Royal Castle

We stayed there for one night , the hotel was booked by our travel agent. When we reached the hotel, the reception said that they have upgraded us to deluxe room. Infact the rooms are very small and the view from the balcony is not great. The cleanliness of the room is not good. Dinner and breakfast was included in the package, but the quality and number of items were not satisfactory. In the breakfast, they just had watermelon in fruits, when asked to bring some more fruits , they declined. The service is very bad, despite asking several times at the reception, they will not listen. Only one towel was kept in the room, I asked them to send another, but they never sent. They did not even serve water bottles in the room and asked us to pay extra, we agreed, but still they do not send water bottles to the room. The wall paper in the room were torn and badly taped, showing that the hotel management does not care about the room facilities. The heater in the room was so noisy that you cannot sleep, keeping it on. So we had to shut it down. Overall they charge like a 5 star hotel, but their service standards are not even 2 star. Not a good hotel to stay in such a lovely place, even the location is a bit far, so you have to pay extra money to local taxi / scooter (which is very expensive). The hotel reception is not willing to help you for local assistance, and asked us to arrange a guide on our own. We were delayed for checkout by 30 minutes, so the hotel reception called me and told me that I had to pay extra money for delayed checkout. Although I did not pay, but the behaviour of the reception staff was not at all cordial and humble. The hotel staff specially the reception staff has to be very humble to the guests. At the dinner time, some of the staff people were shouting very loudly with each other. Overall, not a good hotel to stay

The hotel location is a little away from town which is ok as a lot of hotels can be. But however the food quality, and hygiene level is poor of the hotel. The infrastructure is good, however the junior level staff does not do even basic things like cleaning the room till you speak to the manager. The food served in the restaurant is not upto the standards though the serving staff tries very hard to please. They did call a good doctor when some one in our group needed one, even late at night . However they need to work on their some of the basics, views are great from the hotel.

It couldn’t have been a more amazing location, the hotel is so well made, but the place is not maintained, the service is not v great either. Gulmarg makes up for it, but the hotel needs to pull up their socks for the kind of prices they are charging vis a vis the services offered.