Taj Hospitality needs no introduction. Just out of the world. Albin, Sujay, Jason, Tanuja and many others just made our stay comfortable and so homely. The room was so pretty and the spa made me feel so comfortable, that I have no words to describe it. The restaurant By the Bay is a must visit. The property with its lovely confidence of backwaters and the sea presents such a unique sight. The cycling ride around Bekal was superb.

The food and stay was a wholesome experience

The buffet options like starters/entrees could have been better

good food items at restaurant rooms were spacious

could be cleaner and tv working properly with more channels available for English or Malayalam viewers Light switches in 432 was strange

While checking out early in the day the staff was very helpful and courteous and took extra effort to get us early breakfast. Pramod at the front desk was very very helpful.

Our checkin and rooms were a big disappointment. I had booked two twin-occupancy rooms in a single booking more than two months prior to travel date. Yet we were allotted two rooms far from each other. The checkin exec told me it was because we had made two bookings. when I showed her it was single booking she reluctantly accepted it may be the booking department's mistake. and she said the hotel was fully occupied. the room allotment caused us lot of inconvenience.

Amazing hospitality, wonderful ambience, friendly staff who went above and beyond, delicious food.

Would have preferred more local cuisine options at Backwater cafe

The moonlight rafting was the highlight of the trip The rooms were great - spacious, luxurious, clean Also enjoyed the cycling tour to Bekal fort

Not enough of a local (Kerala) experience - between the staff and the menus, you didn't feel like you were in Kerala. Wasn't aware until we got there that you're not allowed to swim in the sea there Incredibly hard to contact the hotel (prior to the stay)

Fantastic breakfast! Friendly staff

The beach had a lot of plastics strewn all over the place - this needs regular cleaning Also there was no WiFi in my room , which was a bit of a let down-in this day and age

We booked two rooms for the five of us and could not make it due to the long drive. Prior to two days before check in we found out that it was too far from our location and we would not be able make it on time with our children. We informed the hotel but they did not consider refunding the money or even charging partially the full amount. They dragged this matter without giving us a proper response till the day of check in and charged the full amount.

Excellent service. Room was wonderful with pool

Food is expensive

Positives:- 1. The property is beautiful and has both beach side and lake, though you can’t get into the water as there’s a steep fall as per the guards and is life threatening. So you can see the beach, be on the sands but not in the water 2. The rooms are nice and well built. The villa is very spacious with the courtyard and a lovely set up 3. The complimentary chai paani concept is wonderful like an evening high tea 4. The company managing water activity of kayak and others were well managed by a third party though there seemed to be a language barrier

The big negatives:- 1. The breakfast buffet is pathetic, the staff roams around like headless chicken including the managers. Most of the times they were just roaming around like class monitors with no smile and no pleasantries to exchange or doing anything helpful. Ask for something one server will delegate the task to another server and both of them will never appear again and will pretend lost or dumb as if we were talking in French or are aliens 2. The first night we group of 8 people went for a la carte dinner and the food was horrible. Extra salt, tasteless - the chef quickly took over and gave some discount and complimentary deserts to pacify us. Also made sure the next day a la carte dinner was much better. 3. The 31st night event was a clear facade. More than half of the guests were family of hotel staff and were given best of tables, nicely decorated even though we customers paid for the event. The DJ also was a friend or a relative who was placing two decade old songs and his whole friend circle was dancing on it. The food was decent, the arrangement was nice but clearly lacked service or probably they were busy servicing their own people. Which we figured out only by the end of the party. Nothing wrong with entertaining families but not at the cost of bad service to paying customers 4. The kids play room has decade old toys, no staff to attend all three times we went on different days. God knows when was it sanitised or cleaned last, didn’t look hygienic, there were used diapers in the main play area bin making it stink 5. The room cleaning never happened on it’s own, had to call in every time to get the room cleaned. It was very superficial cleaning, the stains stay there, the litter stays there till you point out. The courtyard was the worst managed. If such were the housekeeping staff at my house they wouldn’t have stayed for more than a day. 6.

Ambience and location

Food was priced unreasonably high

Breath taking beauty, The serenity and the vibe is amazing. Very few places which have backwaters & lovely beaches. The architecture of the rooms and the whole vicinity is magnificent.

Well maintained property in a beautiful location. Food exceptional!!

Unable to turn on fan without turning on a light as well due to wrongly labelled two way switch. Had to get housekeeping out at 4am to our room.

The service at the backwater cafe. Sapna was excellent in attending us. Amitabh, Albin and Prem were very professional and took good care of us.

Operator responsiveness when trying to contact the reception desk.

The staff was awesome very accommodating making sure we got whatever we wanted

rooms were beautiful, however not super clean if you looked under the surface

so disappointed that only one of the three restaurants was open and the restaurant that was didn’t have much ambiance. when we raised this with management they offered to let us have a meal in our room - equivalent of about £4 extra for them. the staff were generally friendly but we didn’t think management dealt with this issue well and perhaps a bit more training for the staff in general

clean, close to beach and well maintained

far from airport