Fairmont Windsor Park Review, Amazing New Hotel near Windsor

Fairmont Windsor Park

Fairmont Windsor Park Site visit date 13^th June 2022

I’m going to start this quite functionally, today’s site visit was with a client for a specific event and, as it’s potentially one of the larger events the hotel can accommodate, it’s a good demonstration of what the hotel is able to offer at the top end conference capacity side of things.

Access and outside

The hotel is very accessible. It’s close to both the M3 and the M25, close to Heathrow and just an 8-minute car transfer from Egham train station.

You approach the hotel via some narrow country roads, but that wouldn’t stop you from being able to coach delegates in, out or to/from excursions or off-site gala dinners.

The driveway winds through parkland dotted with trees, a small bridge takes you over the lake in front of the hotel.

Car parking is adjacent to the hotel, to the right of the building. To reach the main entrance you walk past the conference entrance (more on that shortly).

A few key facts:

Set in 45 acres, the hotel is adjacent to Windsor Great Park. There are walking and jogging routes within the grounds and through into the Great Park (the hotel has maps in reception).

In the grounds there are 3 tennis courts, 2 paddle courts and an outdoor gym.

The list of things you can do here is quite vast and intriguing.

Fairmont Windsor Park has its own bee hives, they may not produce honey this year (apparently this can often be the case in year one) but, once established, the hotel will make their own honey and will offer a team build experience where delegates will be talked through bee husbandry (is that the term?) and be able to extract honey themselves.

Also, to be available (not quite ready during the site visit, but not an eye sore by any means) there will be five treehouses (four double and one single) with the idea being that each tree house with have its own Rolls Royce or Land Rover golf buggy to commute between their treehouse and the main hotel.

There will be an equestrian centre at the front of the hotel. This will have both indoor and outdoor arena’s, you can have lessons starting at complete novice through to hacking in the hotel’s grounds and Windsor Great Park.

The hotel is building a children’s playground too and a Chef’s Walled Garden. Again, there will be the option of foraging with Chef in the Walled Garden, learning about the herbs and produce which you can collect as part of a group activity which will then be turned into a menu and served to you and/or your guests.

And, if the hotel doesn’t offer enough options (and there are more which I’ll come to) then you have the Arora Lawn for team building activities, the Lake Lawn (for activities such as croquet) and the South Lawns.

The original hotel was raised to the ground. I first knew it as the Anugraha (Sandy manned the Conference and Banqueting office), then later Savill Court Hotel and, whilst this is a completely new build, there is a nod to the previous building with the façade facing the Monarch Suite entrance being a replica of the original frontage.

Leisure & public areas

So that so far is the driveway, entrance, and the hotel frontage! Let’s move inside.

We’ll enter via the hotel’s main entrance. Immediately inside the hotel and to your left is a sweetie shop (blinker the kids on the way in!), there are corridors to the left and right (back to those in a minute) and then you’re into the roundel lobby area where reception is tucked to one side, an open fireplace opposite and seating in the round.

This is where we waited to meet the hotel’s Director of Sales. Our tour began with stepping back outside the front of the hotel and we were given all the information above.

Back into the hotel and to the left (just beyond the Sweetie Shop) is the Orchid Lounge, which is made up of two areas, separated by a line of banquettes. This area is not used in the evenings and could be taken for private hire, maybe pre-dinner drinks or cocktails. Capacity is circa 100 – 120 standing.

(Point to note, none of the in-situ furniture is moveable in any of the dining outlets, sometimes due to size, weight and scale, other times down to the damage that could occur during moving.)

The Orchid Lounge is charming, tables are set out for afternoon tea, the doors to the terrace are open and the light fittings tinkle in the slight breeze. The wallpaper is, funnily enough, based on an Orchid design with orchids being a symbol of the wealth needed to own them.

Back to the main entrance (and the Sweetie Shop), facing the main roundel take the corridor opposite the Orchid Lounge and you enter the Library Club. The décor is very much smoking club, dark furniture and fittings, a large bar and a 300-year-old fireplace takes centre stage in the main area.

