Karl Daly, Ireland

I can highly recommend this hotel.

Ran and his brother are excellent hosts.

The service is excellent and no request is too difficult.

For an excellent holiday in Jaipur you must stay at this hotel.

A festival of colours!

This is a lovely hotel and you will definitely enjoy your stay here.

Pros:

- Lovely decor in a traditional Rajput style.

- Nice swimming pool

- Attentive and friendly 24/7 staff

- Each bedroom is a real gem. Ours was huge as we took the suite. It also had a great long balcomy

- For people with low mobility, the hotel has a lift

- The hotel can arrange taxi and flights for you. We definitely recomment using their lovely Ambassador car (was only a month old when we visited).

Cons:

- Few negative points. I am usually picky on food, but their cooking was excellent

Wow ! great hotel with great price $ 35- $ 65 USD per night

We stayed at umiad bhawan heritage house hotel on the 7/12/05 for a night. I just wanted to say that umaid bhawan is an absolute gem..i have done quite a bit of travelling and this place is probably one of the best hotels i have stayed in.the hotel and rooms were immaculate and the service brilliant..you have kept it in impeccable condition and i will be recommending your place to all my friends here in the uk...thank you again.... and just for information i found this hotel on the google by putting jaipur hotels or hotels jaipur and umaid bhawan hotel was the first hotel to come up on the search !

Betty Hopkins most pleasant stay

I had booked another hotel in Jaipur. After reading the review, I canceled. Then I found the Umaid Bhawan and the reviews for it were excellent. When we arrived we were extremely pleased. The decor is wonderful, the staff so very helpful. It is more than hoped for.We highly recommend that you stay here while in Jaipur and you will be most pleased. Wonderful atmosphere.

Great Family runed House hotel

Umaid bhawan Heritage family runed house hotel is a renovated mansion. It's immaculately clean -- rooms, restaurant, hallways, everything.

The staff is helpful without being intrusive.

Quite good Mughal food is served in the restaurant, on the well manicured lawn, or in one's room.

Umaid bhawan location is convenient: it's in a nice residential area about a mile from the walled city and from the train station. (With a phone call the day before, the hotel will have a driver meet your train or bus station for free of cost and charge rupees 250 for airport pick up .)

The hotel offers about two dozen rooms that vary in size and price. Mine was a deluxe -- at US$35 a night.

Highly recommended.

One of our favourites!

My patner and i stayed at the Umaid in February 2005, and it was one of our favourite hotels in India.The owner was very friendly and helpful, as were the staff. The hotel was beautiful, we loved our room!, and there was always a rickshaw outside the hotel, so travelling around Jaipur was very easy, and best of all it is very reasonably priced for such a nice hotel.

we highly recomend it

Great heritage hotel at good price

My wife and I stayed at Umaid Bhawan in Jaipur in Nov. 2005, and it was our favorite hotel during our entire trip in India. This is not a luxury hotel, but it's got everything you need at a reasonable price: excellent service, good food, spacious rooms, hot water, and Western-style toilets.

The hotel is in a suburb of Jaipur, a little off the beaten path. But after staying at luxury hotels in Delhi and Agra on busy roads, we loved the quiet and laid-back atmosphere at Umaid Bhawan. Wish we could have stayed for a week!

Umaid Bhawan Review

I stayed in Jaipur at the Umaid Bhawan "heritage home" from Nov. 3-6, 2005. I was assigned to Room 104. I was traveling by myself, shooting photographs in India.

Overall, I really liked the hotel. It is run/owned by a family--the mother looks remarkably like Indira Gandhi 25 years ago--and her two sons.

Initially, I wasn't overly impressed with my room. It was right off the main hallway on the first floor. I would recommend avoiding this particular room, as it tended to be noisy, and there is a tiny gift shop of sorts right outside the door. You'd do much better to stay on the 2nd or 3rd floor.

The hotel was relatively clean. The food is good, though the attentiveness of the wait staff was weak at times. They kept bringing me a menu each evening that looked like it had been run over by a couple of trucks and perhaps a cow or two. But the food was tasty and reasonably priced. The physical location of the hotel is nice--a bit west of the old city, so a bit quieter than places closer in, yet still convenient--close to the train station, etc.

I used their laundry service, which was excellent. The room was pretty clean, not perfect, but ok.

What I really liked best was--a gentleman by the name of Idu Khan, an autorickshaw driver who the hotel set up for me. Idu is wonderful. Doesn't know much English, but he took me to Amber, Galta, and Sanganer, as well as a few other places. He understood what I wanted and didn't try to shuffle me into this shop or that shop. I asked him to take me to Sanganer one morning to see if I could photograph down by the river, where fabrics are dyed and dried, and to see some of the hand-made paper operations and a block fabric printer. Whether by design or accident, it was one of the best parts of the trip--we linked up with a gentleman who took me down to the river, then to a local paper plant where I watched workers making beautiful papers and met with the President of the company. We visited a small tie-dye factory, and then visited a block printer. It was wonderful. If you want someone to take around, and not interfere in your trip but instead enable you to do what you like doing, seek out Idu. He is great.

So, stay upstairs at the Umaid Bhawan. There is also a puppet show out in the courtyard that is fun, especially if you have kids.

Only negative was: I had asked to be able to check out late--1 p.m. That didn't get communicated, and the housecleaner, a young guy from the Himalayas, practically pushed me out the door.

All in all, it was above average and I would recommend it.

Fatastic heritage house hotel

HI! We had our best lodging experience in India here, staying there nov 2005.As the umaid bhawan heritage house hotel is a family runed place with a homely feel and the Room was clean and well decorated with a clean & well equipped bathroom. The house and grounds was a relaxing retreat from the hustle & bustle on the streets outside. The food was very good and the pool looked inviting .

On top of all that, the owner son Mr Ra as he was called as he have a long name gave us much helpful advice for getting around the city. Unlike most places in India where most "helpful" advice is primarily for the purpose of steering your business towards relatives, friends & associates, Mr.Ran's goal seemed to be that of helping us to have a nice stay. For example, rather than trying to arrange a driver to take us around he simply gave us the number of the radio taxi service and suggested that they were the most hassle-free and relatively inexpensive way to get around.

If I ever go to India again, I would stop in Jaipur just for the purpose of staying at Umaid bhawan heritage home again.

Beyond expectations

The moment my wife and I arrived at the Hotel we were made to feel both welcomed and comfortable. The Hotel was spotlessly clean. The owners were professional and pleasant and the hotel staff were willing to cater for your every need. It lived up to its billing in the Lonely Planet of being a well run family hotel.

We stayed for 14 nights, so are able to provide a fair assessment. It was delightful base camp for our adventures in and beyond Rajasthan. The hotel were very helpful in arranging trips for us and the drivers used were very reliable.

The food provided at the hotel restaurant was absolutely first class. Always freshly cooked and always carefully cooked.

The rooms are not beyond improvement but a lot better than average for the price. The room was always very well cleaned, and cleaned when we wanted the room to be done which was refreshing.

All in all, this is a perfect choice for those wishing to stay in Jaipur. It is very homely and very affordable. I would strongly recommend it. We definitely plan to use it again.