Barbados - Fairmont Royal Pavilion

I have visited this luxury hotel on several occasions, both before and after it was closed for a year in 2003 for major room refurbishment.

The hotel is well located on the St James side of the island.  It is within walking distance of Holetown and no more than about 10 minutes drive from Sandy Lane or The Cliff restaurant to the south and the excellent Fish Pot restaurant in St Peter to the north.  More significantly, it is next door to our favourite restaurant in Barbados, Lone Star, which is a maximum 30 second walk along the beach.  Interestingly, the hotel warns guests against walking along the beach after dark, as it is a public beach, but we have not encountered anyone on the beach at night other than guests of the hotel also making their way between the hotel and Lone Star.

Having Lone Star next door is particularly useful as we have found the hotel’s “Palm Terrace” restaurant to be disappointing.  The hotel has a problem in the evening as it struggles to create even a hint of a lively atmosphere.  If you arrive in the early evening you may be forgiven for believing that the hotel has very low occupancy as you sit in a ghost like bar sipping a rum punch. However, the next morning at breakfast, as you wait to be seated you may well wonder, as we frequently have, where all the resident guests go in the evening. Twice a week the hotel has a barbeque with the intention of enticing guests to emerge and spend an evening on the terrace, however even these frequently seem to fall flat.  Once a week guests are invited to join the hotel management for an early evening cocktail. This is a good touch which more hotels should adopt.

The rooms are not massively spacious but are more than adequate.  The bathrooms have a separate bath and walk in shower.  The balconies are a sensible size and all look out to sea. The rooms have Internet access which enables one to sit on the balcony whilst working on a laptop.

I strongly suggest that you request an upstairs room on the opposite side of the hotel to the restaurant.  The problem with ground floor rooms is that there is limited privacy and the terraces open on to a public beach.  The hotel beach is not private and this results in a problem with endless hawkers trying to sell you their wares and services.  It can become very irritating.  It is crucial to be polite in declining their goods and services.  Good humour works well but they are incredibly persistent and an aggressive knock back could cause problems. One local trader had a nasty sense of humour failure when we found his offer of “Bottom Viewing and Cruising” amusing.

The hotel has a swimming pool which is completely private and offers escape from the beach hawkers, but we feel it is a great pity to not enjoy the beautiful sand and clear sea of Barbados.

At around US$500 per night including breakfast, the Fairmont Royal Pavilion is a good choice in Barbados, but would improve massively if it could find some life in the evenings and lose the beach hawkers.

Fairmont Royal Pavillion
St James
Barbados

+1 246 422 4444

www.fairmont.com/royalpavilion

"bottom viewing and cruising - by boat"