We spent seven days at the Taj Fisherman’s Cove Resort, which is just over an hours drive south of Chennai. It was an add on to a tour of South India with Saga. On arrival we had to go through a security system to get in to the hotel. We were greeted by a young lady who gave each of us a very nice shell necklace. We then had a cold drink and I asked if we could have a double room and to my surprise my request was granted and we were shown to room 104, which is in the main building. We couldn't get in at first as two men were working relocating the kettle in order that there was a plug free for us to use to charge appliances as there is only one socket in the room, so they said. They hard wired the kettle behind the cabinet where the television sits so that in order to boil the kettle we had to take the kettle out of the cabinet. However, the socket they left was of the very old large round pin variety and none of the adaptors I had would fit. There was another socket with an electric Mosquito killer plugged into it so I used that to plug our charger into it. That socket took the UK plug without an adaptor.
The room was small with a double bed, two wicker chairs, two tables, a large flat screen television with a good picture, a safe, a view onto a flat roof covered in mountains of Bougainvillea. The windows couldn’t be opened so the room was very stuffy. The bathroom was tiny with a shower and very little room to move around. There were fewer toiletries that we had been used to and no room shoes so we had to use some from our stock, obtained from previous Taj hotels. There is a new block at the other end of the resort where the rooms are quite modern but as with the bungalows spread throughout the resort they would incur a premium.
We went to lunch and the staff seemed surprised when we only wanted small portions of food. They seemed to want us to spend more money. The food overall wasn’t as good as we had been used to on our tour and this was made more obvious by their system of having a buffet on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and you having to use their à la carte menu the other four nights. This menu is quite restrictive, first by a limited choice and second because if you are on a meal plan, we were on half board, you can only order certain items on the menu but these are not flagged so you won’t know what you can have until you order from the waiter. The service was also a bit slow and some members of staff seemed confused at times, not knowing what to do next. I suspect more training is required.
The buffet is much better and in my opinion there is less waste as you only take what you want.
On the housekeeping front there were several occasions when items would be omitted on the daily routine, which is not really up to their standard.
The beach is clean within the limits of the hotel but outside of that it is filthy. The sea is quite rough with undercurrents and polluted so was inviting to only the very brave.
The Fisherman’s Cove is the first resort we have been to with no entertainment in the evening and there is a serious shortage of seating by the pool.
In spite of what may seem like negative comments these are as I saw it and others may see it differently. The staff in general were quite helpful. We had a good stay at the resort and would go back again but not to any of the rooms in the main building.