We were met at New Delhi airport by driver (contracted from Avis to Oberoi he said) and Oberoi airport duty person. was a fair trek to the car, driver drove with true Indian gusto, weaving through the traffic and narrowly missing on several occasions. He pulled up with some urgency on the side of the road in the middle of the traffic at one point because he'd forgotten to don his white cap. His English was not really good enough to have a conversation/explain sites. There are not many luxury cars in India - only a few hundred sales per year in eah brand, and our car is a Toyota.
We arrived at the hotel a little early, around 11:30am, it looks very ugly on approach, a dated concrete edifice; I stopped in the lobby to change money for the bellboy, they gave me a rate of 66 when 68 was on the signboard, which was a little annoying but I didn't bother to mention it as I only changed £20.
No welcome drink, but there was a cooler of water in the car, which ended up getting in the way as we had quite a lot of baggage, the driver eventually offered me a bottle of water from it half way through the journey - no problem as we had been kept well watered by Kingfisher (airline).
Our rooms were connecting rooms (parents + children), a sort of makeshift suite. Room is not huge but is quite stylishly appointed and the massive window present a stunning view out on the gardens and pool below (closed, but there is a second smaller pool as well as an indoor pool in the spa). Bathroom is ok, own-brand miniature toiletries, no bath foam, but the 'body wash' suds up nicely. In one of the rooms the water ran brown when the bath was first turned on, which was rather icky (they claim that all tap water is drinkable however), and the bath itself is not a particularly attractive example, though the shower works well.
Rooms had four chocolates in each, plus two mangoes, better chocolates than you get on BA for example, but not world-class. Quite pricey in Delhi I would imagine however. Someone turned up with two different sized child's robes for our children plus a cuddly toy and toy car, which was a nice touch - the items cost about 50 rupees each (not the robes!) so an inexpensive gesture but the kids were happy with them so good ROI in many ways.
We ordered room service, a Thai chicken salad they warned would be spicy, a beefburger and a Indian chicken wrap. The man taking room service order was almost camp in an Indian manner. 'Oooh that is a good choice sir. That will be delightful sir. A good selection sir. Would sir like any dessert?'
Camp room service man tells me food will be 25 minutes, they called after about that time to say it would be five minutes more. Food was brought in on a trolley and laid out for us by a pleasant turbanned butler, we were advised to press the butler button to have it taken away when we were done.
The Thai chicken salad was in fact not spicy enough, not by Thai standards at any rate, plus the vegetables were not fresh or crisp tasting and my wife thought the cucumber tasted bitter and cut too young. The chicken wrap was acceptable but not quite right on the spices, a little bitter or something, and the beefburger, supposedly cooked medium had been destroyed by sitting for about 10 minutes before reaching us - the bottom bun was actually WET, the burger was tasty enough, but cooked through and the lettuce was horribly limp from being in the hotplate/trolley.
My thoughts about the food - that it was entirely mediocre - were confirmed when we ate in Dili Hat, a hawker centre-cum-bazaar later - our randomly chosen stall had much better food. Oh and the price - 900 rupees for a burger, 650 for the chicken rolls and 675 for the salad. Other items were much more expensive. Generally reckon on paying at least five times what you would pay from a stall of the kind we went to (by no means the cheapest but not luxury either) for inferior food. We pressed the butler button and a different staff member came to take the trolley away - then I pointed out the plates, so she took them also. She didn't ask us if we enjoyed our food. Subsequent meals have confirmed that the Oberoi Delhi food is the worst we have had in India.
Minibar price for a bottle of Kingfisher beer is 150 rupees, which I thought was quite reasonable - but 450 rupees from room service.
Hotel car is 675 rupees per hour, 2 hours minimum, I assume you will pay more than this for long (by distance) journeys however. We just went to the (nearby) Tomb, so decided to give a rickshaw a try - we paid 50 rupees, which is probably too much but who really cares?
We left the hotel at 4 and came back around 8:30, housekeeping were finishing up on the turndown/freshen up service then, which was perhaps a little late IMO. Went to the pool after this, they said it closes at 10pm but we can go there any time we like. Spa is adjacent so no need to drip back to the room as there are powerful showers with lotions, towels, etc.
Generally there are staff everywhere - when our room key stopped working we called down and someone was up with a new working key in the time it took for a housekeeping member to walk down from the end of a corridor to let us in.
I've actually realised that we were downgraded - we booked 'Premier Rooms', but according to the hotel's description, we only have a 'Luxury'.
Basically:
Deluxe Room - floor 1 or 2
Luxury Room - floor 3, 4 or 5
Premier Room - floor 6, 7 or 8
We were on floor 5, so not really a noticeable downgrade from say floor 6. They can't figure out which side is better as all room categories face either the Tomb or the swimming pool/golf course. So really it doesn't matter, save your rupees and don't waste money upgrading to a more expensive 'room' (suites obviously differ).
Also as per my separate post they ripped us off by converting to pounds without mentioning it and short-changing us 5% on the rate - a total of over 6000 rupees on our 125,000 rupee bill (payment not just for our night in Delhi but further Oberoi nights).
TRs for Oberoi Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur and Mumbai to follow.