NEVER AGAIN!. Review on Gaanam Hotels, Cochin

Had to make a visit at short notice along with my dad to Ernakulam on 06/09. My Dad's bus rteached late and we met up at the KSRTC bus sation only around 9.30 PM. A room had been reserved for us bya family friend at Gaanam for our nights stay. Knowing that this hotel has been around for many years and having read good things about the same (but admittedfly in a 1990 guidebook - Frommers guides) I was looking forward to my stay here for the first time. For my Dad, much more widely travelled thah myself also this was the first time in this hotel.

Well to keep it short - NEVER AGAIN!

At 770 rs a night for a non AC double, even accounting for the central location near the Ernakulam Junction railway station, this is very poor value. The room is actually not too bad for the price, but regarding the service - wll these people take the word HORRIBLE to new heights.

For one, it took 15 minutes for them to find our reservation. Although there were a few computers scattered around reception, the reservations were apparently done in the old fashioned way by scribbling in a dog eared note book. And the gentleman who had apparently made the precious notation was having his dinner and since hte others couldnt locate the crucial entry , we had top wait for the gentleman's no doubt long delayed dinner to be over. Having located the reservation and finally registered after a further 5 minutes, we were escorted to the room by a member of the reception team. Now, my exposure to hotels have extended from 100 Rs a night downmarket lodges to five star luxury such as colombo hilton as well as some taj hotels, but NOWHERE have I seen somebody walk BARE FOOT and that too through corridors and into rooms which were not carpeted.

After we moved in, we realised that there were no towels o soap. When we called reception, the bloke there had the cheek to rudely ask me to go and recheck in the bathroom. And to make it worse, he then gave instruictions to the guy who he sent the towels with to reconfirm again and then we had to stand this nonsense pf the ''towel man'' calling from our room phone to the reception to confirm ''YES THERE IS INDEED NO SOAP''.

The hotel restaurant we went out for dinner was ok, but the only saving grace was the keenness of the young waiter, the only person whom we felt had something called the service mentality in our whole stay.

Morning when we ordered breakfast, we were told that there is a complimentary breakfast avaialbe at the restaurant. The spread was very average with iddlis and appams although the appams were tasty.

Coming back we fouind that there were newspapers put under almost all rooms except ours, and even when we came in the afternoon we found newspapers lying outside many rooms but ofcourse nothing in ours.

All in all a very forgettable experience. My last stay was at a humble 200 Rs lodge in Kalasipalayam, Bangalore and they had one thing which the managment and employees of Gaanam hotels seem to be totally deviod of - POLITENESS AND SERVICE MENTALITY.

I am a customer support manager for a leading multi national and such brilliant people at Ganam will be lucky to last a week with me!

SHAME ON YOU.

Rajeev