Rudraksh FAQs
Answers to Rudraksh Retreat specific queries
Rudraksh Retreat is a sweet 70 metres from Gokarna Main Beach in the midst of what are mostly lush green agricultural fields, and a walk of about 150 metres from the road. It is at a distance of
- Entry point of Gokarna: 2 kilometres
- Mahabaleshwar Temple: 1.2 kilometres by car or two/three wheeler
- Om Beach: 8 kilometers by car, and 4 kilometers by walk on the trail
- Kudle Beach: 2.5 kilometres by walk to Kudle Beach or 2.1 kilometres to the parking spot on one end of Kudle Beach by two wheeler or auto, and 6.9 kilometres by car
- KSRTC Bus Stand: 1 kilometre
- Private Bus Stand: 2.5 kilometres
Access to the property is via a 3-foot-wide walking path in between the agricultural fields. The initial fifty (50) metres is on paving blocks when you arrive at a gate that is designed to keep the cattle out, followed by a sandy walking path that is elevated by about 1.5-2 feet above the adjacent agricultural fields.
This might be challenging for people with difficulties in walking. Please consider this while making any booking.
All of our rooms have hot water supplied from an overhead solar geyser, in line with our optimal footprint philosophy. It takes a little while for the hot water to flow through, but it very hot when it does, so do exercise care.
Rudraksh Retreat is a two minute, 70 metre walk from Gokarna Main Beach. There is no road access to the property. It is a 150 metre walk from the road, in the midst of rural agricultural fields.
There is no designated parking spot for the property. All cards are either parked on the roadside, or in a pay and park that is about 100 metres from the mouth of the path that leads to Rudraksh. The person driving needs to walk about 250 metres to get to the property.
The guests who do not have a spot available in the pay and park will have to use streetside parking, or the paid parking near the beach by the temple, which is about 500 metres away by walk along the beach.
We have WiFi with in-room internet access with a connection speed of 75 mbps. However, Gokarna being a remote location does have its share of internet outages that are out of our control, and sometimes at the most inopportune times!!!
So we suggest that you have a backup plan for such an eventuality.
Airtel, Jio, Vodafone and BSNL have fairly operating voice services. However, when it comes to mobile internet, Airtel and Jio networks usually give between 3-15 Mbps speeds, Vodafone is a bit of a hit and miss, and BSNL is not functionally usable for internet.
All of our rooms have ensuite/attached toilets.
We do not have a definitive policy, and we are not a pet friendly location.
However, whether a pet is allowed is entirely on a case to case basis, and entirely at the discretion of the management, coupled with the amount of responsibility and potential additional cleaning cost the guest is willing to shoulder.
Given that we have only five rooms, having an in-house restaurant isn't practical. However, we're just 70 meters away from the nearest one, renowned for its cuisine. A five-minute walk along the beach offers a selection of around 20 eateries, including a well-liked French restaurant and others with a pleasant ambiance. All the beachside restaurants serve both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, while those in the village are exclusively vegetarian.
Rudraksh Retreat is a two minute 70 metres distance from the beach. We do not have any rooms with a view of the beach/sea. What we have is a view of the garden ... blah blah ..
No. We do not have any driver accommodation, or facilities.
It is a matter of choice that we have decided to keep a low ecological footprint, and towards this we have decided to not have Electrical Geysers or Air conditioners.
Rooms and veranda are cooled with ceiling fans and natural tile cooling system so you can breathe deeply and safely the naturally filtered coastal air.
We aspire to use as many locally sourced, traditional, non-polluting products as possible to ensure your stay with us is both healthy and ecologically sustainable
While street lights are present in theory, power outages and other issues can render them non-functional at times. It's wise to keep a flashlight or use your cell phone's torch feature as a backup..
General FAQs
Answers to the most common queries
The short answer is no. You cannot make bookings on a phone call. All bookings for our hotels are online. Our support lines are to help you with any technical difficulty that you are having with the process, and not to take bookings.
We strongly advice that you go through our website, and read these FAQs that are very likely to answer most of the queries that come to us. Once you have completely gone through the website and still have queries, we request you to send us a single WhatsApp message detailing your specific query which is not about price/tariff and/or availability and/or room type detail (which can be seen on the website) . If you must call, then please restrict your calls to between 10:00am – 11:00am, and 4:00pm – 5:00pm. We receive hndreds of calls every day and it might be impossible to respond to all of them about the exact same things. However, we are at your service, and will respond to your WhatsApp queries at the earliest, or we will call you back at the first possible chance
Our entire room inventory is online, and whatever is available will be visible to you on our website www.namastegokarna.com. Availability information is only good at the time of checking. We might say that there is availability when we check, but it might show a “Full” status when you try to book or vice versa.
