I did land up going to the Le Meredien Mahabaleshwar on May 1, 2015.

Apologies for not posting this review earlier.

Hotel was up and running since a few months prior to official opening date of May 1, 2015. They were 100% occupied on the first official day since it was a long weekend in Maharashtra.

We had booked prior to the category change so it cost us 14 K SPG points for 2 nights.

I had a good stay overall. We were welcomed with water and eclairs. Staff is extremely friendly and warm though the service is a little slow. Hopefully it's improved now.

They've built small units with rooms on the ground floor and first floor. Our room was on the first floor and had a nice view of the mountains from the balcony.

All rooms have balconies and the standard room size is ~ 431 sq feet. Plenty of space to walk around. Other than a king bed they had a nice big comfi chair and also a desk chair in the room.

Bathrooms have a big free standing villeroy and Boch bath tub and a separate shower area.

The resort is almost completely covered in foliage and feels very cool as a result of this. It's not too far to walk from end to end if you know the right way. Lots of places to just sit down and enjoy the calm. They also have golf carts that you can call to take you around.

A big non temperature controlled pool is open to all guests. They also have a smaller temperature controlled infinity pool that is only open to adults. They also serve drinks at this pool.

The kids activity center was excellent but they charge Rs. 2,000 per child to use it which I found extremely expensive especially when you consider most hotels offer it free.

The hotel also has several activities and programs such as puppet shows, horse riding, etc. running throughout the day for a nominal cost.

Breakfast is served at their multi cuisine restaurant, Latest Recipe.
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/lemeri...nId=1024798315
The breakfast spread is lavish and they will make you pretty much anything that you want even if it's not on the buffet or menu. Since we were on an award stay breakfast wasn't included but one of the managers insisted that we should try it and comped it for us.

The other restaurant is called Chingari which serves Indian food. http://www.starwoodhotels.com/lemeri...nId=1024798333

They also have a couple of other options for snacks and drinks.

All the food we ordered was extremely tasty and seemed very fresh. They are willing to customize and make things that aren't on the menu if needed.

The GPS take you through a jungle with bad roads for about 10 minutes since it's a short cut. The hotel itself is located on a main road and you can avoid the jungle if you want.