Lots of Niranta details are buried in the BOM transit thread, and there are two of these thread to boot. So I think the unique situation of Niranta at BOM deserves its own thread.
My understanding is that there are 3 properties:
- Departure/Airside
- Arrivale/Land-side
- Outside
Arrival/Landside: One-way flight to/from Mumbai is mandatory to confirm hotel booking. The hotels are located at Terminal 2, Mumbai Airport. After check in guest can exit/enter the terminal.
Departure/Airside: Hotel is located at International Departure after security check (Adjacent to Food court). International Flight Boarding pass is mandatory to access the hotel. For International Transfer passenger visa is not required.
What I don't understand is what happens to luggage?
For incoming transfer: baggage claim is normally after immigration. How can that work unless you have a rare ticket with your baggage interline check through?
Even for departure: you can't usually check in baggage more than a few hours before take-off, so how can you really make use of this airside hotel in any case?
Other trivial information I gathered:
- no windows, and small rooms (to be expected)
- the hotel (and the BOM intl' airport halls in general) are not mosquito free
- but any reasonable person traveling through India would not be paranoid about this, it's more like a nuisance than a risk.
- AC doesn't get temperature below 25 degree Celsius.
- breakfast is weak considering the price of the stay.
Add anything you want, especially practical experience with the handling of transfer and baggage.