Madras Hotel Ashoka, Chennai

My friend booked a room for me and my family and after he booked the room, i was shocked to read all these reviews about Hotel Ashoka.But what i saw was different.in matter of 5 to 10 minutes we were taken to our room.room service is fast.The food was excellent.My kids really enjoyed the food.The waiters were really helpful and nice to us.I will surely go back again.in fact i ahve decided to stay in hotel Ashoka whenever i go to Chennai.

Madras Hotel Ashoka is the worst for customer services I have ever come across. We stayed here as a family of 4 in December 2007. They advertise 24 hour check in and check out. This is never explained to you when you chech in. This only means if you stay even an hour over a day you are asked to pay for 2 days whereas most decent hotels charge overstay as part of a day. Their charging policy is explained only on the paper they give you on checking out. Their customer service is non existent. The so called manager sits in a narrow cubicle as if glued on to the chair and won't move. He did not know how to communicate with customers. On the way to our room there was a smell of urine everywhere. There is a display on the wall 'DO NOT TIP', but if you don't tip you don't get any thing done. If you don't get to the restaurant early you will find a huge crowd of hungry people around the food table. We stayed one day and 2 hours and we were asked to pay for 2 days rate. When we tried to challenge we did not get any where. As we had a flight to catch we decided to pay and leave and then found that there was a huge restaurant bill for hundreds of rupees which we never used. We refused to pay this and there was no apology from them for their mistake. After we checked in we asked for 2 bottles of water and paid 100 rupees to the porter. He brought the water then we found he put this on our bill. At last we made our escape from this house of horror. In theory you can write to the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation which is a state government organisation but you will never get any reply from them. If you can afford to spend a bit more money, stay somewhere else while in Chennai. You will do yourselves a favour.This hotel has no standard at all, let alone international. T Mathew London

Too long waiting in the lobby during the early hours of the morning after val at chennai.Service was good enough. It will be nice if online booking is made possible.