<strong>A Travel Day With ALL Accor at Fairmont Rio de Janeiro Copacabana for the Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix</strong>

Reported by Harper's Bazaar.

Rio de Janeiro has always known how to make an entrance. In the 1950s, it became one of the world's most mythologized cities — Copacabana Beach at its center, bossa nova in the air, and the jet set occupying its grand seafront hotels. Decades later, that tension between glamour and tropicality hasn't resolved so much as deepened. The city still pulses, still surprises, and the Fairmont Rio de Janeiro Copacabana — part of the ALL Accor hotel portfolio — sits squarely at that intersection of old-world elegance and modern coastal energy, overlooking both the beach and Sugarloaf Mountain.

According to Harper's Bazaar, ALL Accor — the loyalty program behind partnerships with Roland-Garros and Paris Saint-Germain — is the official sponsor of SailGP this year, and Rio's stop marked the first SailGP race ever held in Brazil. To mark the occasion, the brand invited Brazilian journalist, author, and cultural powerhouse Gabriela Prioli for a full-day itinerary that moved from balcony breakfast to race-day adrenaline. The brief: show what it actually looks like when a loyalty program stops being about points and starts being about access.

From Infinity Pool to F50 Foiling at 50 Knots

The Fairmont property earns its keep on atmosphere alone. Its 375 rooms — including 68 suites — are furnished with pieces by Brazilian designers, hung with local art, and dressed in domestically sourced linens. Cumaru wood floors anchor the lobby; a sixth-floor infinity pool lined with blue Mediterranean tiles and framed by jaboticaba trees does the rest. Prioli spent her morning there with a coconut water and a book, which, given that she founded her own book club and is a published author, is less a leisure activity and more a professional one. The Fairmont Spa, the Tropìk Beach Club, yoga at sunset, paddleboarding — the hotel's wellness offerings are unusually comprehensive, and the beach area with chairs and umbrellas is kept exclusively for guests.

The SailGP segment is where the day escalates. At the Adrenaline Lounge, Prioli watched the F50 catamarans — the fastest sailboats on the planet — lift their hulls out of the water from close range, then boarded a speedboat to follow the race. Wind, spray, and a live audio feed of crew-to-shore communications: it's the kind of access that no travel package tier actually promises but everyone secretly wants. Back at the Fairmont, dinner at Marine Restô under Chef Jérôme Dardillac brought flavors from across Brazil's regions into a dining room anchored by a hand-painted mural from the Adriana e Carlota Atelier, inspired by Copacabana's waves. The evening closed at Spirit Copa Bar with signature cocktails — the Tarsila (floral, fruity) and the Madame Satan (exactly what it sounds like) — and, on Sundays, live samba and feijoada.

The best travel experiences aren't about where you sleep — they're about what you're handed access to, and Rio, done right, is proof that a city can still exceed its own legend.

Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.