Anurag A
April 20, 2025
As soon as we booked our travel to Orissa, we were looking forward to the stay at Mayfair Gopalpur as it was on our bucket list since quiet long. We were welcomed by sea shells necklace and a soft drink (although I wish the welcome drink should always be coconut water in beach resorts). As we had arrived early, we were asked to wait in a lounge till our room was getting ready. The lobby is huge with well maintained garden and lovely views of the Bay of Bengal. The jhal moori provided in the evening ***** with tea is decent, although some more snacks would have been better. We had booked an ocean view room and the view from the room did not disappoint - the room is very spacious, as expected from a 5-star resort chain. All the facilities in the resort are top notch, including the swimming pools, play area and the games room - my son really enjoyed playing foosball there. They have recently opened a small theatre where every evening a movie is played. Some of the activities mentioned were not working - cycles were in bad shape and the skate scooter was not working. They should either not mention these activities in their roster or should ensure that they are available and working. The buffet breakfast was decent but was a bit down the 2nd day - my son also fell a bit ill after having corns there and the surprising aspect was none of the service staff empathised when told about it. The food is very very expensive there (also, strangely, their rates for in room dining are more for same items if ordered in restaurant), so we had dinner in the adjacent resort. Our experience was marred by incidents on the day of check-out - they are not at all flexible about the check-out timings. Was only allowed to check out half an hour or so late and as our flight was in the evening, we submitted our luggage and started roaming in the resort. When it was time for us to leave, to our horror, we came to know that our luggage had been given to someone else and she had left. What disappointed me was the way things were handled - they kept procrastinating it as they were busy attending to arriving tourists. It wasn't until one of the staff members, Yamini intervened that things got into action. Luckily we were able to get our luggage back on the way to the airport (thankfully had a late flight), however, those 3-4 hours were very stressful for us as all our cash and credit cards were also there in one of the bags. These two incidents that happened with us for the first time (son getting ill and luggage getting misplaced) spoiled our overall experience of the stay. I understand it was the customer's fault as well (who took our luggage without checking) but things could have been handled a bit better. Hopefully, the management will take steps to avoid such things in future.