Casa De Goa Boutique Resort

“Great Hotel -upgrade to a Villa, you won’t regret it!!”

We finished up our Indian adventure with a 10 nights stay at this lovely hotel. Having spent seven nights completing the Golden triangle and the Ranthambore tiger Safari we were in need of a relaxing break. This Hotel did not disappoint. Ahead of our stay, I had contacted the Hotel directly to ar… more

We finished up our Indian adventure with a 10 nights stay at this lovely hotel. Having spent seven nights completing the Golden triangle and the Ranthambore tiger Safari we were in need of a relaxing break. This Hotel did not disappoint. Ahead of our stay, I had contacted the Hotel directly to arrange to upgrade from deluxe rooms to individual villas. We were celebrating our silver wedding anniversary along with our good friends who were also celebrating theirs. The villas and suites are on the opposite side of the road from the hotel with a separate entrance and their own private pool. As we were approaching the end of the season ahead of monsoons, the resort was incredibly quiet. This meant we had the exclusive use of the Pool within the Villa and Suite complex, entirely to ourselves- what a treat! The interior of the villas, were roomy and bright, if slightly outdated. Having said that, they were spotlessly clean and our room-boy was incredibly polite, friendly and thorough. We had two 55” TV’s, one in the lounge area and one in the bedroom. The bed was incredibly comfortable, sheets changed regularly and luxuriously soft pillows. The air-conditioning was amazing in the room. We were able to keep this running when we were not in the room and on return returning from 35°+ outside, it felt just perfect entering the room at around 18°, making sleeping in the lovely comfortable bed a pleasure. We had a large bathroom with a round corner bath, huge double shower, twin sink and toilet. Again, the bathrooms could do with being updated, but they are perfectly clean and functional. The round bath looked inviting, but in reality due to the shape, not really long enough to lay in. The gardens are hugely impressive, throughout the day a full-time gardener is taking care of all the plants and trees, which are stunning. The pool area is lovely, they were only six (very comfortable) sun lounges, so I’m guessing in busier times, may not be enough to go around, should all the villas be occupied. Now for the highlight of our stay; Sujay (Ssujay Ghanekar), what a lovely, lovely guy! He made our holiday exceptional! Nothing was too much trouble, while we were around the pool, he would always ask if we would like drinks or snacks, he arranged for cakes for our friends on the actual day of their silver wedding anniversary. One evening, we felt we didn’t really want to get dressed up and go out exploring so he arranged for food to be brought over to us from the restaurant and we ate in the gazebo outside our villa. Sujay gave us recommendations on beaches to explore, the best place for us to hire scooters. Restaurants to try and to avoid. Literally nothing was too much trouble for him.. based on our experience with him alone we would 100% recommend anybody staying at this hotel. What a lovely guy! Every day we enjoyed restaurant breakfast, on the opposite side of the road in the main hotel, there was plenty of buffet choice and also an egg/omelette station where a chef prepared fresh eggs for you. All of the staff in here were pleasant and friendly. We did find there were a lot of Indian families holidaying in the main part of the hotel, so to guarantee a quieter environment at breakfast time we chose to go slightly earlier as it became very noisy and busy from 9 am onwards. We ate our evening meals 2 to 3 times in the main restaurant. The food again was really, really good here. During our stay, we took drinks from our mini bar which were replaced, during the days where we spent time around the pool we ordered beers, gin and tonics, cocktails and soft drinks and pool-side snacks. They were all delicious and great value. We expected our room Bill at the end of our stay to be £300-£400, but it was less than £150, absolutely incredible value. The location of the hotel is okay. On the beach side of the road down the side of the villas/suites complex, is a track leading to the beach which is around a 10 minute walk. There are a few beach shacks there, we ate in one of them, which was pleasant enough. The main road to the Hotel is possibly the worst kept road in the whole area huge great big potholes and uneven surfaces, this was the only real let down. But completely out of the hands of the Hotel. We hired scooters for a week and ventured further north, to explore the beaches of Morjim and Mandrem, where the sand was more of a silvery colour compared to the orangey sand of Calangute. We also ventured into Candolim, we would highly recommend The Fisherman’s Hut, on the beach there for relaxation during the day with drinks, snack and the evening meals are great too; with live music and entertainment. Just before sunset, they take chairs and tables down to the waters-edge, and you can enjoy cocktails and beers watching the beautiful sunsets. The flea market in Anjuna, on a Wednesday morning is well worth a visit. Lots of bargains to be had and a beautiful beach to explore while you are there. We got a taxi for approximately Rs.500 (£4) and we also went there and our scooters. We have just had the best time in Goa and will definitely return in the future. I would like to stay in Candolim instead, but this hotel was just perfect for us in Calangute, so we would be happy to high scooters and use taxes to get around and stay here again. Thank you to everyone at the hotel for making our holiday a wonderful experience.

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