Detailed review by koshkha
koshkha
Northampton, United Kingdom99%
Finding a hotel in Delhi is never a simple matter. At one end of the scale you have the super-luxury international 5-stars for those with deep pockets or company expense accounts. Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, you'll also find a lot of choice for under £20 a night sometimes even just a few pounds. But just how much of a risk are you willing to take? If I have two weeks I don't want to spend half my time on the toilet. What most people want is something that's somewhere in the middle; a place that won't cost the earth but also won't give you dirty sheets and a nasty infection. They also want to be somewhere that's accessible to the city centre and the tourist sites not 20 miles away in a suburb that's mis-sold as being central. The £30-80 per night range is a bit of a gap in the Delhi hotel market.
Our target when going to Delhi in November this year was to find something for £30-60 per night.
Why the Madonna?
The price was good at $83 per night including taxes (always make sure the taxes are included in Delhi as they can add a LOT to your bill). It was not so low as to make us worry about the quality but not too high to blow the budget. By booking direct with the hotel we were able get a free airport pick up thrown in as well.
The location was excellent just a 5 minute walk to the Metro Station and close to (but not IN) the Karol Bagh area. KB is the area where most of the really budget places are and we wanted to avoid it.
The website made the place look clean and tidy and it was clear that the hotel had been refurbished fairly recently. Hubby said the photos of the lobby made it look like a used car show-room and in reality, he was probably right. It looked just like that.
Arriving
Our flight landed in the wee small hours of the night about 2.30 a.m. once we'd cleared immigration and got our bags. The driver was waiting for us with our friend in tow. Dal and Kuljit had flown over 12 hours ahead of us and for some daft reason Dal had decided to stay up and welcome us. The driver didn't have a hotel sign board or our names so I'm not sure if he could have found us if Dal wasn't with him. The car the hotel had sent was ridiculously small it's not like they wouldn't expect us to have luggage when arriving at an airport. In Delhi all the taxis have been converted to CNG (compressed natural gas) so the air is cleaner than before but there's not much space in the car boots as the gas tanks take most of it. The car was about the size of a Nissan Micra four adults plus two medium sized suitcases and no roof rack!
The Room
OK, it's not the Ritz but we hadn't paid for the Ritz. The room was really very pleasnt and better than a lot I've stayed in more recently in Germany. Most importantly it was spotlessly clean not something you can take for granted. It was large, had a king sized bed that was lovely and firm with a padded head-board and granite-topped side tables built in. There was plenty of wardrobe space although the wardrobes were all 'lined' with newspapers that dated to April this year. I have never understood why anyone would line a drawer or wardrobe with something as grubby as newsprint. For that matter, why would anyone line them at all unless the surfaces were grubby which they weren't. To one side of the room there was a glass-topped coffee table with an armchair and two tub-chairs. There was a TV with more channels than you could ever need and beneath was a fridge. To the other side was a small dressing table and chair with a large mirror above.
The décor was in good condition although the paint work had an oddly dated ragging effect and the strange Egyptian style picture over the bed didn't hang straight on either visit. The ceiling had the smoothest plaster I have ever seen but perhaps I notice that because our house has nasty artex. The bedding was a bit iffy on our first visit the sheet wasn't long enough for the bed and whilst I believe the bedding was probably clean, it was quite old and a bit marked. The room had noisy air-conditioning which we didn't use, preferring instead to go with the ceiling fan.
The bathroom had more hot water than any other we used throughout the holiday. Whatever the time of day we had no problem to get a hot shower. That might sound like a 'so what' factor but it's not Indian plumbing is usually rather hit and miss. The bathroom had a large sink with a pink granite surround which was very attractive and the walls were tiled floor to ceiling. The toilet was placed to one side and the shower head was beside it but not so close as to spray the loo and toilet roll as can often happen when the shower isn't in a separate cubicle. The outside wall of the bathroom had a few glass blocks. I really liked the effect but by the time we returned, someone had blocked them with newspaper, perhaps fearing a peeping Tom. I can only say he'd have to be a peeper with eagle-eye vision. My one complaint about the room would be the meanness with towels. Or should I say 'towel' as we had only one fairly small towel between the two of us. Although the towel was changed regularly, they did tend to be quite badly marked which was a bit off-putting.
