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Monday, June 22, 2015

Oyo Rooms Review : A day when I felt like Queen being an #Oyoxplorer

Can you imagine the life of a hosteler girl turned wife turned mother, staying at home all the time, while secretly longing in her dream to be an author of a story to inspire everyone, one day?
She hardly gets to go anywhere thanks to her responsibility as a parent while her husband is busy managing his hectic work life. The girl in her, who once loved to travel and had been to places alone sometimes just gets tired of being responsible for another little girl (and of course, her husband!) for now more than two years and would often long about the times when she would sit and leisurely spend hours with her hostel friends carefree in one of their rooms to gossip frequently past midnight.

I guess it is not to hard to imagine now what happens when this girl yearning terribly for those pre-wedding, pre-motherhood days (pun intended) gets an opportunity to solo-travel her city. Yes you guessed it right, she literally jumped on bed out of joy!



I am thankful to Oyo Rooms forever for making this dream come true.
For my readers who don't know about it, let me give you a brief introduction: OYO Rooms is a network of more than 350 branded hotels, operating as of now in 16 major business and travel destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Goa, Jaipur, Kolkata. They offer budget hotel stay experience that would otherwise cost twice or thrice more. Founded in 2013, OYO Rooms is backed by Lightspeed Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Green Oaks Capital and they aim to become the largest hotel network in the world.
You must be thinking how did Oyo Rooms shower this favor on me, right? Well, 31 bloggers from the cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi & Gurgaon were selected to review their branded accommodations meant for all kinds of travelers esp. budget traveler and yours truly was amongst the lucky ones. Not only my love for travel revived but I learned the art of taking Selfies, from which I was long shying away (posting selfies on social media was part of their Game-plan.)

My husband was as excited as me (but I guess for different reasons altogether - apparently husbands look for more breaks than wives). I packed my bag, said bye bye to my husband and daughter for the day and started for Hotel Bangalore International on Majestic. In Bangalore itself Oyo-Rooms offers accommodation in more than 60 hotels, in premium as well as important locations like Marathahalli, Indiranagar, Electronic city, J P Nagar among others. Starting from just Rs. 999/- rooms can be booked based on standard, premium and even women exclusive type. The rooms are standardized with clean and spotless linens, free wifi, complimentary breakfast, AC with TV, hygienic Washrooms. Isn't that just great?
Standard Oyo Room
It was not difficult to locate the Hotel owing to the big bright OyoRoom board outside. As I checked in my standard room, I was fascinated to find it pretty decent with all the above mentioned facilities topped up with few more like a refrigerator, and an Oyo toiletries kit! Not only me, my other 9 blogger friends were also quite impressed with their rooms and the rest of the property. With free wi-fi, all of us were tweeting and posting pics about our experiences and yes, the selfies!!

Hotel Bangalore International as an Oyo Option. A great deal, right? :)
But this was just a start. Having spent all my time in South Bangalore, my feet were itching to explore other parts of Bangalore city. Here was my chance by becoming an #Oyoxplorer. Now being an explorer is certainly more fun with a buddy. I met Meghana and we immediately formed a great rapport. Together we started and covered so many famous places of Bangalore thanks to the perfect location of Oyoroom hotel. 

Our ladies-day-out post check-in started with a short 15-minute ride to Mantri mall. Our plan was to have a quick bite before we embark on our quest to map every inch of this city as true explorer of worlds. We had a sumptuous meal in the food-court. With our bellies taken care, just as we were about to start our quest, our feminine side just kicked in. We spend some time window-shopping, but a quick glance to our watches set us back on our course, sparing our spouses with a fat bill later :)

Then we headed to Bangalore palace (another 15 min auto ride) and were enthralled by its architectural grandeur (also, comparing crowd it is far better to visit than the famous Mysore palace). Afterwards, we also covered and took selfies at Vidhan Soudha.

Thus having soaked the beauty of architecture, we turned our compass to the nature's way. Ulsoor lake was next on the itinerary with another short auto ride. We enjoyed the boating at the lake and made lot of fleeting friends taking selfies with wonderful folks at different cultural landmarks of the city if Benguluru. Our wanderlust was insatiable, going one place after the other. And we could not help but notice the perfect location of our hotel from the point of view of a traveler. We closed down the curtain to our outing by having a yummilicious dinner at the restaurant just opposite to the hotel. 

Did I say closed the curtain? Well curtain was closed, but the backstage action was still on. It is a no brainer what happens when few ladies, bitten by the travel-bug meet in one place, with no distraction of kids or spouses! And thus we spent the rest of the evening chatting non-stop for hours with another fellow blogger amazing Swati of thetalesoftraveler.com. Yes, yes you are thinking exactly what I am going to mention here that I lived a Saturday of my life as Kangana aka Queen in Bangalore :D

 My Queen day in Bangalore

After spending a comfortable night, I got ready next morning and headed for breakfast. All of us bloggers had interesting chitchats over the table as we discussed about the best of Oyorooms and this whole activity. I enjoyed the complimentary buffet hosted by the hotel that had pretty decent variety for a good start of the day. 

Everything that has a beginning has an end. Our sojourn thus ended with my soul satiated from the experience. I looked forward to seeing my family and joining them back again in the regular journey of my life with a fresh mind and a smiling face.
A dream like day thanks to Oyorooms

Overall, I enjoyed my date with Oyorooms. It offers a complete package and gives you good options, thus solving one of the most important decision when it comes to impromptu travel. I feel that traveling to places which have the Oyo footprint, give the traveler good confidence about what to expect - a well rounded decent stay package with clean facilities. All types of tourists (solo-travelers esp. women, families, business or leisure) can look forward to get a good deal and comfortable stay in India with Oyorooms without any last minute shocks. They have recently launched their mobile App (Google as well Apple app store) so that booking your preferred hotel is now actually on your finger tips!

So what are you waiting for? Experience the latest buzz in Travel and Tourism industry and sing Oyo, oyo!

I will sum-up my post with a short twisted, ill-rhymed attempt at poetry :)

When life is calling, but budget falling, yet luxury you desire, what do you do?
You do Oyo-oyo.. \o/\o/
When you are bored, everyday you just snore, wanting to be on fire, what do you do?
You do Oyo-oyo.. \o/\o/
Travel is fun, but time to find good stay is none, so to be a best buyer, what do you do?
You do Oyo-oyo.. \o/\o/\o/\o/
I did, and loved it, now you do Oyo-oyo
\o/\o/\o/\o/
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4 comments:

  1. Sounds pretty good. Will try for sure.

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  2. Nice meeting you at the event. Best wishes

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  3. Oyo Oyo review I must say ;) ;) It was so much fun and a night to remember :) Glad we met

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  4. Nice review.Thanks for the information.

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