1. Entry to the
hotel.
Anya has a new metro station coming next to it
which might make visiting this property easier. I had to get out of Hyatt Place.
Hotel has a big front and a
small passage where taxi can drop you. They have big glass doors which look totally bland.
2. Why are you in this hotel in this city?
. I went online and saw the
cheapest SPG property available
and it turns out that ANYA
was the cheapest one. Now you can get further cheap
rates on OTA for this
property but you won’t receive any bonus credits. Anyway it doesn’t make any sense to book this
property via SPG unless you are
trying to do avail
sort of promotion. I just received 332 points so it’s not much except counting towards eligible stays
for Platinum status. I just feel stupid for booking this property at the end of
entire experience. I realized I should have booked another property such as
Westin or Four point Sheraton. But my
readers would benefit from my review here.
Booking any stay via Design property requires lots of follow ups for them to add your stay and points to your
account. Anya was the most painful where I had to keep calling them to add my
points.
3. Check in
(Photos of lobby, Pictures of any decorative present)
I entered lobby and was little surprised
to see check -in desks requiring
me to seat in a chair at lobby where person, who is executing my room allotment, is also seating. It has
been a while since I
saw that in a 5 star hotel. I flexed my
SPG status and asked to be upgraded to Club room. As this is a design property,
I wasn’t getting any
SPG privileges and had to settle for whatever I got. No free breakfast or
anything similar existed.
The person at check-in
desk upgraded my room to that
of a Club room.
 |
Apparent seating arrangements at the lobby |
4. Journey from Reception to Room
As soon as my check-in was done, I was assigned room number 507. Room was
on 5th floor, right in front of the elevator.
 |
The corridor and the light coming from front |
 |
At Room No. 307 |
5. Room
The room had a narrow passageway
to enter inside. On the
right side, you have a cupboard, a luggage rack, a
TV and all other stuffs.
There is a longish table that leads all the way to end of the room, where you
can put all your stuffs.
On the left, there is
restroom.
The view is basically of a
cluster of residential and commercial buildings facing the hotel. There is metro train
that is going to run
soon but for now it is under construction.
As I entered the room, the first things I felt was I
was inside a great sized room
with comfortable bed. The bed was considerably a king sized bed. I was elated to see curtains that would shut maximum exposure to light
and bring shade. I
won’t have too much light on my face in the morning. Damn! What a bad stay can do to you? You
become happy with small things.
There was small sofa for a single
person to sit on. There was a
decent sized writing
table along with a good
chair to sit & work at.
They had weighing machine in the room. (It didn’t work)
Little did I know the horror that
awaited me! The security guy who had come to drop me at my room didn’t know anything it. I asked him to turn on
the lights and he couldn’t figure it out. I called down to reception to turn on
the power supply. It appeared like only half of the room was being illuminated. Even they didn’t
understand what to do.
I thought either they would change my room or something would happen. Nothing
happened! I had to leave for work so I told them at reception to check-up my room again.
After I come back at night, I realized I have solved the conundrum. The room had
so many power outlets
and half of them were occupied
by empty sockets. So if you press the switches, nothing would happen.
It turned out that the
room power was designed in such horrible way. I remembered this was like Lotus 8 at
Nedumbassery where fan and bulb were connected to the same switch. So when I wanted to sleep at
night, I couldn’t keep the
fan on lest I also had to keep the
bulb on.
So when I came at night, I finished some work and then as usual my pet peeve was finding all
power switches in the room. I turned off wherever
any random light was
on. Here some switches didn’t work for the first time. You had to click those couple of
times to make them work. Are you serious? I wish the hotel had a centralized power system. It is
painful to find where every
switchboard is located inside the room.



6. Pictures of
Entrance, Minibar, Table,Bed, Sofa, Alarm, other electronics
They had phone in the room but there was no guide to which number to dial for assistance. There was an old alarm with ancient
IPOD connection system. This was discontinued in 3rd generation
apple products. The
time on the clock was wrong.
7. Internet speed
Internet’s speed at this hotel was almost
stagnant. I gave up watching any video as it would keep buffering for infinite time. I was
getting a speed of 512
kbps at max. Which
generation of Internet is that?
8. Washroom
The washroom at this hotel was interesting. There was a luxurious bath tub which I
really liked. I didn’t have opportunity to use it but was just happy to have it there. Bathroom looked huge. There was a
sitting area near
shower. WOW! That is some luxury.
They had both handheld and
overhead showers. But
it required serious hassle to turn the later on. You were needed to hold the shower
button for a while otherwise it would go back to hand shower mode. It took me like 3
mins of holding the button
till it retained and was
firm. First I thought it was a cruel joke that was being played on me but it wasn’t a light issue. Pressure of water flow
was fine but I just couldn’t get warm water for some reason. FAIL!
The wash basin was fine and comfortable to use. It was a large basin with adequate pressure of water flow.
9. Toiletries
Toiletries provided here were really miniatures. They looked luxurious as they were inside proper glass instead
of plastic bottles which are generally seen everywhere else. The aroma was wonderful. I
would definitely use them. I was scared to take them anywhere apprehending that bottles
might break. But it was one of the brightest things about this hotel.
10. Food and Beverages
Getting to the restaurant is a complicated process. You have to go to first floor. You have to
enter spa area and then you would see an open-terrace like area. You have to get onto the terrace and then
turn right. There are no signs where the restaurant is located. Maybe I should have
taken pictures of it. Restaurant had zero natural lighting and felt like a dark dingy dungeon. The
spread was extremely limited as you can see from the pictures. They do have
live dosa and paratha but there
is not much in terms of bakery. I will not call this hotel a 5 star buffet in
anyway. It is more like
a 3 star hotel buffet. The food was totally bland and I would rather skip eating here.
11. Fitness Center
Fitness center could
be perceived as an abandoned room with only equipments kept there. Their arrangement was uneven with beam in the middle. There were a couple of old trade
mills, cycles, some weights and bosu balls. There was a
lot of space to do Yoga and free-hand stuffs. No Pull Up bar or anything as such was present.
There were no towels or water kept for use. There was nobody at the center to
answer your possible
queries.
12. Service
The staff tried to cooperate
but they were all neophytes and didn’t know anything, about anything. Only proper
help I got was during check-in and check-out processes. They didn’t offer any extra amenities
in the room if you requested for it. Not that they always have to; just don’t expect them
to. I had to call them
like 20 times to get my Starwood stay be credited. It took them 15 days to
credit it. They just didn’t know how to do that. After sending query on email I never received any reply.
13. Bottomline
I am never coming back to this property again. I will not recommend anyone
to come here either. It was just a cruel joke I had played on myself.
Electricals were a huge
issue. Hotel appeared old school. Staffs were new. If you lack awareness about the city – don’t
expect them to answer anything meaningful. Do your own research. I asked them
about where I can find mooncakes and the response I got was that they don’t know about it. They didn’t even bother to look it up for me.
Labels: Accommodation, Anya, check in, Delhi, Design Hotels, Hotel, India, SPG, Starwood, travel