Taj Exotica Goa, located at Benaulim in South Goa is a real paradise for people wanting to run away from the crazy city life. The packages on offering are really cheap. The rooms were excellent sea view rooms and the staff wonderful. tasty food served at the buffet. The indian selection was truly outstanding. Almost 13 vegetarian items on the buffet that thrilled me, not that I am a vegetarian but because it gives you so much more to choose from. The pool is fantastic and the beach even better. Instead of using the spa I would recommend you cover yourself with sand and lie in the sea water - knee deep. this is the best way to get a medicinal salt water bath. truly relaxing and rejuvenating.

Very well maintained lawns and gardens. The staff are its real treasure, always smiling and ready to assist you. Their General Manager Allwyn Drego is quite a persona and a treasure house of knowledge. Vincent Ramos the Deputy General manager is also always around assisting guests with a welcome smile. Everisto in the coffee shop reminds me of the laughing monk...always helpful with a smile. Room boy Peter came up with interesting towel art decorations daily. Quite a treat. Overall a fantastic and well managed Taj Hotel. The bathrooms have lived their age and it is time to renovate them but am not complaining here , just suggesting something.

Thank God they do not promote water sports at its beach front. not like the other beaches that are crowded with water sport operators waiting for an accident to happen.

My wife and myself looked forward to 4 days of relaxation and bliss when we booked the Exotica comfortable with the knowledge that we were staying at a Taj property.
Let me be very clear that we are hardcore loyalists of the Taj chain of Hotels so much so that even when we visited Sydney last year we preferred to stay at the Taj even though it wasn't at the most convenient location. In fact I am a Taj Gold Innercircle member. I would normally swear by the service, food and luxury of a Taj hotel but the Exotica was a disaster.
When I travel one of the most important concerns for me is the quality of food that I eat. I am a health freak and like good, healthy food be it of any cuisine.
The food at the Taj Exotica was a nightmare. I actually threw up twice. I had to actually call for the chef to reprimand him for not even being able to get the Indian bread (the most basic and simplest part of Indian food) right.
Secondly the Taj Exotica is in one of the most inconvenient locations of Goa. Much to my chagrin when I looked around for more edible and healthy restaurants I was told that almost all the best ones were located in the North of Goa that was a good hour to an hour and a half away.
So basically one had a feeling of being trapped in a cage where one had to push down ones throat whatever was on the menu.
The room was nice (private villa with a plunge pool) but imagine the fact that though you are literally one minute away from the sea and your room is ostensibly the sea view room you cannot see the sea. Unbelievable!!!
All that you see is green grass and a golf course with the staff mowing the lawns and tending to them all the time. Not exactly the ideal romantic view when you want to dunk into the plunge pool with your romantic wife on a so-called romantic getaway.
Thirdly the swimming pool. It was dirty. It was too shallow. You go to Goa to soak in the sun, get a tan, jump in the pool, soak in the sun, get a tan and jump in the pool again right? Now what if you took the pool out of the equation? What if the pool is dirty and too shallow? Four feet?
If the location of a hotel is bad, if the food is lousy and the pool sucks, what is it exactly that I am doing there? Mistake never to be ever repeated.
On the flip side one has to commend the Spa. Very well done with extremely scientific treatments and an extremely capable and knowledgeable person at the helm by the name of Mr.

We spent three nights here in late April 2008 at the end of a two week trip of Northern India. We had a few problems right after checking in - our room was adjacent to a room that apparently had a small and loud child in the next room - but overall the hotel and our experience there was excellent. We ate all of our meals at the hotel and used the spa services during our stay. Our favorite part of the hotel was the huge pool and the great selection of food.

Initially, when we asked to be moved to a different room the front desk manager told us that he didn't have any other rooms "in our category." The resort did not appear to be that full, and my husband indicated as such. The manager said he might be able to move us the next day, to which my husband responded that other hotels in this category would ensure their guests had a quiet room, and we would call our travel agent if the problem wasn't rectified. A few minutes later they miraculously found us a new room. This was our only issue with the hotel, and it was fixed pretty quickly.

