After checking out of the Novotel, this seemed like the best option. It has a great pool area, the room was fine, clean, nothing special. I was booked into one of the Cabanas which are further away from the pool than the rooms, but that might be a good thing. There's really nothing special to say about this hotel. Service is OK, room was OK, Food was poor or terrible in some places. If you stay here, you'd be better to take a taxi off site for food.

The room where I stayed is a bit far from the lobby and when it rains, you need to ask the front desk to send someone with an umbrella to fetch you. Despite this, my business clothes got wet and my leather shoes soaked. A minor problem though but then again if you are on business, very inconvenient. Ask to be housed in the main building not in any of the chalets. Swimming pool ready only for swimming at 7:30 onwards unless of course you want to swim while hotel staff cleans the pool. Continental Restaurant serves the same breakfast everyday but then again what hotel doesn't? My complaint is the lack of an exhaust system. By the time you finish your breakfast, your clothes will be smelling of omelette. You will not be spared even if you just stay near the lobby and have drinks beside the old white piano. Advice: Eat breakfast before changing into your business or going-out clothes or even before you take a bath! I experienced several power outage during my stay. I'm not sure if the hotel has a genset as it takes some time before power is restored. WIFI can be used in your room using a prepaid card. Smallest value is USD5 and if I remember it right, is good for 5 hours and must be used up within 48 hours. The internet was down for about 2 days when I stayed there. I used up only 2 hours due to the internet problem. Front desk and even IT perople nonchalant and do not care about the lost hours. Well, its only USD3 anyway but then again, they could have offered an extension. I ended up buying another card. Business center is quite far and you have to go through a maze to get there. Lady manning the place is helpful though. The hotel is right on the beach but the property is totally enclosed by a fence. Could be for security reasons. Why build a hotel near the beach if you can't use the beach? At their published rate of USD255, this is way expensive and not good value for money. (A Chinese-looking guy checking out while I was also checking out paid something like USD160 - at least that was what was written on his hotel card. I totally was disappointed but then again, my host who lived there for so many years was the one who booked me in this hotel and he should have known better.) Buffet lunches are at USD26-28 and with the selection available, not worth it. On the last day of my stay, I was having a business lunch when out of the blue, something like 30-40 conference participants arrived and totally created a long queue. I ended up eating only desserts rather than stand at the end of the line. They could have arranged for seminar participants to be served in a room separate from other hotel guests.

The hotel is located away from the city, on the beach. The hotel is located in large grounds that are well maintained and reasonably secured by a perimeter fence. You can't swim in the sea due to strong currents. Accommodation is in chalets, each having about 5 rooms. Your room is fully independent from your neighbours - you share a large inner patio. Room, bathroom and equipment are as good as you will get in these parts. Rooms have wi-fi connection for a small fee. Room is well-serviced by friendly staff. Bar and restaurant are good but charge European prices. Hotel has a very large pool surrounded by shady garden. Good business facilities available. Cash dispenser in the lobby. Recommended for business travellers.

The La Palm is a great hotel to stay at in Accra, I ended up being upgraded to a full suite hotel which was very comfortable. It had a kitchenette and large bathroom. The kitchenette unfortunately had some cockroaches but the hotel does make an effort to spray mosquito spray when they clean your room. There are beautiful lizards outside of the rooms that seem to change colour, and as mentioned the rooms are set up in different chalets. I was in Ghana on business and found this hotel to be very nice. It is right next to the beach, has a pool and some great restaurants. I would definitely recommend this stay for anyone visiting Accra. I had a great time. I would recommend paying cash instead of using credit card (if you are not staying that long) at the end of the stay because there was some problems when I tried to use my credit card. The front desk can be a bit overwhelmed if they have to many people trying to check in.

