A few months ago, I updated by blog with Pune Weekend Getaway - Dreamlandd Resortt. That was a truly enjoyable weekend indeed, spending a much needed break with my office colleagues.
Recently, we all went for another weekend getaway again, and here is an update on that…
Place: Nayak's Resort Villa
Location: 37 km from Pune, around 1:30 hours by car.
Duration: 1 Night, 2 Days (Saturday 1 PM to Sunday 11 AM)
Package: Accommodation (3 AC bedrooms) + Swimming pool + BBQ grill + Badminton court + lunch + evening snacks + dinner + next day's breakfast.
Total cost: INR 48,000/- (approximately 3000 per head)
Occasion : Just to take a break from hectic office life
A view from the location.
Beautiful, innit?
Unlike the last time we went to Dreamlandd Resortt, this time was a "family affairs" sort of weekend. That means many of my colleagues came with their wives and kids.
As always, Sumeet picked me up from KP, and since I was having Vishal's BBQ grill with me, we took that along for the weekend party too, not knowing that the resort had their own freaking BBQ grill! We were unnecessarily packed house-full inside the car, *facepalm*
I took a couple of pics along the way. The journey was extremely green, as monsoon had just started to set in…
IMPORTANT: Just to be clear, we almost went to the wrong location because if you search for "Nayak's Resort Villa" on Google Map, it will throw up a completely different location. Instead, search for "Fit & Fair Beauty Spa N Resort" on google map and you'll find this place immediately right next to it.The resort lies close to the pristine Khadakwasla lake.
After around an hour of road trip, just before reaching Bhandari Villa on your left (huge signboard), take the secluded road on the right. The road will look like one of those private gated-community roads. Just tell the security you're on your way to Nayak's Resort Villa and he'll let you through.
From there onwards, you'll climb up a beautiful stretch of well-maintained road with a scenic view of the lake below…
Just keep going for around 20 minutes (you'll pass a couple of other privately owned resorts on the way), until you reach Nayak's Resort Villa.
The view of the road and scenery from the villa was breathtaking…
The others too slowly arrived one by one…
Nice interiors…
Even nicer bar! :D
Absolutely amazing swimming pool.
The swimming pool even had its own bar area, where you can sit on concrete stools lying under the water!
I roamed around and took a few more pics around the villa…
Here's a beautiful panoramic photo taken by one of my colleagues. By the way, you can click on all photos to enlarge to a new tab.
The view from the Villa garden balcony was mesmerizing…
They even brought out these comfortable lawn chairs after we requested them to…
The exterior dining area…
Lunch was soon served…
I charged my phone during lunch time, and unfortunately, nobody took photos of the food. Overall, the food was good. It was just vegetarian, but they made it in Bengali style. The paneer was memorable as well. I think my friends were all too excited about the location and preoccupied to have taken a photo of the food, otherwise if my phone was not charging inside the house, I would have definitely taken some pics.
After a short break once lunch was over, some of the guys badminton…
And then before darkness descended, the caretakers advised us to check out the hill-top temple situated not very far from the resort. Unfortunately, they told us there were no shops around for miles and the temple was the only sight worth seeing, but they assured us the view from the hilltop was beautiful.
And so off we went…
Vishal struggling with his modified Padmini to reach the top :D
Ah finally, the tip of the plateau…
Just as the caretaker of the Villa promised, the Temple was so peaceful and tranquil…
Two friendly dogs immediately came towards as, expecting food…
Unfortunately, none of us had any snacks with us, so they looked at us judgingly…
Photo time…
Mansi with Ronin…
Hakr and family…
Sparsh sitting all handsome and photogenic…
Sumeet inducing mental and psychological trauma to Ronin :D
Debasis missing his wife :D
Another awesome semi-panoramic pic of the area…
Soon it was time to head back to our Villa…
On our way back we met the recently married Rahul and his wife taking a romantic stroll by the road…
Once we got back, we all rushed immediately to play badminton again, lolz. A view of us playing badminton from the road above…
I on the other hand, went to swim at the pool…
Soon, the moon came up…
Oh yeah, night party time!
While some of us stayed in the pool, others barbequed various meats on the Villa's grill…
The pool side DJ console even had disco lights!
By the way, two of the people in charge of the management were from Manipur! They were Zomi and they understood Mizo. Apparently, they had completed their hotel management and were working there as interns. At first I was surprised they got placement at such a place with a hotel management degree, but they told me the owner of the resort also owned a lot of other resorts and hotels around Pune and they were regularly rotated. I wished them all the best and asked them to play "Val to lo" and other Mizo songs and my drunken colleagues didn't even realize they were dancing to Mizo songs :D
Once we were done with the wild night, we headed back to sleep (at least I did, while the others continued drinking and even had dinner, which I sorely missed).
For the slumber arrangement, as I mentioned in the beginning, the resort had three large and comfortable bedrooms. Four of us slept in one bedroom, another four in the second bedroom, and the third bedroom was occupied by the wives and kids.
The rest of the guys who didn't sleep in the bedrooms laid mattresses in the lounge and slept there together.
Early morning dawn photos…
Sun is rising…
For breakfast, we had poha.
The pool looked so tempting…
Soon, the sun and rain were starting to battle in the sky…
I was like, what the heck, and jumped inside the pool again :D
Others too joined again. Sumeet had the time of his life with cute l'il Ronin, while Mansi was standing at the corner complaining that she had just dried their clothes #$%&*#… :D
The fun-less people who wouldn't join us for one last dip :P Abhishek was extremely sad because a certain someone didn't come for the trip :D
We took one last shower as we left the pool because it was already past our checkout time. We fought for the shower together as time was running out :D
A beautiful capture of rain at one location while sunny at another in one frame…
Awesome fist-bumps from Ronin, as we bid goodbye to a memorable weekend getaway…
So that was my experience at Nayak's Resort Villa. I would rate the place as -
Food (for veg): 4/5
Facility: 5/5 because disco lights!
Emergency back-up: 4/5 the place ran on solar power!
Comfort level: 4/5
Swimming pool: 2/5 because it wasn't deep at all.
Privacy and freedom to be noisy: 5/5
Music quality: 5/5
At first I was disappointed because we didn't have cell phone reception so I thought it would be like the time we went to Dreamlandd Resortt where none of us could play music from the cloud, but the two guys from Manipur had an awesome collection of music to choose from :)
Until my next trip then, cheers everyone. Have a great weekend. And to my friends at Navi Mumbai, see y'all tomorrow! :)
