Theo Panda / 24 August 2025 / Categories: Movie and TV Shows, TV Show

The Fortune Hotel is a family affair in our house

It's a game show set on a Carribean island a bit like the Traitors with a £250K prize pot

Fortune Hotel

Hosted by Stephen Mangan

It’s a TV reality game show that has split our house. My mother is a fan. She saved up 4 or 5 episodes so she could binge watch on Saturday undisturbed except my older sister and her partner came by unexpectedly, I’ve been home from uni over the summer and my younger brother who normally spends his whole life in his room was actually around too. My dad wasn’t really interested, he kept coming in and out saying is this still on, or hasn’t it finished yet, my sister and her partner were watching and checked out how you apply for next years season saying it was a great way to get a free holiday in the Caribbean, incidentally applications are being accepted from December, 2025.

My younger brother kept asking a lot of questions so he was watching but was finding it difficult to follow the action which is not hard to be fair. My mother was glued to the screen telling everyone to be quiet. The reason she said she had saved up the episodes because of the annoying cliffhanger endings, being unable to wait until the following week and also being unable to remember the path of the money suitcase, the premise of the whole show.

Which is, 11 teams of two, couples which comprise of partners, relatives, friends, husbands and wives take part in two daily challenges in the idyllic setting of the Fortune Hotel in Grenada, a Caribbean paradise island.

They all have a suitcase, some are safe suitcases with no money in them, one has an early checkout card and one holds the money, £200K. The game began with £250K in the suitcase but the holder of the fortune suitcase for the first five nights is allowed to remove £10K which has left Fred and Min with £30K banked already. Each couple has one objective, to figure out who is holding the fortune suitcase and when they enjoy a night cap in the Lady Luck Bar at the end of the day, after two completed challenges and they each get the opportunity to swap or hold onto their suitcase the couple left holding the early checkout suitcase have to leave the game.

The audience know all the time who has the money and who has the early checkout but depending on the swapping order established in the challenges there in lies the jeopardy, and of course the lies the couples tell each other throughout the course of each episode.

As the money moves around the group more and more people become aware of where the money is and so it becomes a game of strategy and alliances, formed and broken to ensure any one individual couples survival.

It’s actually quite ruthless when you watch couples blatantly lie and throw their supposed “friends” to the wolves in order to secure their own position in the game.

My mother has described it as “It’s a knockout on a desert island” if that means anything to anyone.

I did quite enjoy the marathon we watched yesterday in which we saw Jacob and Marc and Fred and Min face off against each other when the other five remaining couples had to choose which one to save and Jacob and Marc’s pals Max and Max sent them packing.

* Marilyn (Maz) and Maxine (Max) (eliminated)

* Chelsey and Briony (eliminated)

* Atholl and John (eliminated)

* Jake and Mike (eliminated)

* Allan and Jacob (eliminated)

* Guv and Gurks (eliminated)

* James and Yasmin (eliminated)

The remaining four couples after Nella and Tope passed the early checkout card to the couple Max and Max with whom they had formed an alliance are;

* Nella and Tope

* Sue and Jeremy

* Fred and Min

* Martina and Briony

It’s a game of cat and mouse for sure where luck seems to play a much bigger part in the couples survival than skill, although there was a challenge to in one episode we watched last night where the couples had to say whether certain objects would sink or float when thrown into a swimming pool. I thought it was an ingenious task that definitely had us all flummoxed. Who knew a full Diet Coke would float but a full regular coke would sink, to do with all the sugar apparently and a watermelon and a bowling ball would float, I swear and yet a grape would sink.

The challenges are a combination of stupid things that happen inside the hotel like the sink float challenge and then day trip challenges which take on a more treasure island, searching for clues and building towers on the beach like approach, that’s the It’s a knockout” part I am reliably informed.

Definitely a show for all ages, like I said my mother is Fortune Hotel mad, my sister’s applying to be a contestant and it got my brother to emerge from his room, which is a notable event. Only my father couldn’t sit through the whole marathon.

The show is available on ITVX and the next episodes air Wednesday 27th Aug, and Thursday 28th Aug on ITV at 9.00pm.