La Palm La Palm is a series of chalets, each divided into a number of rooms. That distinguishes it from the two other business class hotels, Labadi Beach and Golden Tulip. The rooms are quite big and pleasantly furnished. The air-con unit in the room was a bit disappointing. There was also a ceiling fan but that was noisy and it was not particularly easy to sleep with it on. Weirdly (although not so much for Ghana), the mini-bar was empty but would be stocked on request (i.e the fridge was just somewhere to keep drinks ordered from room service). I found that a bit inconvenient. Wi-fi was available using pre-paid cards. We had a pressure problem with our shower. I’m not sure whether that was a general problem at the hotel but it was also annoying. There was a tv with a number of channels. Picture quality was a bit mixed, but nothing to complain about. Mosquitoes were not a problem. The staff are very friendly and quite helpful. In my view, La Palm has the nicest pool of all the hotels mentioned here. It is large, has an interesting design and is nicely lit. It also seemed to be far more used at night compared with the Tulip, which seemed to be off limits after about 9 or so. The other public areas, however, compare less favourably. La Palm’s bar and restaurant area are very bland (and a bit worn too) and seem designed perfectly to accompany the muzak they play. The public areas are superior at both Labadi Beach and the Tulip: the pool area at the Tulip is beautiful at night and the whole of the grounds are pleasant and leafy by day. LB has very green grounds and a very tasteful lobby, with a kind of waikiki beach house feel. Normally, outside the third world, I stay in budget hotels which generally serve a palatable continental breakfast but where I wouldn’t dream of eating other meals. Eating in hotel restaurants generally seems to defeat one of the purposes of travel. But in Accra the quality is so patchy that I reluctantly stuck to the hotels. The food in the main restaurant at La Palm is fine, with a decent range of breakfast foods, but I suspect it is worse than at LB and I know for sure that the Tulip is head and shoulders above – a very wide range of breakfast foods and a constantly changing array of buffet dishes for lunch and in the evening. The bar food at the Tulip is also very good. There is another place to eat, with live music, at the end of the grounds away from the main bulding. The food there is very good and comparable with the Tulip. Although the Golden Tulip, Labadi Beach and La Palm are expensive, it is eminently possible to cut deals with them, albeit that you have to go through the rigmarole of practically begging, being as nice as possible and speaking to the supervisors at reception. Roughly, I would aim for around US$ 200 per night or below at these three (unless you have a relevant corporate connection in which case lower) and I got that at the Tulip and La Palm. I stayed at La Palm and the Tulip but not Labadi Beach. LB was the only one that wouldn’t budge from around US$265. However, I did look at a room at LB and wandered around the grounds. If I went back to Accra (which would be unlikely to be for pleasure), the Tulip would be my first choice. Our room there was a standard business class hotel room, but in Ghana that was refreshing (coming at the end of a two week stay). In fact, the bed was larger than usual and the TV set-up by far the best of any Ghanaian hotel we stayed in with many channels and clear reception. The bathroom was also the best of all Ghanaian hotels we stayed in, with a hot powerful shower and everything else fully functional. There was a good minibar and room service menu. Wifi was available throughout the hotel for a reasonable 24hr charge. Mosquitoes were not a problem. The air-con was excellent. The staff at the Tulip were probably the most accommodating of all the places we stayed – they gave us some flexibility with our check-out time and did a good deal on the room rate. There was an airport shuttle taxi. The room at LB that I saw (but did not stay in) was along the same lines as the Tulip room, but a bit shabbier and less polished. I was a little surprised when we were shown the room after the glamour of the public parts of LB. Prostitution is much in evidence at these hotels. At the Tulip it is everywhere: odd couples, glamorous girls just loitering, especially in the casino but it is also at La Palm: while my girlfriend and I were swimming at night, a girl came and sat on the edge of the pool when my girlfriend was out of sight and asked if I wanted her to join me. Unlike those at the Tulip and Shangri-la, she was not conventionally dressed for a prostitute which might indicate that La Palm is more vigilant in excluding them and forces them to go undercover.