Best Western Palace Hotel & Casino

The Palace is the long, glass-fronted block on Central Promenade, standing side-on to Douglas Bay with the sand across the road from its front door. It does several things under one roof: bedrooms, leisure club, dining rooms, gaming floor.

From the beach it reads as a wide run of windows over a blue and white frontage, the name lettered across the end wall, wooded slope rising behind. Railings and pavement are all that stand between the entrance and Douglas Beach.

Bar, dining room and gaming floor

The bar is the surprise of the ground floor, a canopy of blossom and bulbs hung over a curved green counter and high stools. Beside it the restaurant is laid in white linen against full-height windows onto the water, and function rooms take round tables for bigger nights. The casino the hotel is named for is here as well, roulette table and rows of machines.

Tartan runners and balcony doors

Bedrooms are done in pale wood and navy, with a tartan runner across the bed, a desk and a flat-screen television. The seaward ones look straight out over the bay and some open through sliding doors onto a balcony with a chair and table. Rooms on the other side face the wooded headland instead. Bathrooms are plain and white, with a bath or a shower.

The pool and the leisure club

The indoor pool sits under a pitched glazed roof with windows onto the promenade, so you swim facing the bay. A round hot tub is sunk into the deck beside it and loungers line the tiles. There is a sauna and a steam room, and a gym of cardio machines behind the same red-framed windows.

The bay from the door

The promenade at Douglas runs from the door in both directions, the bay curving to the headland at one end, the harbour and town at the other.

Who the Palace suits

It suits anyone who wants the island’s capital on foot and a swim before dinner without going outside for either.