[mail4ajo]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

St. James Court Beach Resort is another decent location. They have rooms for 1800/- & 2500/-. 2500/- can surely accomodate 4 to 5 guys. We can also get a discount of 10%. Food is good, drinks are reasonably priced. Access to the beach, swimming pool.

Got some reviews from friends who stayed there. Pretty decent, it seems. Lets go with it if everyone is fine. Any final headcount?

[neoranjit]

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

Got some reviews from friends who stayed there. Pretty decent, it seems. Lets go with it if everyone is fine. Any final headcount?

Ajo, can you also check if we can get any corporate discount.

[nitrous]

Originally Posted by EL

St. James Court Beach Resort is another decent location. They have rooms for 1800/- & 2500/-. 2500/- can surely accomodate 4 to 5 guys. We can also get a discount of 10%. Food is good, drinks are reasonably priced. Access to the beach, swimming pool.

Sounds good.
Can we confirm our bookings with St.James?

[fiery enzyme]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

@fiery_enzyme, thanks for the update on the rooms at Kailash. I am sure the rooms/facilities would be great. But the point is, "Is everyone OK with spending 1500 per person just for crashing there a few hours ? " I am with the majority and if everyone is OK with it, so am I.

SB, I was just giving a mini report on Kailash. I wasn't suggesting everyone go there. What goes for everyone goes for me. If you ask me I'm even good for sleeping on the beach.lol.

[condor]

nitrous : Sounds good. .. Can we confirm our bookings with St.James?

Can one of you guys initiate the process with St. James. Initial enquiries to give them a heads-up, so we can take it further with more concrete numbers.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by fiery enzyme

If you ask me I'm even good for sleeping on the beach.lol.

Yeah, you can pay the room charges & then sleep on the beach.

Originally Posted by nitrous

Sounds good.
Can we confirm our bookings with St.James?

Swimming pool is just ok, don't go thinking of a processed water, tiled pool. Otherwise, this is a good destination. It is about 5 km before pondicherry just opposite the Pondy university.

[condor]

esteem_lover : Swimming pool is just ok, don't go thinking of a processed water, tiled pool. .

Hope this particular pool was not the inspiration for Chamarajpet Charles . .

For those who still want to take a dip, there's a much bigger pool to play in ...

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

Got some reviews from friends who stayed there. Pretty decent, it seems. Lets go with it if everyone is fine. Any final headcount?

Yes, we would need a confirmed headcount to make bookings. Apart from the 1800 and 2500 rooms John mentioned, they have 2 more types of rooms (as per their website) :

Room Type ---- Double Occupancy --- Single Occupancy ---- Extra person
Standard ---- 1250 --- 1000 ---- 200
Deluxe ---- 1800 --- 1600 ----- 350
Super Deluxe ---- 2500 ---- 2500 ---- 400
Executive Suite --- 3000 ---- 3000 ---- 400

The Standard room @ double occupancy + 1 extra person comes to 485/- per head.
Deluxe room @ double occupancy + 1 extra person comes to 720/- per head.
And the SuperDeluxe @ double occupancy with 1 or 2 extra persons comes to 970/- or 825/- per head respectively.

And then there is the executive suite also.

Let's have some opinions on which of the above we could go for. Once a consensus is reached on room type and headcount, we can go for bookings. Actually we dont even need an absolute consensus on rooms - people can opt for what they want and we can book accordingly, I guess.

As per the poll, weekend of 30-31st Aug seems to be the winner - so date is confirmed. I see that the following people have voted for this option. Can they all be taken as confirmed for the purpose of booking rooms ?

anandtheleo
bottle
esteem_lover
fiery enzyme
headers
mail4ajo
Mission_Safari
neoranjit
nitrous
shekaran
supremeBaleno

madan80 (Might not stay over for night)
Rahulkool (Might not stay over for night)

Plus we would be having Bangy guys - condor, iceman91 for now and some others too.

So, looks like 11 from Chennai and 2 from Bangy as of now = 13.

[condor]

@SB / EL, can we have one POC who can be PM'ed to take count & track confirmations ?

Also suggest 2-3 rooms be taken without extra occupant, so the tentative participants can be accomodated there.

Do we have any feedback on the room quality ?

[iraghava]

Hmmm.....30-31st August, seems interesting! Let me see!

[supremeBaleno]

John, could you please take up the responsibility of organiser and keep track of confirmation PMs and stuff ? I would do that, but for my weekend travelling which would not make me available in town.

@condor, I think John and ajo have vetted the hotel to be reasonably good.

Originally Posted by condor

Also suggest 2-3 rooms be taken without extra occupant, so the tentative participants can be accomodated there.

I think during booking we will book all rooms as such, without mentioning extra occupants. Only on arrival, based on number of people that turned up, we can tell them about extra occupants.

Ishan Tyrewala, it would be great to have you over for this meet.

[esteem_lover]

SB, other than the 2 rooms i mentioned, no other rooms are functional. The standard room is actually a very good one, closer to the see, but it is in ruins (i think after tsunami), the executive suite was still not ready when i last visited in May/June 2008.

Originally Posted by iraghava

Hmmm.....30-31st August, seems interesting! Let me see!

Looks like we might have a cheap guest from a far far away land.

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

.... Otherwise, this is a good destination. It is about 5 km before pondicherry just opposite the Pondy university.

hey, esteem_lover, is this the one, that was previously known as "Mass Beach resort" (part of the Mass hotel near the Pondy bus-stand)?

I have been there very long back with some friends ... didnt stay, just had lunch and relaxed on the private beach there. It was a neat little place : the fried fish that they served was simply AWESOME. When we went in and enquired about what was available for lunch, the restaurant manager suggested the fried fish, and he also said that in case we were not satisfied with the taste, we need not pay for the fish ! Such was his confidence ! And of course, we found out that the fish was very fresh and very tastily fried. In fact we had lots of fried fish, and very little of other stuff

Sorry for the long little OT post, but this brought back some good memories!

.

[supremeBaleno]

Just called up St.James Resort and got the following details :

1. They have only 3 classes of rooms available :
Deluxe (6 rooms total) - 1800/- (Extra person-350/-)
Super Deluxe (12 rooms total) - 2500/- (Extra person-400/-)
Executive Suite (4 suites total) - 3000/- (Extra person-400/-)

2. Only 1 extra person allowed in Delux and Super Deluxe rooms, while 2 are allowed in Executive Suite.

3. Booking to be done over phone and full rent for rooms to be paid in advance via DD or via netTransfer to their Axis Bank a/c. The charges for extra persons need not be paid in advance and can be paid during checkout.

4. I asked about the Standard rooms. They said it is not very good and thus not recommended to anyone. And only given out for walk-in guests when no other rooms are available and after the guests check out the rooms and find it OK.

So, we have these 3 options to choose from :
i) 3 to a Deluxe room @ 720 per head.
ii) 3 to a S.Deluxe room @ 970 per head.
iii) 4 to a Suite @ 950 per head.

What say guys ?

[supremeBaleno]

Also, I guess we can get a 10% discount on the above rates, as another tbhp-ian has mentioned on another Pondy-Hotel thread.