Side by side RAAS Devigarh vs Taj Lake Palace

A restored 18th-century fort in the Aravalli Hills, about 28km outside Udaipur, and the thing that separates it from the city's palace hotels is exactly that distance: no lake traffic, no crowds, just a green-marble pool and a dining room lit up at night. Guests keep ordering the molten chocolate cake on repeat and booking private dinners at the Sheesh Mahal. The restoration work is the headline here — original stonework, a genuine sense of history rather than a palace-style build done with modern techniques.

The kitchen doesn't always clear the bar its prices set. One family's gatta sabzi and dal batti churma disappointed, and another guest flatly called the food under par for a five-star given what it costs, with waiters pushy enough about ordering to notice. There's also a harder edge worth knowing about: a guest with a documented medical emergency was refused any refund on a cancelled stay, and at least one walk-in couple found the front desk rigid about property access and seating. Price in the cancellation policy before you book, because it isn't flexible.

None of that undoes what the place does well. The rooms split clearly: garden suites with higher ceilings and a private gazebo suit families, palace suites suit couples who want the grander, more enclosed spaces. Staff like Samrudh and Jamil Khan get remembered by name for a reason, and the pet-friendly policy, rose-petal arrivals and morning yoga sessions add up to a stay people rebook years later. Book it for the fort and the quiet, plan your meals before you arrive, and read the cancellation terms twice.

You're paying for a building that cannot be replicated: an 18th-century pleasure palace floating on Lake Pichola, reachable only by boat, with rose petals and a ceremonial umbrella waiting on the jetty. That arrival is the reason this hotel exists on every bucket list, and the staff mostly deliver on the promise — guests write in constantly about Pradeep, Surendra, Kajal and a dozen others who remembered a birthday, tracked down cow's milk for a sick toddler at midnight, or walked a family through the actual Octopussy filming locations.

The rooms are smaller than you'd expect at this rate, and more than one guest describes bathrooms that feel dated rather than deliberately old-world, with damp creeping in where the lake meets the building. Dining is the real trade-off: Neel Kamal's thalis land well, but Bhairo's fixed $150 menu with an unprompted $350 wine upsell reads as pure margin-extraction, and a few guests found the spice dialed down and the food merely fine for the price. A checkout dispute over a "regular guest" getting priority over a paying first-timer is the kind of thing that shouldn't happen at this level, and it did, recently.

Book it for the setting and the service, not the rooms or the spa: if you want bigger suites and a private plunge pool, the Leela across the lake is the frequently-raised alternative. But nothing else in Udaipur gets you a 500-year-old palace to wander at night with a gin and tonic, and that's worth the smaller room.