Astoria Hotel New Delhi

We stayed here for just a few hours before catching our flight from Delhi to London, to change clothes, shower and generally freshen up.

The location is pretty good - in Karol Bagh not far away from a Metro station, and with little shops nearby for bottled water and snacks (and the vendors don't try to rip you off).

When we arrived and signed in. The foyer was very attractive with leather sofas, a beautiful carving on the wall and marble floors.

Two porters took our bags. We told them we could take them ourselves (it was one bag each) but they ignored us and 4 of us took 2 pieces of luggage up the stairs. They then expected a tip - each. Then they ran off and brought us some towels and toilet paper.

The room itself was large and clean, and it was the first Indian hotel we had stayed in that didn't have a dirty floor.

There was a television in the room, which did achieve a grainy signal but not much more. The air conditioning worked very well but the combination of the ceiling fan and the A/C made so much noise it was impossible to have a civilised conversation.The refrigerator did not work and served as a TV stand instead.

The bathroom had a Western style toilet and shower and looked clean, but despite there being running water, the toilet did not flush no matter what we tried. There was a small window in the bathroom that looked onto the street, and one of the shutters was broken so if you were in a room across the street you could see straight into the bathroom.

I took a shower which lasted 2 minutes before the (cold) water ran out. We managed to get one of the staff members to restore the water, but by this time we only had a little while left before we had to leave so I remained unwashed.

The staff seemed polite, although we did find it somewhat disconcerting that as we popped out for some water after we had checked in, we noticed that they were watching the CCTV footage of ourselves checking in.

Overall it was an okay place to stay, but it was definitely not one of the best.

It is good for a budget - especially if you want an A/C room, although we did notice a poster on the wall saying that the A/C would be turned off between 6pm and 9pm everyday because of some requirement. However the notice was dated 2005 and we were only there between 6pm and 10pm and we had A/C throughout.

For a cheap, clean room in a good location, this is fine.