Good food, terrible management.
BOOKING
1. Booking of the hotel was tedious, with multiple errors in the mail and a lot of back & forth to correct them.
POOL
1. We catagorically inquired if the pool was operational, as we came specifically to use the pool facility and were assured that it was, at the time of booking. However, 3 days prior to our booking, we were called and unceremoniously told that the pool is not operational due to a wedding. Once the wedding was confirmed, why not inform us immediately about the non availability of the pool? We couldn't make any other arrangements at the last minute.
LOUNGE
1. Not only that, the only alternative offered was 'sitting lounge for relaxing purposes', which is nowhere close to being compensatory. However, with no other alternative, we went to lounge to sit and spend time with our family.
2. The 'usage' did not cover any refreshments, as is the purpose of the lounge. Which also we agreed to. We have no problem paying for what we use and consume. However, once at the lounge, we tried to order tea, and were told that we need to go down to the lobby and order, pay & consume our tea there, as they had no way of accepting payment in the lounge. Ridiculous, is the most polite assessment of this situation. After multiple requests to the manager, we were finally served 1 cup of tea in the lounge sans payment.
CHECK IN
1. A nightmare in itself. We booked 8 rooms and repeatedly relayed to various departments that we will be needing 2 sets of connecting rooms as we are travelling with infants. The same was told again at the time of our physical arrival at 1:30 pm at the property. However, when we were handed our room keys at 3:30 pm, there were no connected rooms allotted to us. Some insistence finally yielded 1 set at 4 pm and another set at 5pm. Abysmal to check in 5pm, tired from travel with everyone regretting the choice of hotel.
2. At check out however, our multiple requests for a late check out at 3pm were denied. We would have liked to enjoy a leisurely swim & lunch at the hotel on our last day, but it seemed that the hotel was in a hurry to have us vacate the premises.
Suffice to say that the management has a long way to go and effectively ruined our family vacation.
I would never recommend this property to anyone. I did not feel like a luxury hotel, but rather a punishment.
The sad part is that this was not our first stay at Fairmont, rather it was the 3rd or 4th time for many in the group. However, we were all fed up of the mismanagement and non-friendly hotel policies.
In all this chaos, the only salvageable part was the food. It has greatly improved since our last few visits here. Congratulations to the kitchen team for an excellent job.