Great stay at the Singapore Intercontinental Hotel

I recently had to make some last minute travel to Singapore for work.  I didn't think it would be a problem until I had tried all the company approved hotels and no rooms were available for my entire stay.  Finally I decided to compramise and go with the Intercontinental which had 3 out of the 4 nights available.  I figured it wouldnt be that tough to find a room for the missing night. 

There must have been some major conference going on since despite trying 10 different hotels I couldn't find a room.  I became a regular fixture at the Singapore Intercontiental front desk checking to see if a room for my missing night had been found.  No fault of the hotel but the entire city was completely booked.  

I big thanks to front desk employee Josiah and his manager who, despite everything was able to find me a room.  Kudos to the hotel for not only finding me a room but also ensuring I didn't have to change rooms multiple times.  They accomplished this by upgrading me to a higher level suite and letting me stay in the suite for the entire stay. 

Personal thanks to Josiah who was very helpful and not only went out of his way to find me a room, but also was available the numerous times I had questions about the local area. I am not sure if I should be thanking him though, since thanks to his excellent shopping advice I bought more things than I was planning! Thank you!

On the service note, one more story and thank you to unnamed Intercontinental staff member, the tailor!  I sent my blazer down for ironing and got a phone call from the housekeeping staff asking me if I wanted my buttons changed!  They noticed that a few of my jacket buttons were broken and replaced all buttons with a matching set!  Small things like this are great for creating customer satisfaction and a memorable stay.  Thank you!

Website for Singapore Intercontinental

Hotel Review - Lemon Tree Hotel Chandigarh

Lemon tree is one of my favorite hotels. The Chandigarh hotel delivers good value for clean, pleasant and warm accommodation. Lemon Tree has done a great job of creating a unique ambiance that is more home-like than hotel-ish. This is always a pleasant experience for frequent travelers who get sick of the same-old-same-old generic hotel experience.

I did have a few reservations about the hotel. Specifically felt the housekeeping was not up to the mark. No humongous misses, but a few minor "forgets" that you wouldn't expect from a hotel with like the Lemon Tree. Spent two nights there and on both nights housekeeping "forgot" at least 3 standard items like removing used cups, replacing tea spoons, replacing used bathroom accessories.

The bed sheets / duvet covers were some of the worst I've ever used, not sure if it was the quality of the cotton but they were covered by the small pokey balls of cotton that were extremely uncomfortable. Ended up having to remove the covers and request some extra sheets which were marginally better.

The major disappointment for me was on the food front. Below average cuisine, tried both the Chinese and Indian. Breakfast was also one of the less appetizing varieties I've found at LT hotels. Had a similar experience with dinner where we even asked the Chef to taste the food and he admitted there was too much salt, making it inedible.

To summarize, I'd go back to the Lemon Tree in Chandigarh for the good people, pleasant ambiance despite the lackluster food and minor housekeeping misses. Only the most anally retentive individuals such as myself will notice the last point.

Room Tip: Check the sheets/ duvet covers for softness before you turn in for the night!

Check out my Review on Trip Advisor

Sayaji Hotel Pune Review

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.