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Who is regal visitor?

No one is saying for sure, but he appears to be Saudi and he spent a princely sum while staying in Tampa.

By JANET ZINK
Published March 8, 2006

TAMPA - What does a Saudi prince do when visiting Tampa?

He eats at Bern's, Armani's and Oystercatchers. He parties at Whiskey Park and Hyde Park Cafe.

And he ends nearly every night at Splitsville in Channelside, where the nightclub with pool tables and bowling alleys becomes his own private game room.

For two weeks, a man registered at the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel under the name Faisal Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz tooled around Tampa with an entourage of bodyguards and business associates. He left Monday.

Dozens of other Saudi Arabian women, men, teenagers and their staff and security guards occupied 35 rooms at the Marriott Waterside nearby in downtown Tampa. Hoteliers and business owners encountered by the group say that they are Saudi royalty, and that the man at the Wyndham is a prince.

The man, however, declined to speak to the St. Petersburg Times, and the Saudi Embassy isn't talking. His royal status unconfirmed, the VIP and his entourage nonetheless have generated a lot of buzz at many Tampa locales.

"Obviously there's a culture difference between the royal family and our more typical guests," said Mike Falconer, director of marketing for the Waterside hotel. "We try to work around what their specific needs might be."

They found two Marriott employees who speak Arabic to act as liaisons with the family and have made adjustments in the kitchen.

"Their food requests are a little bit different than what our room service typically prepares," Falconer said.

For the most part, though, the family and their entourage have been quiet and kept to themselves, he said, avoiding the public restaurants or the swimming pool.

"They're traveling with their own staff, so they're somewhat self-sufficient," Falconer said.

Those the family encountered had heard they were here while a relative received treatment at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. A Moffitt spokeswoman would not confirm or deny the presence of a royal patient, citing patient confidentiality laws.

There are thousands of Saudi princes, said Asad AbuKhalil, a professor at California State University and author of the the book The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power. If Tampa's visitor really bears the surname Abdul Aziz, he would likely be a descendent of the founder of the kingdom, he said.

"In that capacity, he is in that group where people are the ones who make decisions about the kingdom," he said. It's also the lineage that can become crown prince or king.

"Because we haven't heard of him, his chances of becoming king are rather slim," AbuKhalil said.

But all Saudi princes are entitled to a portion of the country's wealth - Saudi Arabia has a gross domestic product of $340.5-billion - and receive a monthly stipend from birth.

At the Wyndham, a beefy American security guard wearing a blue blazer and a tiny pin with intersecting American and Saudi Arabian flags sat outside rooms occupied by the VIP and his entourage and firmly turned away a St. Petersburg Times reporter seeking an interview.

The man's drivers, who work for a Tampa company often hired by foreign diplomats who visit Tampa, sat for hours on a bench outside the hotel, smoking cigarettes and playing cards near a black 2006 BMW 750Li.

The car belongs to Miami's Tolsy Luxury Cars and rents for nearly $2,500 a week, according to the company's Web site. The car remained parked right outside the Wyndham's front door, the drivers waiting to be called into action.

Usually, the action didn't start until about 7 p.m., and it ended early the next day at Splitsville, which stayed open for him after closing time.

"He has the run of the place," Jason Manwaring, the club's general manager, said last week. "He doesn't want anyone else here. I think that's why he likes us, because we do let him have his privacy."

The bar and restaurant tabs were modest, Manwaring said, but the prince made it clear he liked the way the staff treated him.

"It's worth the stay," he said of the wait staff and cooks who remained late to serve the group. "This has been an experience for us."

Celebrity sightings are fairly common at Splitsville. Actors Jenna Elfman and Susan Sarandon and football players and others have partied there.

Manwaring said that at first he was skeptical that his guest was a prince. But after repeated visits and watching the tight security, he was convinced.

On Sunday, the young Saudi and his 10-man entourage of guards and associates strode into Splitsville at 12:30 a.m. and took over two pool tables and two bowling lanes reserved for them.

Security guards perched on stools at the edge of the playing area, making sure no one entered without an invitation.

While the club pulsed with people behind them, the VIP, wearing a blue and white striped dress shirt and light blue pants, concentrated on his pool game. With his lean build, thick mustache and casual demeanor, he could have blended into any crowd of 30-something clubgoers. But he talked to practically no one but his older opponent. A bottle of red wine and plate of french fries sat on the table between them. When he went to the bathroom, three guards followed quickly behind him.

At another table, two of his companions played pool. They talked about high stakes - one game for a Louis Vuitton suitcase, another for $2,000.

At 3 a.m., the lights at Splitsville came on, and club employees shooed away guests.

But the prince remained with cue stick in hand. At tables behind him, his associates drank and ate with four women.

Shortly before 4 a.m., four drivers entered the club sipping Red Bull.

Then, it was time to leave, and they rushed out the door to their cars to head back to the hotel.

Kevin Borkowski, corporate liaison at Bern's, said one night a member of the Saudi's party made reservations for up to 30 people at 11 p.m., after the restaurant's closing time. Borkowski arranged to keep the kitchen open and staff on hand only to be disappointed.

"Any large group here we ask for a deposit, and they were adamant about not leaving a deposit," Borkowski said. "They said we're showing, we're showing, we're showing."

They never showed.

Other visits went more smoothly. Bern's dining room manager Chris Daily said the group ate in the restaurant several times, asking for a table for 14 to 18 people and another four-person table off to the side where bodyguards could keep an eye on the rooms.

AbuKhalil, the professor, characterized Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter of petroleum with 25 percent of the world's known oil reserves, as the "most sexist government on the face of the earth."

But, he said, "We should not stereotype all of them as some sleazy polygamist prince with 10 wives who spends all his time in America in strip joints."

Tampa's strip joint king Joe Redner said he didn't think Tampa's Saudi visitor had been to his famous Mons Venus.

This prince, it appears, prefers pool.

[Last modified March 8, 2006, 01:41:06]