Fairmont Royal Pavilion

First of all my husband and I have stayed at many Fairmont locations before and so expected a lovely experience but that was not the case here at all. We had an ocean front room with deck on the first floor and the views and location right on the beach was the best part of the whole experience here. The rooms are dated: chips and paint blotches on furniture, mold in bathroom on shower stall and bath tub. Food in the restaurants was also disappointing. Breakfast was the same buffet each day with some minor changes but not very appetizing considering we had coconut chia for 10 days straight, bread that some days wasn't fresh, fruit that had such hard pieces we couldn't eat them. The Beach Grill was so bad we never returned. Service was extremely slow and again the food was poor; the salad had very little dressing on it and not much besides lettuce and a few pieces of tomato, the grilled veggie wrap consisted of big chunks of beets and one other white root vegetable and it was very bland, fries were greasy with not much flavour. The Taboras Restaurant again had very slow service even though they weren't that busy. It took 15 minutes to get a drink order, it was a one hour wait for our food with no explanation as to why things were taking so long even though the waitress had told us it would be a short wait. Food choices at this restaurant are also limited and seem to stay the same each day ( no vegan options) what we did get was fair. Room service menu and Taboras food is almost identical , so not much options there. Palm Terrace is the same menu each day also and it is only open certain days of the week. The fact that this restaurant is the same location as breakfast with mismatched chairs and tables makes it not worth the price or upscale as it is advertised. During our 10 day stay we ate lunch and dinner outside the hotel for the majority of our trip. We did have two days of windy weather and the hotel removed the floating dock and round float that was anchored in the water for people to use on the beach. Those floats were never returned for use during the last week of our holiday even though weather conditions were fine and staff said it would be returned but that never happened. By the end of our trip the only staff members who really helped make our trip a bit more comfortable where Tia at the front desk, Renico and Dawn who were butlers that really understood our issues and tried to help fix things. This hotel should not be a Fairmont and definitely not be considered a 5 star resort especially since we found the high price not worth the average experience we had at this hotel.

Lovely location, lovely staff (especially Tia at the concierge desk who was so lovely & helpful) hotel overall was tired (although rooms nice) restaurants limited.

Feb.14, 2026 We arrived at airport and no Fairmont representative to greet us and take us through the Fast Track at customs nor a car waiting to take us to the hotel which was included in our hotel package. We found an airport representative, and they had a list showing our arrival that day and it said “No FastTrack” beside our name. The airport rep called the hotel and was told FastTrack and transportation to the hotel was not included in our package. We were told to take a taxi with no mention of reimbursement. We arrive at the hotel and check in after a tiring day. No mention or apology for these mishaps. We were offered a welcome drink which we accepted, this never arrived and we were escorted to our room. The next day I approached the front desk and asked what happened and I was told that they were never given our flight details. Our travel agent stated to us that these were given quite some time ago. The person at the front desk says maybe they were sent to the “Reservations” email. They seem to be very poorly organized. Why wouldn’t Reservations forward the information directly to the hotel if this was the case? After some prodding by our travel agent, they reimbursed our taxi expense and sent some sort of standard apology template done on a computer. A sincere handwritten apology would have been appreciated. Next, we had made a reservation at the hotel restaurant Taboras for 6:30 that night. We arrived on time at the reception station but were basically ignored for about 15 minutes. They weren’t that busy. We were seated at a table, and we ordered a drink first; it took almost 20-30 minutes before it arrived. Once it arrived we ordered our dinner. This took about an hour to arrive. Again, they were not that busy but were totally disorganized. We kept asking where our food is and received various conflicting replies. We received our food at about 8pm. The quality of our food was fair at best (the chicken & vegetable spring rolls were greasy and appeared to have no vegetables in them). The next day (Sunday) we went to the hotel’s Beach Club Bar and Grill for lunch. We arrived at 12:10 and were assigned a table very quickly. We ordered a drink which took 15-20 minutes to arrive and then ordered our food which arrived at 1:20pm. Salad had very little dressing on it. Staff were hard to speak with as they were too busy and when I asked why service was so slow, the response was, “it was because of the brunch being served it the main hotel restaurant. He also said to try again at another time and hopefully we will have a better experience”. After this we ate dinner outside the resort every night except one and we had great experiences with the outside restaurants in Barbados. Another issue was the difficulty in getting ice. The nearby ice machine was broken the entire time we were there (10 days) and when we set up for ice for each evening, it never arrived. We also arranged for coffee each day at 9:30am, which also didn’t arrive. Fortunately ,we had the butler service, and they followed up and immediately brought coffee to our room. On a positive note, our butlers Dawn and Renico were very responsive and did everything possible to improve our stay, we really appreciated their service . On our last day we noticed that the spare roll of toilet paper and spare Kleenex box (ours was almost empty) were removed. Did they think we were going to take them? This is very poor form on the part of the hotel! We had to call to have them returned. This hotel does not deserve to be a Fairmont hotel. Service is spotty, the rooms are old and in need of renovating, we took pictures as examples. The best thing about this hotel is being right on the beach with great views. Considering the high cost of our suite we felt robbed in that we did not receive nearly the value for the money we paid.

The location was nice. But the hotel really needs to step it up to be a high-value, pricey resort. And it is very expensive. The staff was friendly and tried to be responsive, but the service was not good. The wait for coffee at breakfast was ridiculous. Same with trying to sit down at a table at the bar for cocktails. The hot tub was lukewarm, despite repeated requests to turn up the heat. No spa. Someone knocked on my door at 9:45 for turndown service. Hard to say if management just doesn't want to spend the money to develop an A game.

Wow what a fantastic location. The view from every room is sea facing and the beach to view or walk is simply wonderful. Idyllic! BUT….. the hotel is tired and needs a serious refresh to make it 5 star! From a people perspective most staff are very attentive to guests needs although it was clearly evident that ‘extra’ attention was made to the ‘club’ members! By club I mean the clique that existed during the week of our stay. Not every guest wishes to be in the clique but it felt uncomfortable on occasions. This was particularly evident at the pool and bar area where the familiarity of guests in the clique and staff was astonishing. We also noted a couple in the clique pouring their own alcohol at the pool area (unknowingly to staff!) albeit they had wonderful attention from the motel staff including managers.