Coral Reef Resort & Spa, Havelock

Hotel rooms are small no fresh up kits provided and breakfast served with expired ingredients such as expired butter and expired ketchup etc. the good thing is hotel is near to beach and cleanliness other than that food is average and service is okay.

Very nice. I have stayed on 3 of the Andaman Islands and this is by far the nicest hotel. The staff, many of whom are from Sikkim, are welcoming and helpful and speak enough English to make this easy for a non-Indian guest. The buildings are 2 stories. My room was upstairs with a balcony overlooking one of the two pools. It was well set out, very clean and well lit. There was a big comfortable bed, coffee table and chairs, minibar fridge, the usual kettle and tea/coffee plus jars of sweet biscuits. The bathroom was a little cramped but the shower was big and had reliable hot water. There is a restaurant and a café, the latter with a real coffee machine which seems to be pretty rare. The food was okay, not super gourmet but good enough, and the wait staff went out of their way to be helpful. There is a bar serving a wide range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks at reasonable cost. I also had a good massage in the spa again at reasonable cost. I would be very happy to return to the Coral Reef in the future.

UNCLEAN- They didn’t clean our room, when they did it was solely making the bed. I found a dead cockroach, flies were everywhere and termites were in the ceiling. USELESS STAFF - we almost missed our ferry back to port blair because the woman in reception lied and said she had booked a taxi, which she hadn’t. Not good for 6 am new year’s day. We ended up hailing our own tuktuk while the staff laughed and said to ‘calm down’… whilst also piling on more bills. The management swan around shouting at their younger staff, some of whom are actually very good, trying to get them to be the scape goat for their mistakes (writing down and serving the wrong meal and then saying ‘oh i don’t know how that happened, stupid xyz’) NO SERVICE- we had to ask 3 times for refills after 2 days of no WATER or toilet paper- this was met with visible and verbal annoyance from the cleaners. We were lied to more times than i can count - mainly by the awful woman in reception and Baimal- e.g: telling us they booked a lunch for us at the taj (stay there instead), us travelling all the way there only to be met with the maitre de at the Taj informing us that he had told Baimal it wasn’t possible. I also received multiple bruises from the massage, after telling the masseuse to decrease the pressure multiple times. We, and the other guests ended up having to have daily chats when it was all getting too frustrating. I wish this had only happened to us, but apparently the coral reef is known for its poor service and rude staff. I will never be returning, and i hope this helps sway anyone who was planning on wasting their money

Thankfully - the island and the property have enough to offer that in spite of all the team's missteps, we had a great weekend. If you're scuba diving (or otherwise looking to spend most of your time outside the resort) I'm sure you'll be okay. Unfortunately we had a lot of trouble with the service from the hotel management and poorly trained staff. 1. When we checked in, our room still had sand everywhere. In the 5 days we were there, housekeeping didn't get our room properly cleaned even once. Many days they entirely forgot. If they did, they did a really shoddy job (only doing the bed, not replacing the towels or anything in the bathroom. Not cleaning sand in the rooms. Not taking away dishes). 2. At the restaurants - they never got my partners order right even once in the 5 days we were there. Orders came incorrectly and/or over 45 minutes late. One morning we came to the cafe that opened at 11 am. We sat there until 11:20 before someone took our order. Seems the chef only came by 11:30, our first order came by 12:15 pm. And again, my partners order never came. This was a pretty standard experience for our days there. 3. Airport pickup/drop off was really sloppy. For the pickup, I think 4 different drivers contacted me about my airport information. Ultimately, the contact information they provided wasn't even the driver at the airport it was some other guy. Who also wasn't waiting for us - we had to call him and wait. For the drop off, the hotel was really not on the ball about arranging the full trip for us. We had to be be all of over them - especially for the Port blair jetty to airport piece. The hotel thinks that they're done after arranging a ride to the Havelok jetty from the hotel (i.e. calling the 1 driver they have on staff). 4. Finally - incredibly hard to get in touch with any hotel leadership or management. 90% of the staff there are trainees with less than a year of experience. If you want to speak to the hotel manager, you'll need 30+ hours of notice and have to stubbornly wait at the reception in order to get seen. After speaking with other staff on the island, it seems the resort has a reputation for poor management.

The location of this property is amazing. Bang on the beach and made good arrangements & sit outs on the beach area. The food, especially in the 5th bristo restaurant is terrific. They have tastiest pizza and pasta in that area.. very nice staff and well maintained resort. Overall experience was really good, would love to come back again…

The swimming pool and rooms are top notch. Sanjay the hotel manager definitely did a great job connecting with his customers, making sure that the chef understands our nut allergy for one of our family. The spa at the hotel was a great experience, Sourpe and Uma did a great job on providing couples Therapeutic massage, highly recommended. Keep up the great work. Furthermore, I think more conservation efforts need to conducted to keep the coral reef intact , it will be sad if the corals dies away due to plastic pollution and lack of education in looking after the beautiful corals and fish in the ocean.