Fairmont Royal Pavilion 5 stars

We had a wonderful 10 days, such a wonderful location in the West Coast. Our 5th visit. Great to see old faces, many of the staff have been there for years. A new chap Khalile has arrived and really looked after us from Breakfast through lunch & dinner! The Fairmont have nailed lunch & dinner although Breakfast is still work in progress & let’s the hotel down. The buffet is beautifully set out although anything requested from the kitchen isn’t great and if like me you like your coffee in the morning then you’re out of luck. Be prepared to wait 16 minutes from being seated and don’t expect great coffee!

A really wonderful stay. The staff couldn't have been more helpful across the whole team, from the breakfast team, chefs, reception, cleaners, porters and butlers (who we were lucky enough to experience). I've never stayed in Barbados before and the reviews for the hotel were a little bit mixed, but I'm so pleased we stayed here as everything we experienced was top quality.

We had a very enjoyable stay, the rooms were great and being able to step out literally onto the beach was wonderful. Superb butlers who were very happy to make any arrangements we wanted.

The hotel and beach location was fantastic. The staff were also fantastic. Room was great although I would say the hotel and rooms are in need of some modernisation and an uplift. The breakfast process needs addressing. There is quite often a very long delay from sitting down to getting a coffee/drink. Also, think there needs to be a menu of freshly cooked breakfast in addition to the buffet. We did not try the main restaurant at night as did not appeal and seemed always very quiet with no atmosphere. The beach restaurant was great and could not be faulted for lunch and dinner. Maybe sometimes a little quiet. The bed was fantastic and I would like details of what this bed actually was/is as would like to buy one…(please advise on Ri…)

Overall the experience was incredible with the direct access to a beautiful beach from our oceanfront suite being the highlight. The staff was incredibly friendly and we truly cherished our vacation there. On the negative side the quality of the mattresses, pillows, and overall wear and tear of the room/resort was not up the quality of various other Fairmont properties I have stayed at recently. I had a flight leg cancelation on my return trip and had to stay overnight at a budget hotel(150 per night) in Charlotte and the quality of the bed and pillows was 100% better than those at the Fairmont Royal Pavilion(1600+ per night), which seems like a major problem for a 5 star hotel. I also had some problems with a policy/package change between when I booked and when my stay started. By this I mean when I booked it clearly stated that my beachfront butler suite included private airport transfers and daily afternoon team, but when I was communicating with the Concierge a week before my stay, they told me that was no longer part of the package/room class. After a ridiculous amount of back and forth emails your staff agreed to include the private airport transfers, but not the afternoon tea, which I was fine with. Making matters worse though I then had issues with my private return airport transfer being so late to pick us up that we nearly missed my flight. Please don't take these negative comments to indicate I had a bad stay, as this vacation and the direct beach access resulted in one of the best vacations my family and I ever took, but I do expect better in the areas I mentioned from Fairmont properties. Fairmont is my preferred brand globally and I've been a loyal Platinum member that will probably move to Diamond status after the points from this stay. We loved Barbados so much we plan to make it a regular destination and I can only hope you make some of the improvements I have suggested or we may consider other properties on the island.