The breakfast buffet had a variety of Indian, European and Asian food that was all excellent. Beware of ordering items off the menu as it can take 30 to 45 minutes to get your food. We also ate at the beach shack - the food there was fresh and not as expensive as other posts on this site had led me to believe. Service in general was very good at the hotel - in general in India we found the service to be overly attentive at times. We had frequent requests to fill out surveys be it after dining, getting a massage or after yoga.

The beach is pretty quiet, although despite recent government attempts to prevent people from trying to sell things on the beach, we did have to continuously tell people selling sarongs and such to leave us alone.

I would definitely go back to this property for a relaxing beach holiday!

My boyfriend and I stayed at the Taj Exotica for a week during early December 2007. The hotel is very nice, it has a large and impressive reception area and a selection of restaurants. There is also a pool table and a hotel business centre (with internet facilities) and a library which is very well stocked with a large number of books (several hundred) to select from in case you run out of your own reading material.

Restaurants: Breakfast is served in the coffee shop, which has indoor and outdoor seating overlooking the well-kept gardens. The buffet breakfast selection is wide, varied and of a high quality. The chef will prepare eggs, pancakes etc to order for you. We also had dinner several times in the coffee shop, and again the food quality, service and presentation was very good. We had food at all of the restaurants during our stay, all of which served very high quality food, but rather expensive considering you are in Goa, albeit in a 5 star hotel.

Rooms: We paid extra for a deluxe room, which are sited in the two storey main building of the hotel. We had a slight problem with the first room we were given in that it was a twin, and we had requested a double. When we complained to reception about this they told us that all of the deluxe rooms were with twin beds. We were not happy with this and asked that we were changed to a double room. The hotel offered us two solutions; a) change to a double room in the “garden villa” category (which is the standard room), i.e. a downgrade or b) the hotel offered to put a double bed into a deluxe room for us (they claimed this might be possible if they could fit the bed through the door!). We had a look at a garden villa room, which was furnished in a similar manner, but the location of the room was the main problem in that was farthest from reception and would have been a good 5-10 minute walk to the pool/main facilities of the hotel (indeed the hotel uses golf buggies to take guests to these rooms as they are quite a distance from reception). We decided against the garden villa and asked the hotel to arrange to place a double bed in a deluxe room. Whether or not they actually did this, or just upgraded us to the room category above deluxe we don’t know, but the room we were given was very nice (fairly similar to the first twin room we were given in terms of décor and size). It had a king-sized bed, TV, settee and arm-chair, desk, tea and coffee making facilities, and a bathroom divided into four sections (shower room; sink/vanity area; bath; toilet). The deluxe rooms also have a balcony/terrace with wicker armchairs and coffee table and a view of the gardens/sea which was most pleasant, an in-room safe and iron/ironing board in case you are overcome with a desire to iron whilst on holiday!

All of the deluxe rooms are quite close to reception and a short walk to the main amenities/pool/beach.

Entertainment: There wasn’t very much entertainment that we noticed, although on one evening we did see a magician performing in the bar. He was quite entertaining actually. His show was followed-up by the bar staff doing a 5-minute juggling act which was fun. The hotel also provides free bicycles (for 1 hour at a time) although we never quite got around to using them, and they also have an activities schedule. We were fairly inactive though, but did enter the archery tournament, which was fun.

Pool area: The pool is large and well kept. We never had a problem getting sunbeds as the hotel is fairly quiet. Towels are provided by the hotel free of charge, and these are laid out on the beds for you in the morning. The only negative thing we found was the number of black crows that were around the pool area, roosting in the palm trees. Their constant cawing irritated us so we spent our days on the beach (no trees = no birds!) which was much more peaceful.

There are a couple of beach shacks as you go down to the beach on your right, we ate at both and the food was good, and very cheap. We had no tummy troubles during our stay.

There is a restaurant just outside of the hotel grounds which had a reasonable menu although we didn’t eat there in the end, and also if you are prepared to take a taxi you can access a wider selection of cheaper restaurants in the area – although we decided against this as what you save in restaurant costs, you pay for in taxi fares.