This area is unmanned during the day and offers itself as a quiet place to sit and work undisturbed, similarly because it is unmanned its daytime usage is low and it is available for daytime hire for groups.

Then onto another of the hotel’s dining areas off the main roundel more to the left side of the hotel towards the rear sits the 1215 bar (with small snug areas dotted along the corridor to seat roughly 4 – 6 in each, these areas do not need booking or reserving) open daily from 1215 lunchtime to 1215 at night! The 1215 bar and fine dining restaurant which leads off the bar are a nod to the 1215 signing of the Magna Carta.

The fine dining restaurant is light and airy, almost conservatory in style, again the furniture needs to remain in situ, and it can accommodate a maximum of 60 covers, available for private dining hire but guests would need to be seated over several tables albeit two groups of x 12 per table can be seated close to one another.

The hotel will also shortly have its own beer, locally produced which will be available both in bottles and draught.

There is plenty of lounge and seating areas dotted around this part of the hotel, the Chef’s kitchen will be set just outside one of those lounge areas which is situated just before you enter the 1215 bar at the back of the hotel.

Function space and meeting rooms

Taking the corridor opposite the 1215 bar takes you further into the length of the hotel, across the back of the hotel, if that makes sense, and this corridor is almost time travelling in appearance with numerous lit arches leading down to an amazing Swarovski diamond horse designed especially for the hotel. A one-off design, very striking. Covered off by two CCTV cameras, it’s all very Pink Panther!

This corridor takes you to the hotel accommodation lifts and main stairwell also to the accommodation, and then onto the hotel’s Moreish restaurant. Conference group breakfast and lunch can be served here with the restaurant having 150 covers and a semi-private screened section to the rear which can accommodate 20 seated.

You can only reach the restaurant if you can manage to pass Schroders, the home of 40 different types of gin and a lovely, sultry, blue velvet decorated snug bar.

If you can tear yourself away from the gin tasting and can move further down the corridor you come across the hotel’s creche. This is an unmanned area so nannies, childminders, babysitters will need to be booked but it is fully equipped for children of all ages including an Xbox and PlayStation. We’re now moving towards the conference area of the hotel. The hotel has two large function spaces and 11 smaller meeting rooms. The first function room you come across is the Monarch Suite with its own foyer, its own conference entrance and lawn.

From the outside of the hotel, you enter the Monarch Suite entrance which is to one side of the hotel (opposite the nod to the hotel’s previous incarnations). The foyer is light, airy, and spacious. The main suite is large, divides into two and has doors onto its own lawn which, albeit not vast can be used for fresh air breaks, BBQ’s and, at an additional cost, can accommodate a stretch tent to make more use of the lawns.

Capacity in this room, without staging or dance floors, is 400 theatre style, 280 for a dinner and 220 cabaret style.

The room is rectangular in shape with a 12ft screen and ceiling mounted projector on one of the shorter ends, in one section (when divided into two) only. The suite also benefits from a removable main wall (separating the suite and the foyer) meaning the suite and foyer can become one, ideal for exhibition style events or larger drinks receptions with a maximum standing capacity of x 600.

This is the hotel’s only function space with natural daylight, but much has been invested in providing daylight simulated light in the balance of the function space, which is accessed via escalators, the atrium that creates does help bring daylight further down as you access the other meeting rooms on the lower floors.

Down one level you reach the hotel’s smaller meeting rooms. There are 11 rooms in total the largest of which, The Admiral, can accommodate a maximum of x 100 theatre style. All but three of these meeting rooms, all of which are named are flowers and herbs, are partially wood panelled and share a communal foyer area for refreshment breaks, each has a coffee machine in the meeting room for that extra caffeine hit without leaving the meeting.

Three of these meeting rooms are executive boardrooms with a separate, semi private foyer area, all decorated in black and white print with fixed tables, one seats x 10 delegates, two seat x 8 each.

