TAJ MAHAL PALACE Mumbai, India 🇮🇳【4K Hotel Tour & Review】The Taj of Legends

There are few hotels on earth that feel like a privilege to stay in, even if you need to pay for that privilege. And this one, this is certainly one of them. Hi there, my name is Kevin. This channel came from a love of traveling, a love of the full process and the journey itself. I feature airline trip reports and high-end hotel reviews from all over the world. My reviews aren't sponsored by airlines or hotels, so you can be sure to get my unbiased opinion. Am I an expert? You can decide. Am I fair? Yeah, I am. Let's get into it. Welcome to Mumbai. This one's, it's not going to be your average video. In fact, if I'm honest, a video has never taken me this long to produce because, well, I can't stop watching it. And I don't normally watch my own content like for fun. So all I can do is encourage you to sit back, relax and enjoy. If you'd like to know the exact rate that I paid for this stay or my next five videos in queue, please check out the description below. Today's tour itself, I'm going to let speak a little bit for itself more than normal because it's got a lot to say on its own. I'm going to focus on the history of the facility and I would suggest not trying to imagine how the hotel is laid out, but rather just enjoy how beautiful the details and the history of the property are. Let's set up the scene first, though. Right now, we're in the far south of Mumbai, in the Colaba neighborhood. The hotel has two distinct wings, which when booking are treated as separate hotels. There's the original Taj Mahal Palace on the left and the newer Taj Mahal Tower on the right, both directly across from the Gateway of India. We're going to start out in the lobby of the tower. No matter which wing you booked into, you'll need to enter here. If you booked the tower, this is where you'll check in. If you booked the palace, you'll be escorted to the palace lobby. The foundation of the palace was laid in 1898 and it opened in 1903 by Jamsetji and Tata, of course one of the Tatas from the Tata Group, which owns Taj Hotels. When the hotel first opened, it was said that it was the only place on earth where a British Viceroy could rub shoulders with an Indian Maharaja. The tower that we're in opened in 1972, when it opened as the Taj Mahal Intercontinental, a collaboration that began when Pan Am owned the hotel chain and ended in 1995, since then operating under the Taj brand alone. If there was ever a case of if these walls could talk, it would apply here. The Taj Mahal Palace was the first hotel in India to have electricity. Its Harbour Bar was India's first licensed bar. Its Shamiana was India's first all-day dining restaurant. It has hosted world leaders, celebrities, and characters from across the globe, proudly displaying their guest books and portraits in the corridor leading to the palace lobby. It was from its steps in 1947 that Lord Mountbatten, the final English Viceroy, announced Indian independence. This place has seen it all and we know it's been through it all. What's striking though is the condition and the care. Jamsetji Tata was a stickler for legacy and maintaining what was so painstakingly built, saying, quote, In quite literally every detail, especially in the palace, you'll see that that has been honored very closely. Now, we're crossing over to the palace itself, and it brings us to the question of, who is staying here now? Well, the palace itself is pretty much consistently the most expensive hotel in Mumbai, so there's that. But otherwise, it's really a true mix of guests. A mix of ages, lifestyles, families, nationalities. A true mix that I don't really often see. And I suppose that that speaks to the original mission of the hotel, which was built FOR Bombay. Let me point out that the tower and palace guests do have access to the same facilities. So if the room itself is less important to you, then by all means, stay in the tower. Now, we're in the palace lobby. For check-in, it will be done here, or in the nearby palace lounge. The lobby was of course, the original lobby. The pool that is outside of these doors that we'll see later, is where the original driveway and entrance to the palace was, on the back road. As we head to the palace lounge, I need to set the tone for what it feels like to be in here, in the hotel. First of all, as you've seen throughout the tour already, there are fresh flowers literally everywhere, which are changed frequently and lend a buttoned up but tropical feel. But then there's the fragrance, but not from the flowers. This was the first time that I've ever needed to take notes on hotels fragrance, because I've just never smelled something quite like it before. When I asked the hotel staff, I was told that it was jasmine. But this isn't your ordinary jasmine. This was jasmine that was so pleasantly sweet, that it felt like you could literally drink the air. When I arrived at the palace lobby, it was busy, so I was sat in the immaculate lounge and given a glass of iced tea, as the layout of the property was explained to me. A few moments later, I was whisked away directly to my room, where the remainder of the check-in procedures would take place. This brings us to the centerpiece of the hotel's design, the central staircase and its dome. On the bottom left is the palace lounge entrance, and the sea lounge tearoom one level above. Sitar musicians frequently play in the grand staircase to set the mood. At 240 feet high, to this day the dome serves as an official daytime triangulation point for the ships of the Indian Navy, and every square millimeter within view is absolutely immaculate. The upper floors are for the use of palace guests only, and act as a museum within a museum. It's time to head to my room. I had a palace wing luxury room including half board booked for my stay. It feels very strange to say this, but the room, it was slightly underwhelming. But I don't think it has that much to do with the room as much as it has to do with the rest of the hotel. After all, even a beautiful ruby is going to lose your attention if it's surrounded by diamonds. That said, it was a beautiful room with top quality finishes throughout. For this category of room, you'll walk into a large walk-in closet foyer area which has a door for the bathroom, and then enter through the double doors to enter the bedroom itself. As far as the furniture, textiles, linens, and fixtures, there's absolutely nothing to fault. Everything is of precisely the quality that you'd expect, though a coffee machine would have been nice. The desk area was especially comfortable and productively laid out. The lila palaces may be the ones that are famous for their textiles and upholstery, but this palace can certainly hold its own. Towards the front of the room we have the very oversized closet and dressing room slash foyer. The bathroom was small