Wild Elephant Eco-Friendly Resort

The location of the place is breathtaking - mountains, tea plantations, wild forest - simply beautiful. The staff tried to be nice but speak poor English. Anyway we recived help in arranging the transportation. The food in restaurant was OK. If you like the nature you may consider the place eventhough the quality of services is rather poor.

Unfortunately the quality of the place does not reach the beauty of the sorrounding and what is more does not match the name of the place. "How dare you"... comes to my mind. How one can call the place "ecofriendly resort" and make the New Years fireworks so huge and loud. The blows scared all animals including any elefants in a long distance. I guess it is relevant for New Years eve but still should not happen. The rooms were not well maintained, so was the pool. We booked standard and deluxe room but eventually we got 2 standard rooms - actually I did not have a problem with that since the difference is only the balkony that deluxe rooms have. We were promisedto get coffe and sandwich on the day we left early for a trek - we have got nothing. Overall except for the location this was a disappointment.

The view

I should have taken more notice of the bad reviews as they are the most accurate by far.!!! Some of the good reviews must be fake. Judging by your the photos it looked quite rustic & quirky which I like and thought it would be fun. I wish I had gone by my instinct and runaway. It’s a long way up a very bad bumpy road, I felt sorry for our poor taxi drivers car, even though we had been assured by the hotel staff that it was fine to drive on (if you have a 4wheel drive car!!) we should have just ran- we did go somewhere else the next night. We were offered a tea while we waited at reception which we were subsequently charged for. Our room was dirty and very tired, the mattresses had one thin sheet on with no mattress protectors & a dirty mattress. The bed linen was stained and the curtains filthy & smelly. The floor mats were also filthy & felt greasy or damp. When I asked for extra sheets they looked surprised and rather irritated. The bathroom is not nice but bareable. The outside area looked nice on the photos, it has a lovely view but all the railings and fake tree trunks are plastic like something in an amusement park & not very ‘’Eco” friendly.. when the place is surrounded by trees. It felt like we were in a nightmare horror movie as time went on. Obviously we booked into another hotel for the next night. Supper was average, sadly couldn’t even drown our sorrows with a beer or two. Breakfast was really poor. Warm watermelon juice with a hint of onion, a plate of fruit which was ok and a couple of sad pieces of toast and jam. When we asked for tea/ coffee & honey they looked surprised and once again quite irritated. Apparently that was not part of the inclusive breakfast. The guys working there were pleasant but they were definitely not keen to do much work. The only person doing much work there was the the lovely 80 year old gardener.

The staff is nice and willing to do what ever they can to make your stay pleasant. The cafeteria is the only common interior space. You are deep in a pristine rain forest tea growing region which is lovely. The grounds are nice and the pool is a bonus.

Roads in India are problematic on a good day, after strong rains they can be a nightmare. Wild Elephant is at least 25- 30 minutes from the standard tourist visiting area of Munnar. There did not seem to be any heat or A/C. Everything was damp. Power was an issue and we needed the generator back up power. Worst of all was the hard bed and flat pillows. Had to use sleeping pills to get to sleep.