Four Seasons Hotel Boston

We have stayed here quite a bit and I've probably already reviewed this hotel but, if so, it time to do it again. My husband and I are both from Massachusetts so we travel to Boston pretty frequently. We have stayed in most of the luxury hotels in Boston (M.O., Ritz, Boston Harbor hotel, Newbury, XV Beacon, Raffles) and prefer this to all others. After a poor experience at a very high end hotel that shall remain nameless, my husband made a reservation at the Four Seasons to change over to stay there instead. They had a room and told him it would be ready by 10:30 am. that same day. The staff was superlative and the whole stay was just lovely (including the Amex FHR upgrade). We had a park facing suite, with park views from both the bedroom and the living area. The contrast between the hotel we were at and the FS was stark and it was nice to feel valued and pampered. The hotel has always been great but has recently improved with a beautiful renovation of the lobby area and a revamping of the room service menu. In the past, I was always a bit disappointed with the lack of vegan options on the menu. Not this time! There were several options for every meal and the food was great.

This hotel delivers on every front! The rooms are beautiful, the amenities throughout the hotel are luxurious and thoughtful, and the service is impeccable. The renovated lobby and bar space is fun and hip. The app is absolutely amazing, allowing you to do everything from ordering a complimentary coffee in the morning to requesting housekeeping service and help with any other questions you may have. The responses are very quick and friendly. The Vault on each floor with complimentary snacks is fabulous! And their team is consistently so friendly and professional, absolutely top notch service. I cannot recommend this hotel enough.

We had stayed there many years ago and found it to be a well run and luxurious experience. I don't understand what the thinking was in fixing what wasn't broken and making it look and feel like a much lower class of hotel. The decor feels silly, and it feels ad hock, nothing makes sense, nothing is comfortable except the breakfast room. That said, I can't understand why the big attractive breakfast room is only the breakfast room, and that there's no real restaurant there. Breakfast was included in the package I'd reserved. The 40 minute wait for cold food was so awful that I decided to take my breakfast in the coffee shop, also only open for breakfast. The people in the coffee shop couldn't have been nicer, but the idea of coffee in a cardboard is NOT luxury hotel service. The pastries were good, and fresh. The room that functions as a bar (the bar itself is blocked by a strange high table and has seats that are isolated from each other), tea room and restaurant is roped off until a certain hour, the decor feels like something's gone wrong, it's either low chairs from your grandmother's house at low tables, highboys, or a section with no windows that feels like a lunch room or something, even though there could be a view of the park, were there not things in the way. I found the atmosphere so uninviting that I never ate there or had a drink. One of the amenities is something I'd never seen before, "The Vault" is accessed by your key card, you can have plain or peanut M&M's, carbonated drinks, bottled water, potato chips in the tiny bags you'd get on a plane in tourist class, or what appeared to be gourmet jelly beans, that you gather in a plastic cup! More staff needs to be hired, and they need to be dressed better.

Why not bring in a flashy San Francisco designer, who loves to pose in little jackets and bow ties, and do a big redo that one could describe as "Petaluma Cowboy Far West Saloon Victorian Revival", spend a lot of money and when the designer has faded off into the California sunset, rearrange the furniture and add highboy tables everywhere, but not only that, rethink the whole concept? Why not throw out what was one of the swankiest cocktail venues in the city and replace it with a take out coffee bar, and why not shut down the upstairs restaurant with a view of the park and improvise a little lunchroom/bar/tearoom on the ground floor to replace it, and why not close it until lunchtime, when the take out coffee bar closes? And why not greet your guests at the door dressed as if you were about to lead them on a walking tour of the California Redwood Forests, with rain resistant jeans, NB trainers and zip up acrylic tops, all in fatigue tones? And why not open the old restaurant on the second floor as a breakfast venue and serve stale bagels ice cold and make them wait forty minutes for the pleasure? And why not leave your $1000 a night room for six hours, return late in the afternoon looking forward to a luxury refresh, and find that your room hasn't been serviced? Let's go Four Seasons Hotel Boston!

The Four Seasons brand ensures elegance and an elevated experience and the Four Seasons Boston does not disappoint. Had the lucky experience of being here for a work meeting. The rooms are spacious and comfortable and the location is classic Boston, right on the Commons.