Fairmont Royal Palm Marrakech

The Fairmont Royal Palm is not a Marrakech hotel, it is an estate next to Marrakech. You reach it in twenty minutes on the Amizmiz road, south-west of the city, where the housing tracts give way to olive groves and where the Atlas takes up the whole horizon. No lanes or souks at the door here: a 5-star resort set on a broad plot, built around its golf, its gardens and its pools. It is a stance. You come to sit down here, not to leave.

The estate holds 134 rooms, suites and villas, from the 72 m² deluxe up to the ten Princes Villas, each with its pool and its hammam. Most open onto the golf or the mountain. The rest holds the same register: a 3,500 m² spa built like a riad around an indoor pool, an 18-hole course built into the resort, seven tables and bars, broad outdoor pools facing the snows. The architecture plays stone, dark wood and tall ceilings rather than folklore. The service, praised by travellers (9.3 on Booking, an “exceptional” mention), holds the level you expect at this price. For facilities and calm, it plays in the same court as other great houses turned to wellness.

That leaves the distance question, which decides everything. At 20-30 minutes from Jemaa el-Fna, you do not slip down for a medina round between two appointments: each outing is planned, by car or shuttle. That is a deal-breaker for a short stay built around the old town, and it is the whole point for the opposite: golfers, families after space, couples who want a spa and gardens rather than the buzz. Value for money is the lowest score travellers leave, and the whole rests on a modest review count for a resort this size: you come here knowing. From around £323 a night depending on the season, you pay first for a setting and a calm - not a city-centre address.