Fairmont Udaipur Palace: We Dodged a Wedding and Got Royally Spoiled Instead

Plot twist before we even reached the lobby: we almost stayed for someone else's wedding. We'd booked Fairmont Udaipur Palace for August 28–30, and then an email landed from the hotel giving us a heads-up that a big fat wedding was taking place on exactly those days. A round of calls to friends who'd been through this before got us the same verdict every single time — bhaag jao, service dip ho jaati hai jab shaadi ho rahi ho. So we shifted to August 26–28 instead, and thank god we did. Zero wedding chaos, a near-empty property, and service that was 100% about us. No regrets.

This has quietly become the year of Fairmonts for us — Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi in January, Fairmont Dubai after that, and Fairmont Peace Hotel Shanghai a few months later. Udaipur Palace made it four Fairmonts in one year, and honestly, we're not mad about it.

The Arrival: Bullet Escort, Aarti, and a Rose Petal Shower

Opened in April 2025, this property does not believe in a soft start. The second your car turns in, a guard on a Royal Enfield Bullet, flag and all, escorts you straight to the welcome area on Level 5. From there you're greeted with an aarti, live traditional music, and a rose petal shower that makes you feel like royalty coming home after a long campaign — not like a tourist who just landed from Hyderabad with three suitcases.

Then you go up a couple more floors, to Level 7, and that's when the lobby actually happens. Soaring domed ceilings, a crystal chandelier the size of a small car, and Rajasthani art glowing under golden light. I am telling you with full confidence — this is the most Instagrammable lobby in all of India. Stand anywhere, point the worst camera you own at anything, and the photo will come out looking like a magazine cover.

The Numbers Behind the Grandeur

Some quick scale for context: this is a 311-key property with 10 pools, 3 restaurants, and a bar called Dastaan that comes with its own library attached — which might be the single most incredible space on the whole property. They're also building Udaipur's first rooftop terrace bar and its first authentic Pan-Asian restaurant, called The Alchemist. And in one year, this hotel has already hosted 78 weddings and 15 corporate events. Read that number again — seventy eight. Fairmont isn't just a place to sleep here, it's a place to actually experience and relax into.

Dahaad Bar: Set Design Disguised as a Bar

If the lobby is the flex, Dahaad is where they show off. The attention to detail here is unreasonable — we're talking Anshul, who works there, walking us through the entire backstory of how the owner picked every single design element one by one until it was exactly right. That includes the life-sized panther prowling along the bar shelf, tying back into the property's whole panther motif.

If you're an Accor member, your welcome drink happens here, and you should absolutely take the full tour instead of just grabbing your drink and leaving.

Small-world moment while we were there: Tres Monos — the Buenos Aires bar that landed on the World's 50 Best Bars list — had done a takeover night right here at Dahaad on 20th August, on the very same mammoth 8-city India tour that brought Franco and Lucila to Hyderabad's Novotel HICC three days later, where we happened to catch them ourselves on the 23rd. By the time we checked into Fairmont Udaipur Palace three days after that, staff were still talking about the night Tres Monos took over Dahaad. Two completely unconnected trips of ours, crossing paths with the same touring bartenders on opposite ends of the same tour. Small world, indeed.

Accor Platinum Perks: The Upgrade We Didn't Expect

We travel as Accor Platinum members, and this stay rewarded that loyalty properly. We were upgraded to a Deluxe Suite that is, without exaggeration, one of the most beautiful rooms we've stayed in anywhere this year. We'd been assigned a butler before we even arrived — they'd taken our photos in advance, and when we walked into the room, the TVs were already playing them back to us. A small gesture, but it lands.

The suite itself is a proper separate living room and bedroom layout — hand-painted floral panels on the walls, cane-backed furniture, a four-poster bed just visible through the connecting door, and enough warm lighting to make every corner photograph well without trying.

Check-in is technically at 3 PM. We were handed our room by 11:15 AM. Sudharshan took us around the entire property before we'd even unpacked. And here's the sleeper hit of the stay: the lounge isn't officially advertised as a Platinum benefit, but once we got there, we were told high tea and cocktail hour were both on the house. Genuinely did not see that coming, and it made the whole stay feel more generous than it needed to.

Kids, Pools, and Enough Activities to Empty Your Suitcase of Patience

This is not a "sit in the room and get bored" hotel, for adults or kids. There's pickleball, padel, mini golf, ziplining, basketball, an outdoor play area, an indoor zone for the younger ones, and horse riding on top of all that. Between the activities and the 10 pools, you could genuinely lose an entire day here without setting foot outside the property — and from the right vantage points, both sunrise and sunset make it worth stepping outside anyway.

Dining: Laal Maas Straight After Check-In

We didn't get around to a full restaurant deep-dive this trip, but our first meal set the bar high. Once we'd checked in and settled into the room, we headed to Bahaar, the all-day dining restaurant, for lunch on day one — laal maas, dal makhani, and garlic naans, and every single thing on that table was excellent. This is the bowl of laal maas that made it in front of the camera, chillies floating on top and all — a proper reminder that Rajasthan doesn't play safe with its spice.

The Hiccups, Because No Stay Is Actually Perfect

In the interest of an honest review and not just a love letter: nobody explained breakfast timings to us, and nobody walked us through our Accor benefits proactively — we had to ask and stumble into most of it ourselves. Housekeeping also broke a hand sanitiser bottle in our room and left it uncleaned. To the hotel's credit, they sent up a bottle of wine as a gesture once we flagged it, which we appreciated, even if a quick clean-up would've been the better fix in the first place.

Final Verdict

Fairmont Udaipur Palace is doing something a lot of new luxury properties try and fail at — being genuinely photogenic and genuinely comfortable at the same time. The lobby will do the heavy lifting for your Instagram grid, the Accor Plat perks will do the heavy lifting for your wallet, and the staff — hiccups aside — will do the heavy lifting for how you actually feel about the stay once you're home. Just do yourself a favour and check the hotel's event calendar before you lock in your dates. We got lucky by rescheduling around a wedding. You might not have to gamble on it if you check first.