Regal Hotel, Matheran

Me and my friends go to tour Matheran. When we have booked a Regal Hotel for 2 day/night stay. This is nice hotel for stay. The hotel is a quite a superb for the price we have got through Triago.com. We have stay in this hotel for 2 days. Hotels Rooms was very clean or fresh. All rooms staff cleanliness good. Rooms are well sized and free space available is room.It's a room old types but good one. Location of the was very nice in the natural place. Guest service staff was also very friendly and helpful or co-operative. This hotel like a 5 star hospitality. All hotel ambience very good. A Lot of open space available in front of hotel for running or walking in morning. About lunch and Dinner was awesome tasty. I like a most in this hotel Gujrati Lunch thali. Overall it's a hotel nice food, very warm ambience and honest guest service staff.

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It is one of the best hotels you can find in Matheran. The room quality is superb-it will give you a 5-star experience.There are a  variety of rooms from deluxe cottages to duplex villas.The rooms are very neat and clean.The guest service is the best and you may not be able to find this type of service in any of the hotels.The location is a little far from market and there are many monkeys in the hotel.There are  many amenities like swimming pools,badminton court and garden for kids.The food and presentation is too good,the quality of food is best and Gujaratis can enjoy here.It will be good if you can spend two days in here.The ambiance and environment is good,the hotel covers a large area.There is a huge room where u can play table tennis,pool,chess,carom and read books which are present on the shelves.There is no need of carrying equipment for playing any of the games mentioned above.

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I had booked two rooms at Regal hotel in the month of january for our weekend trip to matheran. I paid rupees 3700 for it.

Up on reaching I found out that only one room of the two were ready and the second was still occupied by someone. We had to wait and that was so bad management of the hotel. They did not even have the courtesy to provide us some water and snacks as we waited for 40-50 mins.

The hotel has a very lazy vibe to it. Over all the cleanliness and service is not up to the mark.

The rooms are small and the bathroom even smaller. The intercom feature on our room's phone also did not work. They refused to provide me extra soaps and towels as well which is so bad. The second day of our stay, I had to call the housekeeping staff to clean the room as they were too lazy to do it without asking for it.

The hotel has a tie up with some guides, horse owners and local shops but do not opt for any as they overcharge you.

Do not even think of eating here. The morning tea that I ordered was so bad that it ruined my day.

All in all I will sum up Regal hotel as below average. While going around I saw there are many better hotels near the market place. I enquired the tariff which was comparable to Regal. I will not recommend regal. Thumbs down.

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We visited this place on 26th May 2015 for a 3 nights-4 day package in super deluxe room and paid advance of Rs 8, 000/-. We really had a bad experience during our stay.

The room was in pathetic state. The pillows were having smell of sweat. The replaced pillows were the same again.The food was good.

The pool was closed due to some construction work going on. We came to know later that the hotel management is new and they are unable to manage the services. The very next day we checked out of the hotel and stayed in another hotel for the remaining 2 days and a good time. The manager din`t refund the balance amount and told that its cancellation charges.

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We stayed at Regal Hotel-Matheran some time back..

-Rooms were too too expensive..apart from paying hefty amount the Room was Shabby. No proper Maintenance/Housekeeping. FOOD was Gastric, had stomach problems throughout our stay. We never had this problem inspite of eating Street Food from Mumbai like Pav Bhaji, Pani Puri & Junk.

-Hotel Staff was completely unpleasant, unattached & money minded..and Rude.

-We will not recommend Regal Hotel to anyone for an Matheran Visit....Bye.

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Management people very bad behavior, also whole staff very rude, do not go with children and infants no food facility given even after promise on booking. Completely money minded people no value for money given.

Basically gujju management like and attitude like Dhirubhai Ambani ...Kar lo sabka maal apni jeb mein... I Have been there just two days before and even after promise baby food was not provided and my child aged 2 yrs had to sleep without food for a day. Basically they do not bother for service since nowdays all places are booked due to shortage of availability and since they get bookings they do not bother for service.

I would never ever recommend anyone for REGAL HOTEL anytime. They do evade Taxes charged to us in their bill .I have copy of their bill where no TAX Inv is printed nor Inv Nos. are printed they collect tax from us and good knows what they might be doing with the bills. they even refused to give me original copy of bills for which I had made payment but I forcefully took it from them and I shall send it to the vigilance department of Maharashtra VAT and Income Tax Dept also Service Tax Dept for scrutiny of the same.

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We went there in the peak of rainy season, so needless to say that it was raining a lot and we could hardly go out to check out the place. But still we had a nice time, it was quite nice to watch the rain siting on your cottage balcony. Moreover we were there during the weekdays, so the whole place was deserted, absolutely no crowd. And even there were only 2 couples staying at Regal during that time.

The service was ok and the thalis served by the hotel restaurant was great. We took a 2 nights and 3 days package and the all meals were included. Food served is strictly vegetarian. It is too tempting to have food siting in the balcony, but you need to watch for the monkeys. There are quite a lot of them.

We took a 2 night weekdays package and it costed us around 2700/- inclusive of all meals for 2 person. It was an AC cottage with a big bedroom with 2 queen size beds and a dressing area and bathroom/toilet. All cottages come with a small balcony facing the pool with siting arrangement. 2 such cottages are joined in one block. So this provides decent privacy. Though not sure how will this place be during peak season weekends.

There are occasional power cuts, but they have the backup generator. Hot water is supplied 24 hours a day.

