Hotel Sonar Bangla Sundarban

Good stay with comfortable room. Never go with meal included packages. Very poor buffet spreads. Otherwise no issues. They try to provide your requirements as far as possible. Staff behaviour is good. Room maintenance is very good. Bar option is limited.

The resort was spacious with well landscaped gardens. Rooms were comfortable and clean. Staff were helpful. Food was good though not to five star standards. We did not use the pool, spa or other amenities. The trips available and the ability to book them online would have improved planning. An earlier start to breakfast would be helpful for guests setting out on boat trips at dawn. A resident naturalist would definitely improve the experience

The property itself is gorgeous. Their ala carte food is good but buffet sucks. It can easily be a 5 star property. But the hotel's service is extremely bad. The whole trip had something or the other go wrong at all times but I will only mention the points that were the highlights. Shared boat - I had made the booking in October for a stay over Christmas. When I got there I found out that they did not have a separate full day cruise for me even though I had been requesting since the booking. Their coordinator, Mr Siddharth Banerjee, never confirmed my booking even though I had been continuously asking for it, even in his new SIM. I had to share the boat with another family. Mr Banerjee never owned up to any of the mistakes and never took responsibility. Quality of boat - lowest possible class. There was no seat in the toilet, people who owned the boat, there clothes were hanging to dry No receipt for government charges - They charged me various charges claiming it was to be paid to the government. But they never gave me any receipts. I had seen one of the receipt at the boat and had clicked a picture of it and even that was not given to me. Chicken instead of paneer - I had ordered food in the room after a day of boat ride but I got chicken instead of paneer. They did try to replace the dish but by this time I was so tired of things going wrong at every step of the way that I didn't want anything. Excess billing - They charged me Rs. 400 for a local swimming costume. I was okay with this. What was hilarious was that they charged 18% GST on top of it, claiming it was a luxury item. Actual GST is 12% on swimming costumes. I have no idea how they qualified a locally made swimming costume as luxury item. They charged me excess for the sunset cruise but they did change the bill for that. I had escalated all these issues to Mr Shantanu, the operations manager, but he was not able to prevent these incidents from recurring after the first time. I also escalated all this to Mr Satyam, their head, on our last day and all he had to say was all this should not have happened to me. After this kind of experience I am never going to this place. I am also concerned about the rest of the properties under the same brand.