Hotel Grand Lucknow

It's a very basic property—even more so than its price would suggest. We reached early in the morning and the tiny reception was unclean and smelly. The elevator wasn't working either. We requested a room, or even just a bathroom we could use to get ready, but the receptionist said that all the rooms were sold out and that the common toilet was too unclean for us to be able to use, and that the cleaning staff wouldn't come for the next two hours. There were a couple of guests who checked out in front of us, and upon our request, he said we could use one of the rooms as the bathrooms were relatively clean, but that we would have to pay for having checked in early. This despite the fact that the room was completely untidy and all we would be doing was getting ready and leaving the hotel in an hour, and even our luggage was being kept in the reception area only. He said that the room wasn't ours for the next three hours and if any of the other guests at the property wanted to use it (because it was a wedding party), we would have to vacate it. And yet he wanted us to pay to use the bathroom inside it. It's a very cheap establishment with no customer service attitude whatsoever. I strongly doubt the authenticity of some of the positive reviews on other online portals. My advice would be to steer clear of this lodge.

To start with, this hotel was listed in two different names on the same site, FabHotel Aurelia grand and Townhouse Aurelia grand. Same room, same hotel, priced differently on the same site. I ended up paying more... At the time of check-in, i was asked in a rather unprofessional ***ner, to pay 100% room rent in advance for the entire duration of stay, "else you may leave"! I tried to talk to the ***ager, and to Fabhotel person, but they were least helpful. I asked them to return the advance, which they did not agree to. The room allotted to me was very basic, smelly and with dirty bed-sheets, pillow covers and blanket cover. I called the attendant to show this mess, he said it was due to late arrival of laundry that old sheets etc. could not be changed in time, and then he took his own sweet time of ages to change the dirty stuff. So was the case with kettle tray, cups and glasses. Surprisingly, as i learned later, this one person was serving the role of porter, room attendant, waiter at room service and what not. This hotel had a serious staff shortage. I had booked the room inclusive of breakfast, which i learned, was served in room. Just one dish, select from Poha, Parantha, Puri-sabji, etc. with tea. You pay for anything else that you order. While serving tea, room service asked to return the kettle immediately as "they had to serve other rooms also"! Looks like they had a serious shortage of utensils too! Next day I requested reception in the morning to clean the room which was, according to staff, usually done latest by 2.30pm. And as expected, when i returned in the night, it was not cleaned. Once again house keeping took their own sweet time of ages to do the needful and still they forgot to provide towels - and this took about 45 more mins. to complete and that too after reminders. Over all, very bad experience, probably this is the reason they insist on 100% advance so that they are not penalized for poor, unprofessional services... I will never recommend this hotel to anyone known or unknown, I might as well have stayed in a roadside 'dharamshala' for a better experience.