I think tsetse's review from March is an excellent review of this hotel and I agree with most of the review. I had some problems with the hotel, but because of the poor quality of other hotels in this city and the absence many tourists I will rate this hotel better than I would if it were located in a more popular tourist city.

We found our way off the train in Ahemdebad and fought off the Taxi drivers that were probably the worst I had ever experienced. We finally found two auto rickshaws to take us hotel hunting. Dev let these drivers take us to two hotels they recommended. The first one was in back of Le Meridian. It was awful. Every room smelled as if they kept a lighted cigarette going in them all the time. The rooms were tiny and not even fit for back packers. The second hotel we went to was even worse and the bathrooms smelled of feces. Both were as nasty and dirty as the rickshaw drivers that delivered us to these places. I wondered why Dev was taking the advice of these characters.

We finally went to the first of three hotels picked out by Suresh. This hotel was named the Ritz-Inn. When we were checking out the first hotel above, my wife had walked across the street to the Le Meridian and really wanted to stay there. For some reason, Our Indian friend did not want us spending 9000 INR for the night at this fine hotel. The Ritz was relatively clean and was beautifully decorated as noted in tsetse's review. True to past experiences at Indian hotels, the relatively nice facade was all this place provided. The staff at the front desk seemed to go out of their way to make our experience there uncomfortable. They showed no concern for my distaste of their 60 INR per hour charge to use their internet on their computers (by India standards this is alot although it only amounted to $1.30). In fact they lied to me when I asked if there was an internet café close by to go to to just check my email. They told me it was ten kilometers away and we found it within a block of the hotel the next day. They showed no concern for my objection of not including breakfast in the fare (as tsetse received an inclusive breakfast, this decision may be customer dependant). They refused to exchange money here.

The restaurant was beautifully decorated, but dirty. I watched waiters replace dishes on tables after customers had left without wiping down the tables. They charged 120 rupees for their breakfast buffet, but only 60 INR for a similar cooked to order breakfast without all the stuff found on the buffet we just don’t eat. The wait staff is poorly trained and occasionally dirty, but very nice and willing to help.

The front desk staff refused to offer a suggestion on a restaurant outside the hotel and told my wife, “We recommend this restaurant.” Strangers in a strange town, we were lost as to where to get a nice relaxing meal at a clean restaurant. The travel desk man was the nicest and friendliest person at the hotel. He went out of his way to help us with a kind smile and his best broken English. He recommended the restaurant next door, the Modi Mahal. He said we could even have the food delivered to our room through room service. The Modi Mahal was a meat restaurant and the hotel only vegetarian. The travel desk man even went and got us a taxi to go to the Le Meridian when we opted here for dinner.

The room we chose was the one queen size bed room that smelled the least like an ash tray with burning cigarettes. All the other rooms we looked at (4) carried a much worse smell of cigarettes. The room seemed otherwise very clean with marble floors throughout. Even the bathroom was clean. The worst part of our room though was the broken toilet seat that kept sliding off. In addition, the kind room cleaners left a single sheet of toilet paper on the roll with no extra replacement. What a wonderful surprise to sit down to. We had to call down several times for towels and the soaps were really of poor quality.

The hotel is next to a Muslim restaurant on one side, the Modi Mahal, and a bakery next door on the other. Both are very popular in this town and people were eating at both places until all hours of the evening. We tried the Modi Mahal and were treated to unwashed water glasses, an unwashed tea cup and cool rice (a red flag the rice has been sitting around breeding bacteria). In addition, the soup Paula ordered was so spicy hot, she could not eat it even after preparing her tongue eating spicy food the past week. We ate maybe a spoonful of food each, paid the approximate $5 tab and left. It did not seem to bother the workers that we did this and they showed no concern about the untouched plates we left. Our Indian friend who ate here without us because the hotel staff gave him false information of our whereabouts enjoyed his meal here.

There was no minibar in the room, only an empty refrigerator. The last straw for this hotel was when we were getting ready to leave. One of the staff knocked on the door as I was showering and presented Paula with her clothes. She was shocked. They had taken a bag of dirty clothes we had set in the corner of the room with our luggage. The clothes were placed in a plastic bag we found in the room and this bag of clothes was sort of hidden away with our luggage. We were told that we were to put this bag on the bed or by the door, with the form filled out in order to get it washed. We did not do this. They had taken this small bag, and rush washed the clothes to the tune of about $20 US without our knowledge. This person had come into the room and I had no idea he was there. I was in the shower and started to come out, but luckily my wife stopped me. After he left I came out and I found out what had happened and was quite upset. The manager finally came up. They have a way of invading your personal space and just walking into your room at some Indian hotels. I blocked the manager and his henchman from entering and spoke to him outside the room. I told him of our treatment by his front desk and that they had no business taking our laundry like that. The manager apologized and said that he even noticed me waiting outside the hotel for three hours the day before looking “confused”. He said he thought about going to me to see if everything was OK, but he never did. I said that I felt unsafe here. I told him that the evening he saw me, they told my friend I was not in the room when I was and delivered his note to me one and one half hours after my friend had left it. They did nothing to make my stay here easier, only more difficult. I felt that his last minute appearance, just before our checking out to try to make up for a bad stay was disingenuous.

Even with all the problems, this is probably a good choice of hotel if you don’t want to pay the higher rates at the Le Meridian (I’d consider paying the higher rates there). I looked at two other hotels before this one. This hotel room was very clean except for the cigarette smell. The AC worked OK. The internet is high priced here. They offer no money exchange. The front desk offers no help or advice to people experiencing this strange town for the first time and you feel all alone here. It is a poor respite for the weary and if you need some extra comfort, safety, and familiar surroundings, you won’t be happy here.