I R O R O’s 5-star review:
Sitting in the Bengal Lounge, minutes after checking into the "empressive" Fairmont Empress, luxuriating in the softness of the impossibly comfortable soft-leather couches and waiting in earnest for my curry lunch to begin, it was easy to imagine myself in another epoch, in a lounge ... at say ... London's Royal Geographic Society, exchanging crispy gists with explorers such as Percy Fawcett or Edmund Musgrave Barttelot.
Yes, this lounge is genuinely olde-skoole, complete with black marble elephants at the entrance, a real Bengal Tiger skin hanging over the fireplace (!) and all the decor/woodwork/high-ceilings that you'd expect.
I greatly enjoyed the curry lunch buffet, it is expensive (~24 CAD), but after the weak-ass taste-less pretzels I got on the flight over from the US, I was ready to tuck into this nice welcome to Victoria!
5 Stars!!