but nicely laid out with fixtures that fit the period. On offer were some immaculate linens, Taj's exclusive Forest Essentials fragrance, and plenty of storage nooks. The footprint of the room, especially because of the giant closet area, is admittedly small, but because of the high ceilings it by no means feels closed in. My view though was not much to speak of, which is fine, and the windows do not open. My only contention with the room was the noise from the corridors. Since all of the flooring is tile or marble, you can hear the clickety-clack as anyone with proper heels walks by. Luckily I was near the end of the corridor, so for me personally it was not that much of a problem. Now we're just going to walk around the corridors and get some impressions of all of the original items on display. And now I would like to talk about the service, and perhaps the elephant in the room. After the attacks in November of 2008, the hotel sustained extensive damage. While part of the hotel did open soon after, the majority of it would not open until 2010, when the Oberoi also reopened. I've been hemming and hawing about how to speak about this in a context that seems relevant, instead of just repeating the history books. And I think it's looking at it through the lens of Tajness. Tajness is for staff, like a state of being, and for the guest, a state of grace, and revolves around Taj's Dharma, which follows the guest-as-God concept, which equates honoring the guest to honoring God. If you're not familiar with the conduct of the staff during the attacks, I highly suggest that you just read up on it a little bit, because it's almost an otherworldly concept to read about what these staff did during the siege. As said by P.K. Mohankumar in 2013, a COO of the Taj group at the time, quote, "...the spirit of the staff during the attacks came from the fact that every single employee owns the guest. So therefore on that day, those people who were inside that hotel took it upon themselves that, it's my moment. I have to put my hands up and be counted on to protect my guests. Normally, we're not used to protect the lives of guests. We're used to create experiences, to make the guest feel absolutely happy and delighted and create lasting memories. But it was the rarest of the rare moments in the history of the Taj when the lot of our associates were called on, unexpectedly, to protect the lives of our guests. And the way in which they went about doing that was a reflection of their huge intensity of connection with the spirit of Taj. No matter what, they made sure they live the spirit that guest is God. The God has to be protected. So it's that passion. That passion comes from Eastern philosophy, which believes in emotion. So there is a high emotional connection. Otherwise, in Western philosophy, it's just a job where the employee feels that it's a hotel and when time is up to disconnect, they have their life. But for us, this is life. Taj is life. There are many sobering experiences that you can have in life and soaking up a bit of it in this hotel and understanding what really happened is certainly one of them. Let's head down to the pool area. Directly outside the palace lobby is Aquarius, the pool lounge and bar that is open all day long. For me personally, the atmosphere out here was actually more transportive than anything inside. Out here, especially at night, it truly felt like you were suddenly in a different era. There's a quality about the space that is tropical and seductive and refined. And it makes you wonder if you're going to turn the corner and see Hemingway riding away while nursing a mojito. It's very pleasantly surreal. If you're a fan of sponsored travel content, well, then you're in the wrong place. But if you're a fan of honest travel content, please be sure to click that subscription button. As you know, this video is not sponsored by Taj Hotels or any other travel entity. And so your views and comments really do help the channel grow, which means more honest content for you. As always, if you have any feedback, feel free to leave it in the comments below. A big thank you in advance. So, the exterior of the palace is essentially a fortress. But there is one other entrance that is really only for pedestrians since there's no driveway, which leads into the grand staircase. Now, let's briefly touch on a few of the hotel's venues. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but we'll start off with the famed Harbor Bar, which has Wasabi by Morimoto, the hotel's Japanese restaurant, above it. Just down the hall is Golden Dragon, the Chinese restaurant, and Masala Craft, the hotel's signature Indian restaurant. There's also a Moroccan-inspired restaurant on the top floor of the tower. As I had a half-board package, my dinner was at Shamiana, the hotel's all-day restaurant, which also serves an extensive buffet for dinner and breakfast. Here's a full look at what's on offer. During dinner, there were also a variety of breads and drinks that you could order for the table. If you do visit the palace, make sure to go outside at two times. First, after dinner, when the streets are absolutely buzzing with people. And then also, early in the morning as the sun is rising behind the Gateway of India. In addition to the breakfast buffet at Shamiana, which we'll see in a moment, Sea Lounge also has an option for breakfast, which has a smaller breakfast buffet, but is best known for their afternoon tea service. And here is breakfast at Shamiana. The service here was especially warm, and you could tell who the regulars were, since the staff would seemingly walk right back into conversations, which started the day before, I guess possibly the month or the year before, with many of the guests. There were also options to order eggs a la carte. Simply because eggs benedict are so, so, so often served lukewarm or just cold, I don't even mention it anymore. But these were the first proper hot eggs benedict I've had in over a year. So that is that. If you have a love for travel, or heritage hotels, or beautiful furnishings, or incredible service, or a litany of other reasons that I could lay out for you, if you're into any of that, the Taj Mahal Palace should be at the very least on your bucket list, if nothing more than for a night or two during a longer Indian holiday. At the end of the day, I do force myself to try to be as fair as possible with the score. And so, there were a few points lost for the cost of the palace rooms themselves, the relatively isolated location, and just the sheer number of people that were passing through, especially during the busy wedding season. But honestly, none of that really matters. It's still worth a stay. I truly hope that you enjoyed this video. It's been a labor of love to make, and I hope that I did it justice. I'll see you next time with India's largest airline, Indigo, from Mumbai to Bengaluru.