Across the Bay of Bengal - Hotel Recommendation

[CDNPolar]

In early 2025 we are doing Across the Bay of Bengal ending in Mumbai.

 

We are going to stay a couple nights extra in Mumbai on our own, not with the Viking post-extension.

 

Looking for hotel recommendations that are good location in Mumbai for first timers to India.

 

Like more luxury level hotels.

 

Viking put their extension guests at the Taj Mahal Tower close to the cruise port. 

 

We have looked at the Oberoi which is in a similar area.

 

Is this not too far out from the centre of Mumbai?

Edited April 28 by CDNPolar

[mariners]

We did a pre-cruise 4 night stay booked on our own.  We stayed at the Taj Mahal Tower in a Deluxe Sea View Room that overlooked the Gateway of India, and loved the hotel, location, the restaurants, and the service.  It all depends upon what you want to do, and how you want to do it while you are there as to whether it would be the right location for you.

 

When we travel, I often use GPS My City as a resource.  Here is a link to an introduction walking tour in Mumbai that shows you the area and distance to sites from the Taj Hotel:

 

https://www.gpsmycity.com/tours/mumbai-introduction-walking-tour-1096.html

 

We chose a combination of walking, taxis, and pre-booked tours. 

 

Post 76 on the Regent Board by Flossie has some excellent insight into what they recently chose to do on their own from the ship:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/3001591-bangkok-beyond/page/4/

 

We have not stayed at any other hotel in Mumbai.

Edited April 28 by mariners
Additional information

[CDNPolar]

6 hours ago, mariners said:

We did a pre-cruise 4 night stay booked on our own.  We stayed at the Taj Mahal Tower in a Deluxe Sea View Room that overlooked the Gateway of India, and loved the hotel, location, the restaurants, and the service.  It all depends upon what you want to do, and how you want to do it while you are there as to whether it would be the right location for you.

 

When we travel, I often use GPS My City as a resource.  Here is a link to an introduction walking tour in Mumbai that shows you the area and distance to sites from the Taj Hotel:

 

https://www.gpsmycity.com/tours/mumbai-introduction-walking-tour-1096.html

 

We chose a combination of walking, taxis, and pre-booked tours. 

 

Post 76 on the Regent Board by Flossie has some excellent insight into what they recently chose to do on their own from the ship:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/3001591-bangkok-beyond/page/4/

 

We have not stayed at any other hotel in Mumbai.

 

Thank you so much for this!

[taiwan_girl]

Second the recommendation of the Taj.  Staying in the old wing is a treat.  Oberoi is another very nice hotel in Mumbai.

[Pushka]

On 4/29/2024 at 12:41 AM, mariners said:

We did a pre-cruise 4 night stay booked on our own.  We stayed at the Taj Mahal Tower in a Deluxe Sea View Room that overlooked the Gateway of India, and loved the hotel, location, the restaurants, and the service.  It all depends upon what you want to do, and how you want to do it while you are there as to whether it would be the right location for you.

 

That is exactly what we did and like you paid for the room overlooking the Gateway. Fabulous location and excellent room. Swimming pool was beautiful. This was exactly, to the day, 12 months ago. And it was so much cheaper than booking with Viking. Taxi to port didn't cost much at all. 
 

Our view. The Pool. The Arcade. 

[CDNPolar]

On 4/28/2024 at 11:11 AM, mariners said:

We did a pre-cruise 4 night stay booked on our own.  We stayed at the Taj Mahal Tower in a Deluxe Sea View Room that overlooked the Gateway of India, and loved the hotel, location, the restaurants, and the service.  It all depends upon what you want to do, and how you want to do it while you are there as to whether it would be the right location for you.

 

9 hours ago, taiwan_girl said:

Second the recommendation of the Taj.  Staying in the old wing is a treat.  Oberoi is another very nice hotel in Mumbai.

 

3 minutes ago, Pushka said:

That is exactly what we did and like you paid for the room overlooking the Gateway. Fabulous location and excellent room. Swimming pool was beautiful. This was exactly, to the day, 12 months ago. And it was so much cheaper than booking with Viking. Taxi to port didn't cost much at all. 
 

Our view. The Pool. The Arcade. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for all your comments.

 

We are looking at the Oberoi too...

 

The challenge we are having with the Taj Mahal Tower is online their reservations state that you can book and just "tokenize" your credit card and it is not charged until checkin, or no-show.  This is not working and they are trying to take full payment now for almost a year out, but suggesting that we can cancel and get the money back.

 

We are back and forth with the reservations department and they cannot seem to work it out.

 

Expedia have the hotel at a comparable cost to booking direct, but we want the breakfast included and WiFi included and Expedia is spotty when they are offering this as an upgrade option.  Some rooms have the upgrade options and some don't.

 

Anyway - your comments are great and I believe that Taj Mahal Tower is where we will end up...

[Pushka]

@CDNPolar - try Booking dot com. 

[CDNPolar]

31 minutes ago, Pushka said:

@CDNPolar - try Booking dot com. 

Thanks - never used this site before because I am not a fan of so called discount sites or aggregators.  I mention and use Expedia to find where I want to stay and then go direct with the hotel and generally get a better deal with the hotel.  I also have had a hard time in the past working through the discount/aggregator sites if we need to cancel or have a problem with the booking.

