BEST WESTERN ROYAL PARK - Baddi

Many travellers like to occasionally splurge on a nicer hotel after a long run of roughing it in India. If you do so it makes sense to have your splurge hotel be in a second tier city like Chandigarh as the experience will cost you a bit less than in a bigger city. This place is listed as a four star hotel, not sure if that's an accurate rating or not or how these are determined, mostly the hotel was good, except the shower, which couldn't get to a balance between too hot and too cold.

"Superior single room" was spacious, comfortable, and clean. My one complaint about the room is that the free wifi in mine was so slow as to be completely unusable (taking more than 15 minutes to load a page) — unacceptable for a business hotel. Fortunately, I had brought an ethernet cable, and using the ethernet jack in the wall the speed was perfectly fine. This indicates that it is a wifi issue, not a network congestion or bandwidth issue, which shows that the hotel is not making it a priority to ensure that adequate wifi signal is reaching all the rooms — something that they could easily correct. Service was quite good: professional, friendly, and reasonably efficient. Just one minor issue: I called reception in the morning to have my bill prepared for checkout, but still had to wait 10 minutes at the counter. Not a major inconvenience, but could have been more efficient. The restaurant provided attentive service and better-than-average food. The only thing that detracted from the dining experience was a loud karaoke concert bleeding in from the hotel bar, which spoiled the tranquility. There's currently nothing of interest within walking distance, but a mall is coming up around the corner. The only business operating there as of Jan 2013 is a cinema, but several floors of shops appear to be on the way. Hometel is one of the most convenient hotels to the airport and railway station, and I would certainly stay here again if the price remains reasonably low.

This was a very hotel. The only problem was its location. A cab or motorized rickshaw was required coming and going, walking did not seem to be a safe or reasonable option.

This is not usual Taj, but for the city it was great.