Shantiniketan - Ramoji Film City

Ultimate An Indian, who prouds of Bollywood, must visit thissouth movie magic zone of SouthHood... Everything is here, from a new born baby till old aged ... All kinds of entertainment...from the rides, shows to the fire works & lights at night.. Entry approximately rupees 2500 per person, for a whole day excursion. All inclusive... Must carry extra memory cards to click so many photos and to capture all the zones till wildlife & bird sanctuary...

Ramoji has 5 types of accommodation and Shantiniketan is the middle tier one. It has very basic rooms. A few buildings have some sort of a nicer looking facade, but ours was just a square block kind of building with 4 rooms. Prefer Tara or Sitara, which are the higher tier ones, if the price is agreeable for you. Shantiniketan is more like a budget hotel. They mention this in the description, but it might be missed because it is slightly pricey for such a hotel. There is a reception for Shantiniketan that is accessible by a small walk from these buildings, but they only have a vending machine. All the room service comes from Tara hotel, so it will take about 30 mins or more. The complimentary breakfast is also in Tara. If we have to go to Tara, the folks at reception will arrange free transport, which is nice. These set of rooms are apparently preferred by technicians etc., who stay there for shoots. These buildings are a bit away from Tara and Sitara hotels and might feel a bit deserted in the evening / night. The food at the Tara restaurant is quite expensive. The biggest problem we faced was with our timing. We checked around noon and was planning to spend half of that day and next day in Ramoji. However, the staff, both at Shantiniketan and Tara, were strangely very confused about such a plan and they seem to know only about people spending one whole day in Ramoji. There were no half day tickets available with the hotel staff (they have full day regular tickets available). We tried to book the half day tickets on the site for the same day, but the site's date picker only allowed booking for the following day, which seem like a bug / oversight. We asked the hotel people about going to the main ticket counter to buy half day tickets. But the main counter is at the entrace of the film city that is about 8 kms away. The staff were not in a position to arrange transport for us to go to the main gate to buy tickets and asked us to hire a cab (which I am not sure is that easy since we are 25 kms outside the city). We ended up not doing much that day other than going to Tara hotel for food, walking around in the evening to see the lighting of the area (which was amazing) and also having food at the grounds which is setup in the evening for all visitors to the film city. So if you want to stay in the film city, you have to think about how to time it - coming in the late evening and using the whole of next day in the film city and staying overnight might not be a bad idea. Else plan for a single night, use the whole day to see everything in the film city and then check in at the whole in the night and check out in the morning..