La Palm Royal has been hiding right underneath our noses all this time. Having been to Busua Beach, another of the resorts in the Golden Beach chain, we knew it would be spectacular, so we gave it a shot on pre-election Saturday, and were dearly rewarded for doing so. The resort is at a less busy spot along the waterfront where Accra meets the ocean. This is not, I must stress, the prettiest stretch of beach along Ghana's coast--quite the contrary! It seems that every bit of sewage, garbage and canal debris that is lovingly spilled into the ocean from Accra, finds its way onto the sands at the city's edge. La Palm has a team of people who clean the beach by hand every morning, but it is a neverending handkerchief pulled from the sleeve that ensures they will never be jobless.
This said, the resort is the exception to Accra's coastline--a real oasis in the heart of dirtyville! It does cost more to use the pool as a day user (10 cedis for adults and 5 for children), but they didn't charge for our two youngest, so it was actually less expensive than Shangri-La, despite the latter being the much poorer cousin. As the pictures reveal, we had the enormous labyrinth of pools--kiddie pool, shallow pool and wraparound grown-up pool with bridges, waterfalls and swim-up bar--to ourselves when we first arrived and this was pretty much the case until noon. As most people find the mornings unreasonably cold for swimming (a mere 28 degrees!), we are often alone in the a.m. and we tend to leave by mid-afternoon when things start to fill up.
The pool also has a theme park for children and was generally kid-friendly all round. There is a boat ride around the theme park that was closed for renovations (welcome to Ghana!), but the kids were still able to explore the structure to break up the day a little. The massive grounds also provide for a decent stroll with a view of the ocean, without any of the very aggressive city sellers that haunt the beach. There was a fishing net catch that was being divvied up on the beach that attracted much attention and was interesting to have a glimpse of.
The hotel was adorned with Christmas trees (reminiscent of Victoria's Empress at Christmas) and some of the most original and stunning paintings that I've seen in Ghana. We also took note (for future reference) of the Thai massage parlor and the salon that is reputed to be adept with "European" hairstyles and cuts.
Eating is something of an adventure all to itself at La Palm as there are several restaurants and lounges, and prices vary considerably. We opted for the poolside menu which featured inexpensive and delicious pizzas that the kids loved, a pool burger topped with a fried egg (common here), and a substantial clubhouse wrap for mom. After the meal, Cohen noted that it was the first time that everyone was happy with their meals, and he was right. Carmilla noted that the chef must have some Western training as the food could have come from Earl's or some such franchise, though less expensive. I hope your sitting down for this next statement: THE FOOD WAS ON OUR TABLE IN LESS THAN THIRTY MINUTES!! The Sunday brunch is reasonably priced and said to be incredible, so watch this space!
The "Holy Grail" of trips to the pool is any (much-coveted) block of time that "the parents" are able to spend reading an
actual book (we don't count the menu or the pool rules). As this whole experience was already surreal, we managed to devour several pages of Scott Griffin's
My Heart is Africa
, while Finn sawed poolside logs. We hardly believed it ourselves! We will be back , and likely often, as it fires on all cylinders for our family's buck and it is a mere fifteen minutes away in weekend morning traffic.
We have finally bought a membership to a hotel pool in Accra. We spent about five months sampling the various hotel pools in and around the city in an attempt to find something accessible and affordable. Of course the search was not tedious, especially since we have conducted it during one of the fiercest Canadian winters on recent record (sorry!). Just as we were about to give up and continue to pay regular day use fees that range from twenty to thirty-five Cedis every time (for the whole family), we found a great hotel pool within walking distance of my school. I’m not sure why we overlooked it before but it is quiet and clean and it only cost us 250 Ghana Cedis for a six month membership for the whole family. This enables Carmilla to leave work at lunch time and go for an afternoon swim, and I can sneak out for a dip and a little poolside reading at the end of my day while waiting for the family to pick me up. We have already gone once as a family and we had the pool almost all to ourselves for the better part of an afternoon. Now, this is the part where I should include a picture of the hotel sign, or at least mention the name, but I won’t because we are terribly selfish and want the whole pool to ourselves…sorry again! 
Note: Of course if you have a magnifying glass, you may just be able to find the name of the hotel in one of the above pictures... 
