Royal Bengal - Santiniketan

The room was small but had all basic facilities available. Pros: fast free internet, 24/7 hot water, restaurant food was good and received within 10 minutes. Do try their chicken korma. Beautifully maintained swimming pool. Cons: The economy room was right next to a LPG gas godown. It was very loud in the early morning. Dish tv wasn't working due to low balance. The location was within 2km to Bolpur Railway station. Since we had small luggage with us, and had plenty of time, we walked to the railway station. It will probably take 20-25 minutes.

Rooms: 5 Service: 5 Location: 5 Hotel highlights: Romantic

Well furnished, almost good, 15 min walking distance from jambuni bus stand. Rooms: 4 Service: 4 Location: 3

Hotel Royal Bengal is a great place to stay in Bolpur. The rooms are clean and comfortable, and the staff is friendly and helpful. I liked this hotel. Rooms: 5 Service: 4 Location: 5 Hotel highlights: Great view

Edit: 03/10/2023 The hotel only improved after Corona. Service and food, everything has become better than before. The staff members are very professional. The executive rooms are excellent. Paid breakfast has so many more items. Quantity and quality of all the menu items are great. Most courses serve two persons properly. The only gripe I would like to mention is that often there are typical noisy 'Bangali ' families who doesn 't respect the hotel 's ambience and keep making noises and high volume 'discussions ' even at 1 am, 1:30 am. The hotel management should really take strict steps now. This is a long standing problem. First review written on: 21/08/2018, 10:35 am Royal Bengal is a good choice in Shantiniketan because most of the other hotels are just disgusting with sub sub subpar rooms and services. This could have been the only sentence in the review of this hotel. However, as an expert hotel reviewer I must explain a few things in detail. 1. Rooms: small, infact very small I have to say. A deluxe AC room should not be that small. Poorly maintained rooms are also. Peeling walls, gaps between doors and floor, and windowpanes and walls. The AC, thus becomes inefficient. Speaking of AC, the window AC (some rooms have this type, some split ones) makes more noise than cooling the entire room. The poor positioning of the AC adds to the woes. Only a part of the room becomes cold and the other part remains well enough warm to feel uncomfortable. My room, on entering was found full of dust on the floor, on the bed sheet, on the pillows and on the tables. It was a terrible first sight. However the management promptly sent a personnel who changed the sheets and covers and cleaned the tables when complained to. 2. Bathroom is OK. Good thing is that they provide good toiletries and also dental kit (with two brushes and a tube of paste) and disposable slippers in deluxe AC rooms. I liked the gesture. 3. The restaurant downstairs is OK, too. However, a few points the staff must keep in mind. Yes they are very genial. But they are callous. The problem with the staff members is that they are accustomed to serve typical middle class Bangali tourists mostly; not tourists or travelers from national or international levels in abundance. So when black tea is ordered, a typical black sugary 'dessert ' comes in a teapot. Even simple small food joints now offer tea, sugar and artificial sweetener separately. From next time onwards when ordered specifically for serving tea and sugar separately, the sugar that came with the tea was almost inedible with dampened lumps and full of black dirts. This is totally unacceptable. When ordered Chinese, there should be atleast three containers having tomato sauce, chilly sauce and vinegar present. But no such provision is there. When asked for, no one bothered to respond. This is also unacceptable. Overall food quantity is good compared to the price. The buffet breakfast needs much improvement. Keeping the breads already toasted is a very poor practice in hotel business. Toasts should be prepared on spot according to the choice of the guest. The typical every day menu luchi ghughni is pretty much pathetic in taste. However the ambience and decor of the restaurant is superb. See, this hotel is good. Infact, as I mentioned in the beginning, this is one of the very few hotels choosy clientele would like to book. The hiccups I pointed out, if corrected by the management, this hotel will be the best in Shantiniketan. They have that potential. In a gist, for a no fuss stay with your friends or loved one in well priced rooms and with hygienic foods this hotel is should be the first choice.