Caravela Beach Resort (Ex. Ramada Caravela B.R)

“Great Ec”

It was great stay. I would recommend this hotel to everyone. Special thanks to Carol, Santosh, Santan from house keeping team. They supported us very well. Also Duty Manager Nelson. Food is really good

“Amazing Caravela”

Had an amazing experience yet again! We came back because of the wonderful memories from our last visit, and Caravela did not disappoint. From the beautiful private beach to the absolutely incredible food (total food coma vibes!), everything was perfect. A special thanks to Chef Dinesh, Rohan, Jes… more

Had an amazing experience yet again! We came back because of the wonderful memories from our last visit, and Caravela did not disappoint. From the beautiful private beach to the absolutely incredible food (total food coma vibes!), everything was perfect. A special thanks to Chef Dinesh, Rohan, Jesuraj, and Prasad for the outstanding culinary experience, and to Lakrarson and Parimal for their warm hospitality. Grateful to the entire team—and the lovely friends we made here. Already looking forward to coming back!

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“A Stay to Remember by the Sea”

It was a wonderful experience the rooms offered beautiful beach views, and the staff, especially Denica, were incredibly friendly and caring, making the stay truly memorable.

“A detailed review of Caravela - worth knowing before your visit!”

We booked Caravela beach resort from the UK as part of a much longer trip around South India. This is a super detailed review; hopefully it will be helpful to someone! ⭐ **First Impressions** The first thing I would say is that Caravela isn’t 5-star, but a good 4-star. We checked in when a large… more