The pool is decently large, not sure how well it is maintained as we couldn't take a dip because of rains. Not sure if there are any other facilities in the hotel. The reception people are nice and so are the other staff.

Regarding Matheran, its small hill station very near to Mumbai. It might be a good option to take the toy train to climb-up and down. But this was closed during the monsoon, so we could not take that. If you are taking the road, you have to walk from the last parking point upto matheran. It is not easy if you have luggage, don't try to take porter at the parking lot, as they charge higher, if you cross that you will find lot of villagers willing to carry your luggage at a much lesser rate. The easiest option is to take the rail track, else you can take the mud road also. If you are taking the railway track, you will get to see the valley view and it is quite nice.

Overall: Nice place for a 1-2 days get away.

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Last week I visited Matheran for the first time. I stayed at the Regal Hotel. In this rather long review, I will first write about how to get to Matheran and then follow it up with the hotel experience.

Matheran is a hill station at about 800m above sea level, very close to Bombay. In spite of this, I had never been to Matheran in so many decades of staying in Bombay. Probably the reason is because one can’t just drive into Matheran. Vehicular traffic is not permitted there.

To get to Matheran, you get to Neral by broad gauge train. We have two options from Bombay. Either you reserve a seat on any of the long distance trains going to or through Pune or you travel by a Bombay local train destined for Karjat. The local is certainly more convenient as you have a choice of boarding it at a number of stations on the way. There is a Karjat bound local once every 75 minutes or so. The run is about 90 minutes depending on where you board. If you go for a reservation, you had better arrange to get your ticket several days in advance. Moreover, you can only board at Victoria Terminus (now called CST) or Dadar stations, which may be rather inconvenient for someone from the suburbs. You also have to start very early in the morning. I started from home at 5:00 AM.

Once you get to Neral, you again have 3 options to proceed further.

· You may take a narrow gauge train up to Matheran. In the mornings there are trains every hour and a half or so. During the holiday season it is difficult to get a seat on this train. The route is very scenic but it is a slow and winding journey to the top. It is reminiscent of a ride on a toy train at an amusement park. This train takes about 2 hours to take you to the top but gets you up in the heart of Matheran.

· A second option is to take a 20 minute, 7 km taxi ride to the foot of Matheran up to the point where vehicular traffic is permitted. This is called Dastoori point. In fact if you were to drive up from Bombay, you would park your car at this point.

· The final option if you are fit and in the mood is to hike your way (probably 10 km) from Neral to Matheran.

I chose the Taxi option.

From Dastoori point you can either walk the 2.5-3 kms, ride a horse or take a hand pulled cart. I know the last named does sound inhuman. I thought the same at first but realized that this is a sole source of livelihood for a lot of people from these hills. I will not describe how to get to the Regal hotel. Everybody knew where it was and it is very easy to get directions when you are there.

The Regal Hotel is spread over a vast area. The lodgings are in a number of cottages. The one we got had a room large enough to comfortably accommodate a couple of double beds, an open wardrobe, a bedside table, a rack for your luggage and a TV. It had a veranda just outside the room with a table and four chairs to relax over breakfast or tea. There was a little lobby with a washbasin and a tiny dressing table with a largish mirror. A WC and a bathroom completed the lodging. The price is quite reasonable. It costs Rs 2400 per couple per day inclusive of all meals. Each additional person costs Rs 900. Check in time is 11:00 AM and check out 8:30 AM.

The accommodation was no great shakes by way of facilities. It was comfortable in a rough-hewn sort of way. There was no bathtub. I wasn’t ever able to get hot water from the taps although the service was quick enough to get me a bucket of hot water when needed. This was also not such a problem as it was the summer season. The TV also was an ancient monument of sorts with a whimsical attitude but I wasn’t there to watch TV either. All said and done, I believe that by Matheran standards this is a good hotel. You have to be prepared for roughing it out wherever you stay in Matheran.

Having put away the negatives, let me enumerate the good things about this hotel. The food is great if you can accept a pure vegetarian diet. It is Gujarati style food. The brochure will tell you that they have Mexican, Chinese and Thai food too. But it wasn’t in sight on the 2-3 days I was there. And a good thing too because I think each kitchen should concentrate on rustling up the cuisine they know rather than make a mish-mash of some so-called international flavour. The lunch is table service. The waiters pamper you by constantly loading your plate with their goodies. The dinner is a buffet in the open, on the badminton court. Be warned that you better do a lot of walking when you see the sights of Matheran. You will need it to trim the weight you gain with the food. The badminton court and swimming pool are other places to lose weight.

The other good thing is the swimming pool. We enjoyed ourselves no end in the pool. The hotel also has a health club with Jacuzzi and Sauna but I am not qualified to write on it because I did not patronize this facility.

After dinner there is some sort of public entertainment for the guests. For instance we were treated to a puppet show, which was inspired by a mix of folk and Bollywood.

The sprawling grounds are good for a peaceful walk. Be careful of the monkeys though. Matheran is infested with them. If you happen to have a bag in hand, clutch it real tight as our simian friends swoop down from the trees and try to snatch it out of your hands believing it contains food.

On the whole I had a great holiday, notwithstanding my apprehension about not being able to take my car. I recommend the Regal hotel to anyone who is prepared for a bit of fun and adventure. If not, you shouldn’t be going to Matheran at all.

Added on 6th July 2001

BTW Matheran is simply great during this monsoon season. It is not crowded and the Hotels give you a hefty discount.

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