What else does the hotel have?
There's a restaurant in the cellar we had breakfast there one day which was so slow and so unmemorable that we didn't bother again. Our friends got their order slightly more quickly than we did but when it turned up, it wasn't what they'd ordered at all. The hotel offers room service but I suspect it was brought in from a neighbouring restaurant as any hotel that can't get a cheese sandwich right is unlikely to be able to do multi-country cuisine on its own.
There is a small room with a computer that offers free internet access. I believe there's also free wi-fi in the lobby as one slightly stroppy American lady was having a go at the receptionist about it not working. The computer was in need of a good clean-out and I couldn't get it to work. Not to worry, the manager invited us to go to his other hotel just a few yards down the road, where he let me use his office computer to print our boarding passes.
The hotel can organise tours for you everything from hiring a driver and car to go sight-seeing in Delhi through to extended tours to Agra, Rajastan and other places. We were quoted a price of 700 rupees (about £8.50) for a driver and air conditioned car for the day. At first this seemed a bit expensive but we soon discovered that rickshaw and taxi drivers had really whacked up their prices since our visit the year before and so we booked a car for the day on both of our visits. For 700 Rp, you get a driver and car for 8 hours and up to 80 km.
Other nice things about the hotel
The receptionist with the red turban what a super guy. Mind you all of the staff were really nice although the restaurant guys were a bit dozy. The reception area was despite the used car show room décor quite a nice place to sit with lots of sofas and newspapers to read. When we left after the first stay we had a late night train. The hotel happily looked after our luggage and when we returned didn't seem to mind how long we hung around, bringing us complimentary drinks whilst we waited for a taxi to arrive.
The Area and Finding the Hotel.
The hotel is in an area called Rajendra Nagar in the northwest of the city. We walked around at all hours of the day and night and never felt the least bit worried about our safety. It's a 3-stop ride (about 10 minutes) on the metro from the centre of New Delhi. The journey will cost you 8 rupees or about 10 pence. It's near enough and convenient enough that we popped in and out of town several times per day. The nearest metro station is called Karol Bagh.
To get to the hotel, leave the KB metro station on the side of the road where the train coming out of town arrives. Go down to the street and turn left for 50 m or so then take the first left this is the street where the hotel is. The walk is just a few blocks through an area of small shops but not the kind where anyone will try to drag you in and sell you something. The road is easily wide enough to walk in and we found that a bit more convenient than the irregular pavements. When you pass the Hotel Megha Sheraton on the right hand side (another hotel owned by the same guy as the Madonna) you are nearly there. The Madonna is on the corner on the right hand side.
How much did we like it?
It was exactly what we needed and so we went back 2 weeks later and would probably go back again. The hotel for our return to Delhi was the only booking that we hadn't made in advance as we'd decided to 'wait and see' what the Madonna was like. Finding it to be so convenient for the metro, liking the staff and not wanting to waste our Delhi time looking for somewhere else for our return, we decided to book again. The receptionist told me that he had a room for us but the rate would be increasing by another $20 per night because it was a busy time. This led to some jovial negotiation me saying 'pah, it's too expensive. I'm not paying that', and then pointing out that we were now 'loyal returning customers' and should get a discount. I think he'd worked out that we weren't quite as green as we were cabbage-looking and a compromise was struck. He'd let us have the $83 rate but we'd have to pay one night in advance. I negotiated the inclusion of the airport drop off and the deal was done.
Our Second Visit
Hubby and I arrived on an overnight train from Amritsar and took the metro to the hotel. The hotel staff seemed really surprised when we showed up without a driver but they sat us down and the owner sent a 'boy' out to get us iced bottled water. There was some confusion about our booking as it had been written down in my husband's first name rather than our surname. We told the manager that we knew we were really early but could we just leave our bags and come back later when a room was ready but the owner insisted that since they had the room ready, we could have the room early for no extra charge. After a night on the train, the hot shower and a chance to change our clothes was really appreciated.
For our second visit we had the same room. The guys who showed us to our room both remembered that we'd been there before and had the same room so they laughed that they didn't need to show us the room as we knew it already. Considering how many people had been through in the meantime, I was touched that they remembered us.
Madonna8
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