Laxmi Vilas Palace

The reservation process was tedious. The booking ***ager at the reception lacked courtesy. We have stayed in Heritage hotels before in Rajasthan and we thought this would have the same high standard of service and food but it lacked in everything. Besides the look of the property, it lacked in everything. The food was not of good quality at dinner, lunch & breakfast, the dinner items were served for lunch and the dishes were repeated meal after meal with different names, the bread at the breakfast was stale, the focus of the ***agement seems to be on groups and not individual stays. Also if you book Royal suit, tell them not to give you one on the 2nd floor of the old wing. These have massive steps which are un***ageable even for 40 & 50yrs olds to go back & forth. The toiletry in the bathroom was like detergent. This needs improvement. We were there for the bird sanctuary and they told us that they would not serve us an early breakfast unless a group was going to need it! The only thing good here are the property grounds and the housekeeping.

Stopped here for lunch as part of our tour. The dining room was very large and nicely decorated. It was full of tour groups, the food was extremely poor, the drinks very expensive and it had the atmosphere of a school canteen. I do not know why tour groups use this place.

Tempted by the property description and pics, stayed at this hotel for a night on a family trip to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. Though we reached at about 3 pm, the rooms, Royal Suite, we had booked, were not ready. Could get rooms only around 4 pm and that too after seeing ***y rooms as most of the rooms we found to be of poor standards. The food - Dinner and breakfast, both were atrocious. No taste and badly cooked. The only coffee machine, a Lavazza, was non functional. There is also NO ROOM SERVICE. The property is poorly maintained. The worst was we couldn’t sleep the whole as there were some wedding preparations with a lot of noise which went on for the entire night. The hotel seems to be capitalising on its open areas and grounds and on the fact that there are not ***y hotels in the area. Would rather stay at Agra, which has several good properties and do a day visit to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. Time the hotel owners take note.

This was our first trip to Bharatpur. I had seen nice reviews and pictures of this hotel on TripAdvisor. Got a good deal directly from the hotel, so booked it right away. It was only a 4 hour drive from north Delhi. We were very impressed at the gate itself when we saw this amazing heritage hotel, a palace in fact. We reached at 12.30. Though the check-in time was 2pm, after an extremely prompt check-in and a welcome drink, we were immediately shown into our Royal Suite. It was a beautifully decorated spacious room with chandeliers, antique furniture and a four-poster bed, a room suited for a royal indeed. Besides the grandeur what I liked about the hotel was their attention to detail. We had booked for 3 adults and for the first time I saw that they had already provided 3 cups. It showed their attitude of taking care of guests, providing for their needs even before they ask for it. And this attitude continued at the Dinning Hall too. There was a staff dedicated to us, who provided us with whatever we needed even before we asked. We had taken a complete meal package and were mighty glad that we did. The food quality was simply superb. Even five star hotels in Delhi will find it difficult to match their quality of food. We are hardcore non-vegetarians but we couldn't stop gorging on scrumptious vegetarian dishes (though non-veg dish was provided). And what an elaborate lunch spread it was (soup, salad, rice/roti/naan, dal fry, alu gobi, kadi, channa masala, paneer, chicken curry, kheer). Dinner was equally grand and elaborate, matching the grand royal dinning hall. It was impossible to eat so much, so we always selected items of choice. Special compliments to the chefs, ***ager and the entire staff at the Dinning Hall for such a great food experience. Our evening was spent exploring the huge property, swimming pool, lovely ***icured lawns with flowers and ***go trees all over. True to its name, Laxmi Vilas is an amazing heritage palace. It was a memorable trip, a a royal vacation, which gave us a glimpse of Rajasthani hospitality and royal lifestyle.

The palace is beautiful and the garden full of flowers. We got 2 very big rooms connected, approximately 100 square meters big each, with 7 windows. The dinner was nice, in a beautiful dining room 12 meters high and all decorated. They kindly did not charge the buffet for the little one of my three children.The price of the buffet (1.000 rupees) is very good considering the quality of the food. Also the price of the rooms is reasonable. However, there were some issues that spoiled our stay. There was no WiFi in the rooms. No hot water in the morning and we could not shower. The rooms were rather cold with a small electric heater. And worst of all there were quite a lot of mosquitos in the rooms. In summary, very nice hotel and nice people, but not up to international standards.

Horrible service and terrible ***ager and owner. The hotel didn't have basic facility of hot water for bath. On complaining, the ***ager didn't do much. I had to scream at him and then he arranged hot water in buckets. Imagine paying 10k per night and then getting hot water for bath in buckets. The ***ager refused to give me the owner's number to complain. After 1.5 hrs, they arranged the water. I was traveling with my 18 months old toddler and the entire day's schedule was thrown off. Then they started threatening and intimidating us by asking her to vacate the hotel. Even though we had paid for the hotel and all meals foe 2 days. They also placed live wires in the balcony of our room for Diwali decoration which could have hurt my daughter. They refused to remove it. Please avoid this hotel if you are an Indian. They only want foreigners as customers.

We stopped here for luncheon and received a warm welcome complete with music and dancing. This is a spectacular heritage hotel, the dining room replete with pictures of the maharaja’s family, chandeliers and fine decor. The buffet lunch did not quite live up to its opulent surroundings but still very glad we stopped here.

Its a heritage property and has been maintained decently like ***y other properties in Rajasthan. Rooms are quite big and have good facilities. The disappointing thing is food, where the food though is hygienic but lacks taste. I had 3 meals there and did not feel like trying any dish second time, like ***y other folks staying there. Other issue is around echoing sound which could be quite disturbing,