We booked this resort through Nivalink and intended to stay for 3 nights but having arrived at 4pm on the 1st night we had escaped (to civilization) by 9am the following morning.
The resort's website bills itself as an idyllic, pleasing and picturesque spot of natural simplicity and happiness; and the location does at least live up to this claim, however, in no way can the camp be described as such.
Hotels I feel fall into two camps. Those that strive to make money and those that aim to make their guests' stay a pleasure. Paradoxically it's usually the latter that are the ones that end up making a profit. Camp Camelot definitely falls into the former category; its attempts to build itself up as a premier resort aren’t matched by the facilities on offer (although the pricing structure of 3000rps per night by Indian standards fits the premier bill).
We arrived on a cold damp September day but we didn't expect to find the cottage in a similar state of affairs. In the bedroom especially the smell of damp was pervasive - probably from the bedding that was filthy (blood stains on the sheets and even a dead snail in the bed). An attached dining room/lounge/kitchen (it had an discarded gas hob on the floor so could have been a kitchen) was quickly opened and re-closed (to lock in its odours) as it didn't seem to have seen the light of day in a long time (and certainly hadn't been cleaned in one).
The bathroom was equally unpleasant and also lacking in both heating and hot water (a 5kw shower which on full power generated neither heat or anything more than a trickle of water) and a step up on the bedroom being cold and damp but also dark (even with the lighting on). At least most of the evening we didn’t have to look at where we were staying as the resort is powered by a generator and has power only between 6-9pm and 8am to at least 9am (when we left so maybe longer). We could, however, see why there were no other guests and no visible signs that any had stayed recently!
Beyond the room the grounds are attractive, however, this doesn't extend to the other building accessible to guests the Dining Shack (a corrugated roofed building with 5 shabby tables - a sort of roadside cafe India style with the blue plastic lining obviously still on order). At least the food was befitting of the facilities with our meagre meal of Chicken curry containing of 4 small pieces of meat (between 2 plates!) washed down with out of date Sprite. Security is also obviously an issue as we were overseen (not waited) by 5 male members of staff during our meal, which didn't add to the ambience (a few female members of staff would have made the staff less intimidating and the rooms obviously could benefit from a woman's touch!).
After a very cold night when we utilised the towels as blankets (reasonably clean compared to the bedding) the final straw for us came after breakfast (the left over rice from the evening's meal?) when the Manager (there's also a Resort director, head Chef, Housekeeping Manager - all necessary for a resort with no guests!) announced . amidst our complaining, he'd arranged a day's tour for us with the taxi arriving at 9am for a princely sum of 1700rps per head (we later did the KTDC tour for 250rps each). When the taxi arrived we decided to hijack it to make our escape. Not as easy as it sounds as amidst our attempts to get a refund for the following 2 nights we had the Manager trying to get us to wait for the owner to come out, then try to get the taxi to leave without us, and finally trying to get into the taxi to follow us onwards.
The best summary I can give about my thoughts towards Camp Camelot is that despite the effort it took to leave early it was all worth it!