After a few days wandering around Tbilisi, I headed to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. With plenty of time in the city, I chose to stay in two different hotels. For the first two nights, I stayed at the JW Marriott. Honestly, it was a bit disappointing: I didn’t receive any room upgrade at all. Everything was fairly standard, so I won’t go into detail. Here’s a photo of the room first:
The highlight was definitely the food offering. Breakfast was abundant, but the lounge’s happy hour was even better: hot dishes included grilled shrimp and beef skewers, and they even had fresh-made pasta. I think it was my first time seeing a live-cooking station in an executive lounge outside of China.
The downside was the location. It sits on the far edge of the seaside boulevard, and the traffic nearby is extremely heavy. For the final night, I considered trying the newly opened Ritz-Carlton, where just over 50,000 points could book a club room. But after checking out some photos, I wasn’t impressed. And after six consecutive nights in Marriott hotels, I really wanted a change.
So Accor’s Fairmont hotel entered the picture. The biggest reason was that I booked a very cheap Accor Hera special rate through Badazhou – just £130 for the night, with breakfast plus a $100 credit. Another reason: this Fairmont has a special status because it’s located inside Baku’s iconic Flame Towers.
Among the three flame-shaped towers, the one on the far right is the Fairmont. Standing tall above the others, it offers sweeping views over the entire city. Despite being up on the hill, the location is still quite decent: it’s about a 10-minute walk downhill to the city centre, and going uphill you can take the funicular, which runs every 15 – 20 minutes and costs just one lari.
The lobby clearly shows its age, but the ceiling height is astonishing. You can easily imagine the grandeur it must have had back in the day.
The hotel has 28 floors, and my upgraded sea-view room was on the 14th floor.
Just like the lobby, the room feels dated, which was entirely expected. While Baku has quite a few international five-star chains, genuinely new hotels are still relatively rare.
Although the hard product is outdated, the sea view is genuinely impressive. With the added elevation of the Flame Towers and an excellent orientation, I personally think this might be the best sea view of any hotel in the city. Especially compared to the JW Marriott, which didn’t even upgrade me to a sea-view room, this was an instant mood booster. If you wake up early enough, you can even catch the sunrise.
The TV home screen displayed a personal greeting from the general manager, which was an interesting touch.
Let’s take a look at the swimming pool on the fifth floor.
Having just come from the stunning pool at the Paragraph hotel, this one felt a bit underwhelming, but there’s nothing objectively wrong with it.
One floor up, there’s a jacuzzi area, along with a sea-view sauna on the side.
Finally, a few words about dining. At check-in, the front desk seemed a bit confused by my booking and couldn’t quite figure out the dining credit. In the end, they said they’d just give me Fairmont Gold benefits, which I happily accepted. This Fairmont used to have a Gold Lounge, but for reasons unknown it was later discontinued. The Gold benefits have since become buffet breakfast, afternoon tea, all-day soft drinks in the lobby bar, and a buffet dinner.
This is the all-day dining restaurant on the ground floor.
A quick look at breakfast:
I spotted some spring rolls and decided to try one, only to discover a sausage inside which was funny 🙂
Dinner was also served here.
There were very few diners, and it seemed like the restaurant was only serving Fairmont Gold guests. To be honest, both the variety and the flavours were quite mediocre. Whether breakfast or dinner, the quality was far inferior to the JW Marriott.
I also checked out the afternoon tea, which was essentially a set menu served in the café.
The lobby bar:
Food quality aside, what really puzzled me was that the restaurant, café, and even the pool are all located on the lower floors. With views like these, shouldn’t scenery be one of the hotel’s biggest selling points? So I went up to the top floor to take a look.
Final thoughts: the Fairmont Baku’s strengths and weaknesses are both very obvious, pretty much exactly as I expected. The hardware and dining are clear weak points, but room rates aren’t expensive, especially when paired with Accor’s STEP rate. Most importantly, even if the hotel itself is only average, staying inside a city’s landmark building is still a very special experience – much like the Park Hyatt in Shanghai.
Recent Comments