On average I spend about 5 days a month at Sayaji Indore. It is at par with any 5 star hotel that I've stayed with and when you consider the Sayaji tariff it is the best value for money, bar none. Sayajis newest hotel in Pune comes close but falls short of high standards set by other Sayajis.The rooms are wonderful, outfitted with all the latest gizmos. Flat screen TVs, five speaker surround sound, net connected flat panel computers in all the rooms. Everything in the room from the lights to the TV is controlled with an apple iTouch via wireless wifi and a Linux desktop. I'm a bit of an amateur techie myself and the room control system amazed me! Outfitting my house with a similar control system has become a dream project for me!
No complaints about the service in the hotel, each floor has a separate reception where one can check in. This is very convenient and during our stay the staff went out of their way to make us comfortable. The floor butler offered to bring us a crib even before we could ask him for one. For dinner we ordered room service since it was new years eve and the prospect of dinner with a 4 month old baby in a crowded restaurant didn't sound too appetizing.
Which brings us to my main complaint. The food service sucked. To put this in context you need to know that Sayaji Indore has some of the best restaurants in Indore. Inevitably I gain a few pounds every time I visit our plant in Indore! It was with these high expectations that we decided to spend New Years eve at Sayaji Pune. Dinner was terrible. We ordered tandoori roti, daal makhani, paneer bhurji and chicken curry. Basic staple Indian food that any restaurant worth it's salt should be able to prepare blindfolded. I won't go into the details but the preparation fell far short of what you'd expect from a mediocre restaurant, let alone a hotel of Sayaji's caliber.
Breakfast in the morning was not much better. We had the buffet breakfast at Portico. The restaurant seemed to have a difficult time getting some of the basics right like coffee, waffles, upma. There did not seem to be any shortage of staff and they were trying their best but things just weren't getting done. An omelet requested took half an hour, milk for cereal just a little less. Overall the experience was very disappointing and I don't think I'd recommend the Sayaji Pune hotel to anyone expecting the same experience as the Indore hotel.
