Gateway Varkala - IHCL SeleQtions - Resort hotel in Varkala - Thiruvananthapuram, India

Let's start with the good part + The food was absolutely delicious. It's a small kitchen but the food manager is awesome and the taste of every dish that they serve is just really really good +The price is reasonable +The location is great, especially very new to the Cliff beach +The swimming pool is very nice. Actually eight feet deep Before I didn't like that much was: - the rooms especially with the garden where moldy they were smelling of mold just shows by Taj is removed his brand name from this - please seem a little understaffed especially when we reached there was no stuff to help with the luggage from the taxi

Completely astonished by how they call themselves a 4 star resort. Horrible from check in to check out. We checked out early because it was so bad. Breakfast - bad! Rooms - bad - "Gym" was an Eliptical and treadmill that didn't work. The pool does not have a swim up bar despite the images portraying one. Phones in the room don't work and the A/C goes in and out. The spa will call and wake you up in the morning trying to sell you services. The list goes on. Honestly, chose somewhere else to stay, you'll get better service and experience for less money.

Pleasant experience staying here. Loved every Aspect. Rooms are well designed and maintained neatly. Can walk to varkala beach within 10 minutes. Bike and car rentals available very nearby.

Nice, welcoming gesture, caring and humble staff, all are so good, some of them I can recall, manager was so sweet, Vishnu ,Rahna ,Shebin, Sisha , Aravind & the Chef Sunil and all staff in front and behind the scene doing very well. Room service is really quick, though for food service it took little time as may be we are in a big group LOOKING FORWARD FOR SPECIAL RECIPE FROM MY Dadi maa ke Nushke of my Treasured delicacies to be made with full of nutrition too.

Beautiful resort. Loved the stay. The management goes out of the way to please us. This is the 3rd stay in this resort. We missed our bag here and proceeded to the next destination of Kovalam Beach and the General Manager Kariappa took extra efforts to hand it over to us on time. Hospitality of Taj can never be debated upon. Always the Best. Highly recommend.

Disappointing food, below average breakfast in our two day stay. Only pros is location and bigger rooms with no mosquito repellent and lot of smell in rooms. We will definitely not visit this property again.

It claims to be a part of Taj. Unfortunately the quality and rooms are much below the standard. Rates are high which doesn't justify the service and quality. Aircondition is horrible it's too hot. Staff are very supportive and cordial. It doesn't have liquor only a beer and wine parlor. Even the toiletries are just tooth brush paste etc.. very below in all ways except room rents

I traveled to this hotel for my company's team outing. Pros: This hotel has great views, most Rooms were sea facing. It has an inherent rustic smell, which gives an authentic Kerala feel. The beach is a 10 mins walk through the shortcut they have built, and it is beautiful, but it has timings. Cons: I am disappointed with the customer service. I felt the Manager Mr. Sudeep gave me a biased treatment. He was not treating me as his customer, but he treated some others well, for no reason. While he was very much happy to assist some ppl with their baggage, he didn't even care to ask me. Coincidentally, i was invisible to him while leaving the place as well, and he did the same! I said hi when going to restaurant, and I didn't get the usual Taj smile, only from him. There was a group photo of our team, which he took for us as a nice gesture. But i was partially or completely cut down in all the photos he took. Is he chasing specific customers for 5 star reviews? Is there any inherent bias in treating people this way? I am disheartened to see this in a Taj property. Management certainly needs to look into how their staff are trained.