Muscatel Grand Silk Route

Stayed here for two days... Amazing experience... Great location, really pleasant and clean rooms, but the thing that makes this such a good place to stay are the staff.. Thank you Aniket and Prabhas for the warm welcome we recieved..

I paid around 2200 per night for 3 nights for a single room. I was traveling solo. When I checked in, the room had a table but no chair. On my request a chair was brought in. No towels were given. Apparently it's because of Covid but it wasn't mentioned anywhere during the booking process. The size of the room was extremely small. With the bed and the table, the entire space was cramped. The bathroom had a western toilet situated at an awkward angle, so that if you sit on it one of your feet will touch the drain. On the plus side, they require a double vaccination proof before entry, or atleast a single vaccine and RTPCR report. They all seem serious about maintaining a sanitized environment. All in all, it failed to meet my expectations of a premium property. 3/5

This medium-size hotel is situated on a narrow, steep and tight curve of a lane. The Reception is very much cold and unhelpful. It can offer no cars or tourist information. The standard rooms are small and cramped and in a separate wing with no reception desk. No power all night and no complimentary tea or water bottle on arrival. Premium rooms too are small. Food is simple but expensive. M.G. Market is at least 200 mt. above and very difficult to reach by the steep road where no taxis want to go because of the one way traffic rules. Certainly not suitable for families and couples. I also stayed in a different hotel close by and it was so much better.

We'd booked this place as a group of 18 people. Positives: The location is good. Its very close to the MG Road. 5-min walk. The rooms were decent as per price. Negatives: We went in Oct 2021. The whole property was very understaffed. There were maybe 5-6 people managing the entire place (including the restaurant staff). This meant very slow service. Breakfast experience was horrible. It was included in our booking but for some reason the staff did not have knowledge about this. They began cooking breakfast when we showed that it was included. We were only offered paratha, eggs of choice, tea/coffee/juice. When we asked for bread, they said its 'expired'. The preparation was also very slow so the entire group had to wait for almost an hour. Sound-proofing is negligible. As we'd arrived in a group, we had planned to have a party in one of the rooms. The hotel staff started raising issues right from 8:30pm about noise and disturbing the residents. While we tried to accommodate their requests, it can be difficult if you're a large group. The next night they threatened us with police action or eviction if we even attempted to make noise. We had to cancel our party that night and we accommodated their request. But this meant less fun. We had booked 7 rooms (six triple and one double). The double room was given in the other building. This was slightly inconvenient. Lift was not working. Everyone was made to climb stairs. We had to carry our own luggage as they had no staff to help. Overall, it was a poor experience. It seems the hotel has hired local people to run the place but they're not trained in hospitality. Avoid if you're coming in a large group.

In this review, I will not only share what I found wrong with this hotel, but also the behavior of the hotel's manager who called me after I reviewed the property on the booking site. I had earlier stayed at another Muscatel hotel in Gangtok (Bellevue), faced the same issues there, and moved here later. I had a non-refundable booking, no choice except losing all my booking money. (I have reviewed Muscatel Bellevue also on TripAdvisor.) The problem is the policy of the Muscatel group, of not changing bed linen when their guests check out. Instead, they make the next guests use the same old and dirty bed linen (unless someone complains). Since I knew the problem from Muscatel Bellevue, the first thing I did after getting a room at Grand Silk Route was to inspect the bed linen. It was used and dirty as expected, with strands of hair on the sheet and stains, etc. I called the front office, after which someone came to the room and after seeing hair and other dirt on the bedsheet, called the housekeeping staff. Now I had a bed with fresh sheets, but the room was very noisy due to some hammer work going on in the same or the next building. Next day they changed the room and I moved to another side of the hotel where again I found a bed with dirty and used bed linen. Again I called the front office, and they got the linen changed. It was proved, undoubtedly. They never changed the bed linen unless someone complained. I wrote this issue in my review of the hotel on the booking site, after which a person from the hotel called, saying he managed the hotel (phone number ending with 88337.) His tone was really offensive in which he said the following: 1. He said if I was so particular about a clean bed, then I should book a 5-star hotel. What he meant was that if someone is paying INR 2500 per night for a hotel room in Gangtok, then they deserve only dirty and previously used bed linen. 2. He then said because the bed linen was changed after I complained, my review was unjustified. He did not bother explaining why they do not change bed linen when the guests check out. 3. Furthermore, he was upset about the review, and not about their own policy of providing dirty bed linen. Since his shouting did not seem to end, I told him I was going to end the call, at which point, I heard him use some curse words (not in Hindi or English). I promptly disconnected the call. Before this Muscatel experience, I had a very high opinion of Sikkim. Now I am uncertain if I want to visit that state again.