Its been a while I blogged, had been to native for kiddo's summer vacation and got to travel around Bangalore, Mysore and Hassan. The best of my vacation was #Oyoxplorer activity with
Oyo Rooms and Indiblogger, when few of we bloggers got to review Oyo Premium Rooms at Bangalore and explored places around their property.
I was just back at native after my short visit to Bangalore that I found a mail in my inbox about the #Oyoxplorer. The activity was on 30th May at four cities, Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi and Gurgaon and me still being at native during the activity applied for a slot with Bangalore bloggers. It had to be a two day trip for me and worried how kiddo would behave without either me or hubby. I somehow convinced her and left on 30th morning. On the way had breakfast at Vidyarthi Bhavan and left for OYO Rooms.
About OYO Rooms:
OYO
Rooms is a network of branded hotels, operating in 16 major business
and travel destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad,
Pune, Chennai, Goa, Jaipur, Gurgaon, Ghazabad, Manesar, Neemrana,
Kolkata, Varanasi. The properties start at Rs.999, promising a
comfortable stay which includes AC rooms, complimentary breakfast and
Wi-Fi with 24*7 customer service support. OYO offers budget hotel stay
experience that would otherwise cost twice or thrice more.
My experience at OYO Premium, Bangalore
OYO room we were invited at, was OYO Premium Majestic near Race Course. Though most of the auto rickshaw drivers knew about Hotel Bangalore International, non was familiar about OYO Rooms. But as soon as I reached Crescent Road, I could spot the OYO Premium in bold. I was quite on check-in time(12AM) and was welcomed by OYO team. I completed the formalities and soon got my room all for myself.
It was a standard room with two single beds and comfortable linen. I don't know but I have a special liking for wooden flooring, which gives the room luxe feel, and that made me awed. The room had TV with most of the channels, but I hardly watched them, also had dresser, cupboard. There was mini fridge as well, which makes your stay comfortable especially when you have a kid, with all their perishables. There was a electric plug point underneath the side table, which I always look for at most of the rooms, when I need my cell phone to be put for charging bedside, if not for anything but to wake up early with alarm. I also look for plug point next to dresser to use hair styling gadgets, both the dresser and the mirror in the washroom had plug points next to them. The washroom was quite compact and neat, with shower area separated by curtain(while few other rooms had bathtub as well).
During check-in we were handed over the Wi-Fi user-name and password. There were so many secured Wi-Fi connections of the hotel with different series, I had to take the help of the hotel staff to get the Wi-Fi connected. But again, since I had both my cell phone and tab, I had to wait for 5-10mins to log in to the second one after logging in the first. With no Wi-Fi, the hotel had very weak data network connectivity, I could hardly access my net, with out Wi-Fi. We had complimentary breakfast, which included cereals, with south Indian dishes and samosas, along with juice, coffee and tea.
While Hotel Bangalore International's traffic starts at Rs. 6,000 for double deluxe room, this OYO Premium is available at Rs. 1,899(it varies for other rooms).
#OYOxplorer, Wandering around OYO Premium, Bangalore
Just next to my room was
Shrinidhi's and got to meet him for the first time, though we knew each other online. Later met
Vidya Sury and
Shailaja, who had checked-in as well and were about to leave to explore Bangalore. Meanwhile
Roohi dropped into my room and we thought of getting around the place together.
We headed to Mantri mall for lunch, wandered around(window shopping, lol). Since most of my family and friends are put up in South Bangalore, I had hardly explored North. Every time I wanted to plan a visit to Bangalore Palace one or the other cousin's said, they were not sure if the palace was open to public visit. So this time, I really wanted to check out Bangalore Palace. So before taking an auto to the Palace, I inquired about the palace at the information center of the mall and all the lady at the counter said was, she knew there was a palace in Mysore, but not sure about Bangalore Palace. Laughing at her and myself(for checking with her lol), I checked with one of the policemen in front of the Mall, he said it was open and helped with an auto to get over.
I was really stunned by the architectural beauty of the palace and wondered why people hardly visited this palace and why there was so less crowd. Our auto driver was ready to wait till we could return and while we were getting around there he was honorable Home Minister of Karnataka, K J George. Later we took the tour of Vidhana Soudha and Attara Kacheri(Karnataka High Court), before reaching Ulsoor lake by sunset. There is a small garden at the entrance of the lake, just wandered around, had road side snacks and returned back to our room. Had dinner, later Roohi and me joined
Swati,, at her room. We spoke almost till 3 in the night, all about blogging, vlogging, bloggers and more, till we went back to our rooms to call for the day. Next morning joined the other bloggers at the restaurant, met
Partha for the first time, had some chit chat and groufies before we checked out.
It was one of a kind experience for all we bloggers to experience the stay at OYO Premium and explore the city(guess what, we were paid to explore as well), and to get to know the bloggers from the city.