We have multiple beach side properties, which have multiple room types, which in turn have a dynamic pricing based on the season, on the long weekends, as well as based on the booking traffic for a certain date. It would be impossible for us to predict and list out the prices, and even if we did, they might change by the time you visit our website to make a booking.
So please explore our website www.namastegokarna.com for the most current status of availability, price & booking.
You can book all of our hotels on this website www.namastegokarna.com Payment options include credit cards, debit cards, UPI, net banking, and wallets.
All our tariffs at all our properties are always on a room only basis, and do not include any meal plan. There are no inclusions of any breakfast / lunch / dinner.
Checkin – 01:00 PM in the afternoon
Checkout: 10:00 AM in the morning
Any alteration requests can be considered on payment of additional charge, and in the event of availability. This time extension even in the event of availability is at the sole discretion of the management and staff.
If the room that you have booked is empty on the previous night, then we will give you the room as soon as the staff is ready, which would typically be between 8:00 and 8:30 am. In the event that there is a guest in the room, there will be a cleaning time after the guest checks out at 10:00 am, or latest by 10:30 am and the earliest you can get the room will probably be around 12 noon, but to set the right expectation, your check-in will probably be 1:00pm.
However, you can leave your luggage in a common area of the property that is monitored by a CCTV until the check-in time, and can go on a stroll to the beach, or for breakfast, and come back for the check-in time.
A late check-out request can only be considered upon payment of an additional charge, and ONLY in the event of there being availability. As our systems are online, we can hope to sell the rooms online for the 1:00 pm check-in, or anytime after, which we cannot predict. There is however a possibility during the non-peak times to book the room for half a day, at half the charge of a day, to hold the room until 7:00 pm.
There is no property in Gokarna which has a private beach (at the time of writing this) There might be reviews that mention that it felt like a private beach (maybe because there were very few people at the time, but the beaches are all public, and we do not have a private beach at any of our properties.
We do not have any activities that are run or managed by us.
There might be activities that third parties might be operating based on their assessment of business viability. Depending on the season and the weather, there can be a host of activities like jet skies, zorbing, banana boat rides, boat rides, kayaking, surfing etc. or none at all.
We are not responsible for the availability of such third party services during your visit.
It is very difficult specify whether one needs AC or not, as it is a very personal liking. If one is used to 18/19/20 C then it is advisable to take AC.
But the temperatures vary based on the time of the year, and with the changes over the last few years it has been very hard to predict. But the thing to consider is, the temperature and humidity outside is what it is, given that Gokarna is a beach side village. Therefore being in an AC room gives you less incentive to step out, as being out feels more uncomfortable after being in an air-conditioned room.
Apart from being able to reasonably state that 1) Mid April till June are likely to be hot, November to March being pleasant, and July and August being wet, we are not in a position to confidently state anything other than the weather as it is now (and neither can the meteorological it appears before 24 hours :-). The rains have been highly unpredictable and lasting longer while pouring down at unexpected times.
So as a variant of what they say for disappointment, ” expect rains or excessive heat & humidity, so you wont be disappointed if it does” seems to be what would be the ideal temperment.
Discover Gokarna
Top Things to Do in Gokarna
Make the most of your stay at Rudraksh Retreat by exploring the best of Gokarna. From serene beaches to ancient temples, there’s something for everyone. Here are some of the top things to do in Gokarna:
- Visit the Mahabaleshwar Temple, one of the most revered Shiva temples in South India
- Take a dip in the holy waters of the Koti Tirtha, a natural spring surrounded by temples
- Enjoy the sunset at Om Beach, one of the most popular beaches in Gokarna
- Go trekking through the lush green forests of the Western Ghats
- Indulge in water sports like banana boat rides, jet skiing, and kayaking
- Explore the quaint village of Gokarna and shop for souvenirs
- Take a day trip to the nearby beaches of Kudle Beach, Half Moon Beach, and Paradise Beach
With so much to see and do in Gokarna, your stay at Rudraksh Retreat is bound to be a memorable one. Book your stay now and get ready for an unforgettable experience.