Next level down and you’ve reached the Arora Ballroom. There is a generous foyer area, again some daylight via the escalator well which helps to stop a subterranean feel.

Point to note is that if you’re taking the Arora Suite for a large conference and twinning it with the Monarch for breaks and lunches to add natural daylight and fresh air to your event then it may be worth considering blocking the level in between where the smaller function rooms are housed so you’re not passing through other smaller events as you pass between the floors.

The Arora Ballroom is lovely, pillarless, has a high ceiling, dimmable chandeliers, and pin spots lights for gala dinners. It has a car lift capable of accommodating a transit van, its own back of house and kitchens.

The room is 800m2 and capable of accommodating x 700 guests theatre style and 370 cabaret style.

There’s not too much more to add other than the Arora Ballroom is large, beautiful, and wholly useful. So nice to have a large capacity, quality hotel within the M25 outskirts of London and I was so pleased to visit it today.

Spa and Wellness and Accommodation

I’m going to leave the function space now, skip the spa (which I’ll come back to and will probably take up a whole page on its own) and move quickly to the accommodation.

The hotel has a total of x 251 rooms. If you take the hotel on an exclusive use basis, then you will need to pay for 242 rooms as the hotel will always hold back 9 rooms for longer term contracts (with these guests limited to only set areas of the hotel during exclusive use occupancy). These 9 rooms also include the Royal Suite (two bedrooms, two bathrooms, lounge, dining room, pantry, kitchen, and stone balcony) which incidentally also has its own private mini spa and private entrance.

Of the 251 rooms approximately 130 are classed as Fairmont King rooms, entry level are Eves rooms which, as the name suggests are in the eves, there are x 42 of this room category. Bedrooms are spread over all four levels, ground to the third floor.

There are also several signature suites. There are 3 terrace suites with private garden access, 4 two-bedroom corner suites, 2 one-bedroom suites each with a balcony overlooking the back lawns and the Royal Suite.

The bedrooms also feature limited edition Van Gogh wallpaper. A lovely touch, but I still smiled at the Farrow and Ball shop I passed on my way back home!

Back to the hotel’s spa where everything is possible. The Spa is 2500 square feet of torture, beauty, and relaxation space. You can hire a studio for £150 per hour and a trainer/instructor for an additional £80 per hour.

You can torture yourself in the gym with various equipment from treadmill to cycle machines. You can hire a bar studio, yoga studios can offer standard, bikram or aerial yoga, the hotel has a spin studio, 4D body imaging and cryo therapy (30 seconds in the first chamber at -80degrees to 3minutes in the second at -110 and then apparently you bounce off the walls for 4 hours, have the best night’s sleep and, I hope, tighten everything, basically, I want this!)

There is a lap pool with infrared heated stone loungers, an outdoor hydro pool, 18 treatment rooms, a hairdressers, a finishing room for nails and beauty, a barbers (not just any barbers, Truefitt and Hill), there are infrared loungers with Himalayan salt stone wall which heats to help with respiratory ailments and general wellbeing, a Hamman, and an aesthetics clinic for skin treatment and injectables.

A full list of facilities and treatments can be found here.

Summary

I’m not sure I’ve done this hotel justice. For a large group programme, you have everything to hand to intrigue, delight, relax both on-site and nearby, you can entertain delegates, partners, and their families without even leaving the hotel’s grounds and, when you need or want to, then you can do that within easy reach too.

For large, off-site gala dinners the first two options that spring to mind are Kew Gardens and Hampton Court Palace, both approximately 30minute transfer away. In terms of leisure Windsor is a short hop with many attractions, the obvious being Windsor Castle, riverboat cruises, shopping and site seeing. You have Savill Gardens, LegoLand, Thorpe Park, and Windsor Great Park.

Basically, the hotel is in a little corner of everything in terms of what it can offer in heaps itself and what is has on its doorstep.