 

I did go and sigh up with booking.com but there is nothing on offer that gives breakfast included.  The cost adding the breakfast takes the price WAY above what Taj is offering on their website direct.  WAY above.

 

Thanks for the suggestion as it was worth the try.

Edited May 1 by CDNPolar

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, CDNPolar said:

Thanks - never used this site before because I am not a fan of so called discount sites or aggregators.  I mention and use Expedia to find where I want to stay and then go direct with the hotel and generally get a better deal with the hotel.  I also have had a hard time in the past working through the discount/aggregator sites if we need to cancel or have a problem with the booking.

 

I did go and sigh up with booking.com but there is nothing on offer that gives breakfast included.  The cost adding the breakfast takes the price WAY above what Taj is offering on their website direct.  WAY above.

 

Thanks for the suggestion as it was worth the try.

I think we booked direct too but didn't have the credit card issues. I think Expedia and booking are pretty much the same in terms of operations. I've used booking many times but always check direct as well. 

Edited May 1 by Pushka

[mariners]

CDNPolar, we have booked directly with hotels in different countries where we had to pre-pay to get the lowest price, with the most inclusions, and with no cancellation fees if cancelled more than 24 hours before arrival.  There are lots of variables that I take into account before making the decision on what makes the most sense for us.  Because you have stated that you don't use some of the sites others have recommended, I'm hoping some of this information might be useful to you.

 

If you use a third party site, it has been my experience that they often state that, if you choose not to pay now, that there is a disclaimer that your rate will be at the currency exchange at the time you pay.  For example, we have a hotel booked in Buenos Aires that we booked in CDN, that the invoice has in USD, and states the price we will have to pay in USD will be converted to ARS (local currency) at the "exchange rate on day of payment".  Because we know the amount that we will be paying in USD, we chose to book the hotel despite knowing that the CDN might be less (hopefully, not much less) when we are there.  We also know that we can cancel the booking and stay elsewhere if it becomes necessary for any reason.

 

We have prepaid our accommodations in Barcelona directly, and they are in CDN dollars.  We can cancel our booking up until 30 days before arrival without penalty.  Because we have been to Barcelona before, we are flexible about where we want to stay, and feel comfortable making any changes necessary given the cancellation policy.  As well, anything that makes us cancel (emergency, medical, ...) within the 30 days should be covered by our travel insurance.

 

When we have booked our accommodations in local currency in some countries, we choose to pay the additional cost of booking and paying in full at the time of the booking (most of the time where cancellation is still permitted with no additional fees).  So, when you discuss the cost of breakfast, (could be any costs such as transfers, etc.), depending upon what your concerns about pre-payment are, it might make the most sense to book directly with the hotel now.

 

[CDNPolar]

Thanks... 

 

We have worked it all out with the hotel - Taj Mahal Tower - and are now booked directly with them.

 

13 hours ago, mariners said:

 

 

I  For example, we have a hotel booked in Buenos Aires that we booked in CDN, that the invoice has in USD, and states the price we will have to pay in USD will be converted to ARS (local currency) at the "exchange rate on day of payment".  Because we know the amount that we will be paying in USD, we chose to book the hotel despite knowing that the CDN might be less (hopefully, not much less) when we are there.  We also know that we can cancel the booking and stay elsewhere if it becomes necessary for any reason.

 

 

 

Thank you for your information... here is something that saved us several hundreds of dollars.

 

Two years ago we were in Buenos Aires and we thought that we would be paying in USD and that is what we budgeted for.  This was the Sheraton.

 

We found out during our stay that the bill would be converted to ARS.

 

We were coached by a few friends that had been to Argentina more than once that we should get USD before leaving home and convert there to ARS.  We were instructed about the bank rate, the hotel rate and the blue rate.  

 

We were uncomfortable with going down the street somewhere for the blue rate, and found that the hotel rate was okay for us.  Better than the bank rate.

 

We underestimated the amount of USD that we needed to convert to ARS and ran out of cash.  We thought without doing our research that dining would be cheaper in Buenos Aires.

 

We did some investigating how to get more USD cash to buy ARS and this is what we found:

 

The Western Union rate of exchange for CDN money to ARS was better than the hotel rate that we had settled on.

 

AND, for us if we converted to USD then to ARS, we were actually paying much more than we thought in exchange.

 

The only problem is you must go to a Western Union outlet and the amounts of cash we were getting we felt like we were robbing a bank with the stacks of bills we were putting into our backpack.  We actually exchanged in the beginning only enough for a couple of days of restaurants, but then figured out that we would save a lot if we paid our hotel bill in ARS cash.

 

So in the end, we paid our hotel bill in ARS CASH, and we calculated that we saved over $300 by the time the credit card would have converted the amount to CDN at the rate that they used.

[mariners]

I'm glad that everything worked out for you with the Taj hotel.  Congratulations!

 

Thank you for the information for Buenos Aires.  It's been a long time since we stayed there, and, as it was pre-cruise, we played everything "safe".  We stayed at one of the top hotels, hired a private guide who was fantastic, and went to the recommended restaurants for dinner.  Fabulous memories, but not to be repeated on this trip as we are looking at having a different experience and staying in a totally different area.

 

In this rapidly changing world, the more current information that I get from others, the better it is for me.