We booked Caravela beach resort from the UK as part of a much longer trip around South India. This is a super detailed review; hopefully it will be helpful to someone! ⭐ **First Impressions** The first thing I would say is that Caravela isn’t 5-star, but a good 4-star. We checked in when a large corporate group were leaving, and I think our welcome/ first impressions suffered a bit because of this. We got welcome drinks on arrival, but not a single smile or genuine warmth from the reception team. Worried about what this meant for the rest of the stay, I’m pleased to report no one else was like this at all—perhaps reception were just struggling with the numbers. 🌴 **Location & Grounds** The resort is laid out well and feels spacious, with the 9-hole golf course making up much of the grounds. It’s about a 5-minute walk to the beach from the garden view rooms and a few minutes to the breakfast buffet. The resort isn’t really near anything, so going for a walk locally doesn’t lead anywhere in particular. There are a handful of small shops outside the entrance to the resort if you want snacks or drinks, though the stray dog population might put some lone walkers off. Along the beach there are a few casual eateries right on the sand. Because the hotel messed up our booking one night for the dinner-in-the-sand experience, so we decided to leave the resort and try one of the shacks down the beach instead. We walked down to Eddy’s beach shack for dinner in the sand. It felt like an authentic experience of Goan food and the staff were lovely— maybe avoid the loos! 🛏️ **Rooms** The rooms are nice - adequate, roomy enough and big beds suitable for three people. We had a garden view room, but you could see the sea from our balcony. Because the resort is further back from the beachfront, I’m not sure I would bother forking out the extra money for a sea view room. The bathrooms though are extremely dated and all rooms in the basic category have a bathtub combined with shower. To me, this is unnecessary (who is having a bath in tropical weather??), unsafe for elderly guests (as these stand-in baths are quite slippy and tricky to get in and out of), and unsightly (the bathrooms clearly haven’t been renovated since the hotel was built in the 90s). They bring the room standard down significantly. When we complained about this to the duty manager, there was very little by way of apology / recompense, although our father (nearly 80) was offered another room with disabled access (which he didn’t want as he is not disabled and also it was miles away from the rest of us!). Our room was cleaned well each day despite our kids tracking in plenty of sand. We also had some lovely towel animals every day—major skills from the housekeeping team—which our kids enjoyed enormously. 🏊 **Pool & Facilities** There is one large pool available made up of three sections: * a toddler splash area * a deep kids pool (3.3ft) * a deeper adult pool (max depth 5.7ft) which surrounds the island bar The variety of pool depths suited our multigenerational family perfectly. Our family also played one round of golf which was enjoyable (it’s a small par 3 9-hole golf course), and we used the pickleball courts and tennis courts once. 🍽️ **Food & Dining** We ate in all the restaurants but our favourite was the beach hut. Chef Dilip Singh in the beach hut does an excellent job of creating a variety of foods from across the Indian subcontinent as well as some Western dishes. We loved every meal we had here thanks to him (and as a result ate here 3 times!).  Service in the main restaurant could be a little slow but on the whole we had some lovely servers. Raj was one who made a good effort at the beach hut.  We found the morning buffet good in terms of what was offered each day. Plenty for our kids to enjoy with fresh fruit, cereals and pancakes available. Heading down at 10am was fine for our group of 13 to get a space and sufficient food left. The two managerial ladies in the buffet were very attentive asking if we needed anything else. The dosas in the buffet were excellent as were the omelettes (and the lady cooking the omelettes!). The Pan-Asian restaurant was closed the entire of our stay due to the LPG shortage which was disappointing. It would have been nice to see even two or three of the dishes on the menu available in the main restaurant (which incidentally did a great medium-rare steak!). During dinner, we had two opportunities for entertainment by the superb Edmundo, a magician previously seen on India's Got Talent. If you're not blown away by this guy, you my friend, are one jaded cynical individual. What a lovely treat we were lucky enough to experience.  🍸 **Bars & Nightlife** The compact nightclub we went to twice during our stay. One night it was very busy, on the other night it was empty! Despite the sign saying crazy cocktails, there was no bar available in here which was a shame - as we would have stayed longer if that was an option. The DJ seemed good on both nights. Thanks to Prem in the atrium bar, who was excellent and clearly had a passion and knowledge of the drinks and cocktails available. He also ran the mocktail making class for the kids. We have to absolutely single out Ajay in the island bar for some truly wonderful service; we had a drink here every day and he was cheerful, warm, knowledgeable, made excellent cocktails and is a huge credit to the hotel. 🧸 **Kids Club** The kids did several activities in the kids club which seemed well run and there was a good variety of activities on.  (The nightclub is hilariously in the kids club in the evenings!) 🌊 **Beach** The beach was clean, powdery soft sand and extremely quiet at times. It tended to get busier in the evenings when the weather cooled down but compared to other beaches we visited in Goa it was tranquil. We weren't hassled by hawkers at all. It’s not suitable for little kids unless they are going to stay at the very edge of the water to paddle. The waves could be very powerful at times. There’s a lifeguard on duty almost all day though. There’s a small shack offering watersports (not part of hotel); pricing very reasonable e.g. parasailing 1 minute was 1200 INR. It would be nice if some of the sun loungers could be moved closer to the shore, as you couldn’t sit on the ones provided by the sunset bar and watch the kids—they’re simply too far away. But the intense heat meant you had to stay under shade if you weren’t in the sea. 🌱 **Sustainability** One thing worth highlighting is the resort’s use of 200ml small plastic water bottles. While convenient, they are extremely wasteful and not environmentally friendly. It’s hard not to be reminded of this when you go on a dolphin trip and see plastic bottles floating in the sea elsewhere in Goa. The same applies to the single-use toiletries provided in the rooms. Reducing single-use plastics across the resort would be a very welcome improvement. 🧭 **Final Thoughts** The resort was busy with back-to-back companies doing their annual offsite, but as they were occupied all day it meant we had the place to ourselves the majority of the time. Re tips, you could leave cash at each meal or add it to your bill - but adding it to the bill does mean the money goes into the pooled tips. We would have preferred to name and reward our servers individually but as we don't carry much cash, this wasn't always possible. Last thing—the resort needs a map! It took us a few days to get our bearings. We constantly had to ask where things were, and we never even found the gym. The resort clearly has some good facilities, but a map would make it much easier to make the most of them. TLDR; Although I would say at present the resort falls short of true 5-star standards, overall, we had a lovely stay with good facilities, beautiful grounds and some genuinely great staff (shout out to Chef Dilip again who presented my dad with some lovely birthday treats on our departure!)

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