Grand Villa Houseboat

Wonderful and creative food, staff were accomodating and attentive, the boat was comfortable and the the scenery completely gorgeous. Excellent air conditioning. Bed sheets and towels changed changed every two days - much appreciated in the heat. Sumesh, Sam and Kanan were a perfect crew.

A few minor suggestions. Only cold water to shower. Some PC items were broken or needed repair (shower head, toilet seat). A hairdryer would have been useful.

All staff very helpful/friendly, but not intrusive. Good knowledge of area. Felt well looked after. Excellent meals. Catered for our party of 8, including some vegetarians and gluten free person. Good sized rooms.

No toiletries provided.

We stayed overnight on the houseboat. The boat itself was very nice. The lounge dining area was particularly good, the bedroom was fine. I wasn’t sure how it would work being the only passengers, but I was relieved that it went well. The crew of three were very professional and helpful and they made it a very pleasurable experience. We particularly enjoyed the food prepared for us.

Everything was perfect. Neat clean 5 star houseboat exceptional Food was top class yummy The staff was helpful, the accomodations were beautiful. It couldn't have been better. Thanks

Nothing

Staff wonderfull

For this price we would expect an higher quality of Boat

We got an upgrade for the boat we orginally booked, which was a nice surprise. The boat itself quite modern and almost like a little house. The staff was very friendly. Our room had a nice view on the water with a bed size of 130/140x200 approx. The boat cruise started at 12 PM and we shipped right into the Backwaters until 2 PM with a short stop. We were served a fantastic and super delicious lunch with lots of food! At 3.30 PM we continued our cruise with the most beautiful landscape in the 2 hours afterwards. As a nice little surprise we were served fried banana and tea. Nice treat! At 5:45 PM we stopped to see the sunset. Total crusing time: 4h and 15min.

After starting our cruise the chef asked us if we wanted to buy fish at the local fish market for dinner. We said yest and made a brief stop. While we first thought how attentive this individual approach was, it turned out that the local fish market was more like a tourist trap, being almost forced into buying overpriced fish. In the end we bought 5 tiger prawns based on the chefs recommendation for 1000 rupees. Even though we were told in the beginning that the cruise would go from 12:00 PM until 5:30 PM we actually didn't cruise for almost 1h and 45min because the staff needed to take a brake after 2h of working. After sunset we actually did not dock on open water and stayed there overnight as one might have thought, but just goes back to the point of checkin. This was not really what we imagined when making the booking. The chef asked us about our dinner time and prepared the 5 tiger prawns we purchased ourselves. When being served dinner we realized that the selection of food was very reduced in comparison with our lunch. It felt like that it was planned for us to buy more food the "local" fish market if we wanted to have more to eat. Based on the comparatively high price we paid this was quite underwhelming, even though, the smaller selection of food we got was still tasty. In the morning we started our last morning cruise at 8 AM for 50min which consistet of us cruising from 1 canal to the next, turn half way and going back to the check-in station. This felt like a circus just to make guest feel that staying overnight comes with the great "perk" of having another cruise in the morning. Really don't bother - it's not worth it! Also the breakfast we were served was terrible and way apart from the authentic Indian food we got the day before. If you are into white soggy toast and artificial jam you might be happy. Although the omelett, pineapple juice and tea we were served was good, it was not worth it to stay over night.

Beautiful scenery and comfortable bedrooms and dining area. We were two women traveling and felt safe the entire time. Food was delicious and beautiful and staff was courteous and helpful.

The staff were wonderful, with an excellent chef who fed us well! The bonus little walk they took us on was also very lovely. The views were lovely. It was relaxing and a great way to unwind and catch up with family

Nothing.

- The food was delicious and well-prepared according to our dietary restrictions. - The scenery and setting for the houseboat tour was truly beautiful with a lot of stunning nature, although the program is very short... you check in at noon, go on an afternoon boat ride around the backwaters, then then your are moored for the night by 5.30pm. There is no evening program but if you want, the crew will book you a massage at one of the nearby spas. The next morning you have breakfast, another short boat ride, and you are off the boat by 9am. - The Captain, Rajesh, was friendly and accommodating and did he best to be an informative and welcoming host.

A week before our arrival date we received a message purporting to be from the owner of the property demanding a downpayment for our stay, even though, according to the terms of our reservation, full payment was only to be made at the property upon check-in. Thinking the message may have been coming from a scammer, we called the property the next day, but not before we received a message informing us that the property was going to be cancelling our long-held reservation with no notice. The owner then explained that he had been getting a lot of no-shows and in the end, in order to pay for the upfront costs such as food we gave him the benefit of the doubt and transferred him the down payment. This was the first red flag. When we arrived at the houseboat, it was pretty clean, but it was definitely not up to the standard of cleanliness, comfort and attention to detail that one would expect for paying almost SGD$500 for one night. For that money we were expecting a more luxurious experience and this was definitely not that. The boat was simple and homely and offered little in the way of frills. We had access to a small deck on the bow, a living area with a tv and patchy wifi and a bedroom with a basic ensuite bathroom. All this, we could have overlooked, but what happened that evening was so jaw-droppingly inappropriate it completely underscored what a huge rip-off the experience was. Shortly after dinner the cook informed us that we needed to go to our room because he was going to be taking over our living room to rest and sleep. We then had to listen to him channel surfing the tv through the thin walls until finally we had to ask him to switch it off because we couldn't sleep. It was weird and very unsettling. When we informed the owner, he basically brushed us off and appeared to not want to engage with us. He eventually told us he had fired the staff which was not something we asked for. We were offered no further explanation nor a refund.