager, and again there was much waving of arms and what I took to be complaining about Starwood (though the conversation was in Hindi so I can't be sure). Eventually the clerk cam back and said that the could upgrade me "if I had a card of some sort". This was bizarre since the first clerk had made a point of noting my Platinum card when I checked in. Once I showed the card again to the new agent everything was very quickly arranged and we moved rooms. The executive room was a good size and well furnished. The bathroom was much the same as all the others, which was fine. No amenity was offered, although a fairly basic box of some sort of spicy mix appeared on the second day. I didn't feel inclined to push the question, nor did I ever bother to check whether there was indeed a lounge with Hors D'oeuvres/cocktails.

The restaurants we tried here we much better than in Agra. Indeed the Peshawri restuarant is basically a clone of Bukhara in Delhi, except that the prices were 20% lower. We ate there twice and found the quality as good as Bukhara and the service just as efficient and friendly as well - there seems to be some rivalry between the two restaurants, and on hearing that we had eaten in Bukhara a few days before the staff in Jaipur pushed us for a detailed comparison of the two. The buffet breakfast (complimentary, without quibble) in the Jal Mahal restuarant was perfectly OK.

A 4pm checkout was granted with only a moment's hesitation.

My only negative comments about this hotel are:

- the difficulty getting the correct room initially (once sorted everything was fine)
- the reluctance of the door staff to call a taxi, more or less insisting that we take a hotel car at a grossly inflated price; after doing this once we simply declined and walked outside to find one ourselves (braving the onslaught of children begging just outside the gate of the hotel).

General Comments

The linkage with Starwood really does not seem to be well appreciated by the staff at Agra and Jaipur - there was quite open whinging about them when I checked in. I suspect that being on award stays didn't help in this respect. One of the bills I saw at the Maurya showed that SPG was only being billed around US$45 per night for the stay. There needs to be more training at Jaipur and Agra on recognition of SPG elites and granting of benefits.

I also got a general feeling that the front desk and restaurant staff at all these establishments were really quite miserable. With the exception of Bukhara and Peshawri (where the staff were excellent) everyone else managed to seem thoroughly grumpy and yet snooty at the same time. Given the current very depressed state of the tourist industry in India I feel that a bit more effort to be pleasant and cheerful would be in order.

[edited for spelling]

[This message has been edited by christep (edited 02-03-2003).]