My husband and I have travelled extensively but have never been to India. We are planning to spend two weeks there this January on a private birding/sightseeing trip with Compass Tours. We would love some advice about accommodations. If we go with 4 star hotels this would include Connaught Hotel in Delhi, Corbett Ramganga Resort in Corbett National Park, Laxmi Vilas Palace in Bharatpur, Ranthambhore Regency in Ranthambhore, Carlson Hotel in Jaipur and Shikarbadi/Udai Kothi in Udaipur. If we go with 5 star hotels this would include Taj Palace in Delhi, Corbett Hideaway in Corbett National Park, The Bagh in Bharatpur, Sher Bagh in Ranthambhore, Trident in Jaipur and Fateh Prakash Palace in Udaipur. We're not looking for luxury necessarily but we would like to feel comfortable. Should we check out 3 star hotels also? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

hotels are outrageous in price in india because they are in short demand....i got good deals on sheratons in agra and jaipur and they were quite nice, but not lux...

heritage properties are interesting and some are not all that expensive...

Tripadvisor is a good website to check reviews of hotels by people who have stayed there, but you have to read carefully to find out whether the hotel is what YOU like. For example, I was thinking of Fateh Prakash Palace in Udaipur, but there were very mixed reviews --some hated it and some loved it. It seemed that the differences were mainly due to the type of room the person had. When I went on the hotel's website I saw there was a huge discrepancy in room rates, with the standard rooms about $179, and all other rooms priced at $500 or more. I opted not to reserve there because it seemed that the nicer rooms were out of my price range and the much lower priced standard rooms were below standard.

In India, a star rating has virtually no meaning, you have to go with a good operator. To be a 5 star in India, a hotel has to have a beauty salon and a 24 hour restaurant, it does not have to have replaced – or cleaned - its carpets in the last 25 years, and some of them haven't. Therefore, you have to know your operator. The best local Indian operator is Oberoi hotels which operates some of the very best hotels anywhere in the world (www.oberoihotels.com). Taj is second IMO and is OK, but quite uneven in their hotels, so you have to be careful.

IMO, the "5 Star hotels" that Compass has suggested would not make my list of what I would consider to be 5 star, other than perhaps the Sher Bagh which I have never seen but does have a good rep. They also would NOT be places I would or have stayed in India if I were going to pay top dollar during high season.

The best "5 star hotels" in the cities on your itinerary, IMO, are as follows:

Delhi
Imperial (http://www.theimperialindia.com)
Oberoi

Udaipur
Udaivilas (www.oberoihotels.com)
Lake Palace – I have a soft spot for this, but this gets very uneven reviews (tajhotels.com)

Jaipur
Jaivilas (www.oberoihotels.com)
Rambagh Palace (depending on the room, some are much better than others, but location is excellent and you cannot beat the history, charm and lawns, complete with elephant: tajhotels.com )

Ranthambore
Aman-i-khas (http://www.amanresorts.com)
Sher Bagh
Sawai Madophur - I have a soft spot here for the tents, pretty basic but the art deco charm of the original 1930's building cannot be duplicated, and there is history, charm and lawns

In Delhi, the Imperial would be my first choice for location and overall charm, but the Oberoi is a very lovely hotel too and would be a very close second. The Taj Palace is in a pretty part of the leafy green diplomatic enclave in Delhi, but that is about all I could say for that. The ITC Maurya (a Sheraton until last year) is actually better, IMO, esp the "ITC One" portion of that hotel, which is a boutique hotel within the hotel; and the hotel is home to the wonderful Bukhara restaurant. The Mandarin, even with its small rooms, is a brand new hotel and would be better than the Connaught and has just as excellent a location as the Imperial. The Park hotel would also be a good choice. The Hyatt would be better than the Connaught, IMO. (For ITC One see http://www.itcwelcomgroup.in, for The Park see http://www.theparkhotels.com, for the Mandarin, see mandarin-oriental.com

While Trident is operated by Oberoi, this is more of their budget brand generally and many of them (like the one in Agra) are more like motels. IMO the only good Trident in India is the Trident Hilton in Delhi, which is excellent. I am surprised that Compass would recco the Trident as a 5 Star and leave out the Udaivilas, which is next door, also owned and operated by Oberoi, and is so clearly a better property. This makes me question their entire list. You should ask them why no Oberoi properties are on their "5 star" list, and see what their reply is.

Can't speak for Corbett or Bharataphur.

I would try to work with Compass so that they can arrange air and ground transport and guides, esp for the birding and work out hotel rates for you on hotels YOU pick. You are of course going at THE highest season (and best weather) so hotels will be expensive. You might contact the hotels yourself and see what kind of rates you can get, they may be competitive with what Compass is offering you. There really may be no reason to do a tour at all other than a good air rate. You can arrange transport on your own, a car and driver are very inexpensive. Unless Compass is providing qualified naturalists for the birding portion (and I would ask a lot of questions about the qualifications of the naturalists), a tour may not be of very great value to you.

