Fairmont Xiamen review: four nights in a 21st-floor Deluxe Twin, with very good service

We stayed four nights at Fairmont Xiamen in late October 2026 (Sunday to Thursday) in a Fairmont Deluxe Twin on the 21st floor, with a very good view, booked direct through the Accor app. The staff gave very good service, the view was very good, the gym and soak were very comfortable, breakfast had a big choice and everything was delicious, and the dim sum at the hotel's Chinese restaurant was delicious too. During our trip (weekdays in late October) Xiamen was uncrowded across the whole city, a city well worth visiting. No disappointments at all.

According to Fairmont and Accor, the hotel started operating in April 2025 as the first Fairmont in Fujian Province. It was built with Xiamen Airlines and sits in the airline's headquarters at the Xiamen Cross-Strait Financial Center. It is a 33-storey tower, led by Foster + Partners, with interiors by Hong Kong's CCD and landscape by SWA Group.

The entrance is a pair of brass doors with curved Art Deco tracery and a ring chandelier that looks like translucent stone inside. Beyond them: black-and-white marble floors in rounded patterns, brass walls with glowing arched niches, and glass teardrop lamps lining the corridor to the lifts.

Lean over the atrium and you see vertical gardens stacked along each floor's balcony, down to the lobby, where a glass cylinder chandelier hangs above a bouquet of blue hydrangeas.

Our room was a Fairmont Deluxe Twin, the hotel's entry-level room, on the 21st floor with a very good view. Two beds, green velvet headboards, slatted timber walls with hidden lighting, herringbone timber floors.

There is a coffee corner with a capsule machine, kettle and tea set, beside a cream sofa and a framed artwork of terraced tea fields. The bathroom has a double vanity. The bathroom sockets are Chinese-style; Thai flat two-pin plugs usually fit, but some three-pin or round-pin plugs may not, so carry an adapter just in case.

The breakfast room is a tall multi-level space with a black-and-white floor and glass walls facing the sea. The choice is huge: bakery (egg tarts, butter and almond croissants, pain au chocolat, pork-floss and seaweed buns, sourdough, walnut buns, doughnuts), a hot line (roast potatoes, sausages, bacon, grilled mushrooms, roast tomatoes), fresh juices (orange, carrot, watermelon, cucumber) and made-to-order dishes such as omelettes and clear-broth noodles with meatballs. Breakfast here is very good: we ate until full, and the ingredients were good. If we had to pick one dish, we would say everything was delicious.

The hot line sits in a row of red pans.

The hotel's Fujian restaurant, with a neon sign on a dark green marble wall. The hotel says it takes inspiration from South Quanzhou celadon. We had stir-fried glutinous rice with char siu, delicious and fragrant; xiaolongbao, delicious, with juicy soup inside; and prawn har gow, springy and excellent.

Stir-fried sticky rice with char siu in a clay pot.

Xiaolongbao, with the soup juicy inside.

The top-floor bar. The hotel says its design draws on Xiamen Airlines and the white heron. Behind the bar, an aircraft propeller and radial engine hang on gold tiles. We had fried pork served with fried green chilli, and a drink that was just as good, though we cannot remember its name.

Fried pork with fried green chilli.

A drink at the bar (yellow, with a pink flower), next to a Tiffany-style lamp.

Nanputuo Temple (南普陀寺) is an old temple in Xiamen; several travel sites say it dates from the late Tang dynasty. According to what we checked, entry is free but you register through WeChat first (sources differ on how and how far ahead, and we found no official word on whether foreigners can register with a passport), and opening hours differ from site to site, so check the temple's official account before you go. We took a DiDi from the hotel (set up your DiDi account and payment method before you travel). In the picture, the sign for the 大悲殿 (Hall of Great Compassion); the red sign 只上不下 means 'up only, no going back down' and marks the walking direction.

The 法堂 (Dharma Hall), with the 藏經閣 (Sutra Library) above.

Roof ridges in multi-coloured ceramic dragons.

We took a DiDi from the hotel to the ferry pier and bought tickets there on the day, with no advance booking (some 2026 sources say that from 1 February 2026 tickets must be bought with a real name through the 屿见厦门 mini-program, with no sales at the pier, while others say foreigners can still buy at the cruise terminal counters because the app often rejects passports; the sources conflict, so check before you go). What we checked on travel and government sites: you need ID (a passport for foreigners), and tickets sell out easily on holidays, so book ahead if you go at a busy time (sources differ on how many days ahead).

The fish balls at 龙头鱼丸店, 龙头路183号. The sign out front says it was founded in 1946, is a 厦门老字号 (Xiamen time-honoured brand), and a plaque dated September 2024 names its handmade shark fish balls (手工鲨鱼丸) one of Xiamen's top ten snacks (per the signs; we have not confirmed this elsewhere). We paid about 15 yuan, in line with the price sign: 10 small stuffed balls for 15 yuan, 4 large ones for 15 yuan, or sold by weight at 50 yuan per 斤 (about 500 g). On Amap the shop is listed as 鼓浪屿龙头鱼丸店 仅此一家 (仅此一家 means "the only one", the shop's own slogan).

The price sign at the fish ball shop.

The dessert shop 厚生林 (Hau-Sinn Lim), 龙头路105号. Its menu board lists 芡实百合银耳羹 at 18 yuan (marked seasonal) and 仙草牛乳综合碗 at 33 yuan, with grass jelly, red bean, lotus seed, peach gum and taro balls.

Café 散步的鱼: an iced dark drink with golden flakes on top, and an iced green drink, in glasses printed with the café's name.

The island also has old European-style buildings, the 笔山洞 tunnel, a red running track and a white rocking horse, red-brick Minnan roofs, and an octopus sculpture outside Underwater World Xiamen.