For hotels, a very useful website is at http://sawdays.co.uk/, click on the book for India. You can also buy the book, but the website will give you a very long list of hotels to start with. The vast majority of these hotels are not in the luxury range and some are in the budget range, but all look interesting and several, like the Imperial in Delhi, are outstanding. A good source to start. Also try neemranahotels.com as they run interesting hotels, although quality again can be a little uneven, but in some cases the charm of the place can overcome this.

Also read tripadvisor.com ratings which are pretty helpful IMO.

I think you would find 3 star hotels to be pretty basic in India. I see from your other posts that you have travelled in Africa, but I don't know the kind of accomdations yuo had there. If you had basic accomdation there, then perhaps a 3 star hotel would be OK for you. It would certainly be cheaper in the high season. They just are not like a European 3 star, where you know that the hotel is clean, even if the furniture is old, and that everythign works. Fro example, a 3 star is unlikely to have a back-up generator, and power outages are extremely freuqent and commen in India (and 4 and 5 star hotels generally have back up generators). While you don't need air conditioning in January so that is not the issue, sitting through an hour in the dark in the evening may not be so pleasant or fun.

I would think you do not need to stick to 5 or 4 star hotels and concur that the Sawdays Guide is very good - if you register on their site you can review all the entries in full on line. With a little research on your own you can personalize your selection, possibly get access to smaller, mor characterful places and not lock into ratings which as stated by another poster arent a very meaningful guide to satisfaction.

We loved the Bagh in Bharatpur, for the accomodations, excellent food and drink (go for their planter's punch} and serene, elegant atmosphere. While its not cheap, we felt it was well worth the prices charged. Since Keoladeo Ghana is essentially dried out except for some little pumping that is creating small wet areas, you may want to get Compass or your hotel to organize additional birding trips to jheels in the area if seeing lots of birds is critical to you. In the National Park a guide is not necessary - the autorickshaw guides know where the birds are, the correct nomenclature, etc for 50 rupees an hour. In 3+ hours in the park we did succeed in seeing s stork, owls and an assortment or raptors, kingfishers and other common birds - also a mongoose, wild boars, monkeys, a couple of different deer-family animals, hyenas, I think and others. But the crowds of non-resident birds were absent.

Also from the Sawdays guide, we selected Amet Haveli in Udaipur, which is currently adding more rooms with what must be the best view in the city and a restaurant looking out onto the lake. It was 4000 rupees, which we thought pricy (our "suite" was hardly that but it was newly and tastefully renoved and plenty comfortable) near Udai Kothi.

Well, with that very helpful info on the park at Bhataphur, I am leaning more toward saying you don't need a Compass tour unless they can offer you great rates on hotels, a car/driver and air fare (and maybe that is all you should use them for, and you pick the hotels and check the rates yourself.) At Ranthambore, your jeep will be assigned a track for each drive by the park authorities, so your Compass driver won't be able to pick a track. (This method is used so that all tracks are utilized in a more even fashion and cuts down on congestion; track numbers are changed periodically so if you go on Track 1 one year it may in fact be called Track 3 the next year. This is also to cut down on people thinking that one track is the preferred "tiger track".) It is the local drivers and local guides who know the tracks and where on each track you should be looking. Because of this IMO you are better off using a guide suggested by your hotel than by Compass.

I think one of the best ways to see Corbett is on horseback if I recall correctly, so again you could arrange this yourself from the hotel with one of their guids.

I believe there is also a birding area near Udaipur, look in a guidebook, I may have some info at home on this, I will take a look, I have not been but had noted something about it for a future trip. I think it is a few hours drive from Udaipur, but a drive into the desert would be quite lovely.

With regard to the Hilton Trident in Delhi which I mentioned above, I should correct myself and note that it is actually in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi, and so is not appropriate for sightseeing in Delhi. It would take about an hour during the day to get to the tourist areas of Delhi, more with traffic. It is a great location for the domestic or international airports if you have a flight out of Delhi and need a hotel for just an overnight, however.

Just for itinerary planning, please do not plan on driving from Bharataphur to Ranthambore, the road is horrible, unless they have paved it recenlty (and I mean paved, not repaved, much of it is dirt track). Go to Jaipur first and take the nice road down.

My husband and I are completely overwhelmed by the amount of thought and effort that have gone into the responses. Thank you so much. Rest assured that I am sifting through it all and doing more research.
Cicerone - I copied down the websites and plan to try for more interesting, less sterile hotels. Just a note - Compass used the Taj Palace as a 5 star in Delhi. The naturalist guides are park-supplied.
jjkbrook - My husband is going into the birding aspect in more depth. Thank you again.