We stayed in the hotel from Oct 25-29, 2006. For the most part, we had an excellent stay. The service was not entirely consistent, but most of it was very good, and we would come back.

The hotel is in a nice location with a lovely beach and a setting that seems relatively intimate compared to the Breakers. The pool and beach lounging areas are very nice and the service was better than I had expected from reading other reviews. Beach personnel walk around giving you fresh fruit, popsicles, fresh towels and planting umbrellas as you please to obtain the perfect amount of shade. The chairs are high quality teak or mesh with lovely cushions and very comfortable. The beach seemed peaceful and not at all overrun. When it was windy, the pool area was nicely sheltered and also had moveable umbrellas for a perfect control over sun and shade.

The rooms were also very pleasant. Although the televisions are not plasma/flat screen, the bathrooms were beautiful and not at all unclean as one review suggested. They were white marble, with excellent toiletry items and great water pressure in the shower. The rooms were spacious and had beautiful views of the ocean and pool area. We would wake up to the blue waters every morning, and certain nights would feature live jazz music coming from below, to which we could have a drink on the little deck and enjoy the evening breezes.

There was no separate shower and tub, but that did not bother us at all. The Four Seasons had done a great job of decorating the common areas, such as the front lobby and hallways, which have lovely silk draperies, marble floors, enormous flower arrangements, artwork and wallpaper accents. I would say that the most "pedestrian" looking feature in the hotel is the outdoor decks. Although they are quite nice functionally, the railing and tile looks like a much lower class resort, and aesthetically makes the back of the hotel look less appealing. The best aesthetic touches are the artwork and marble detailing and custom treatments in the common areas. From an enjoyment standpoint, we found the hotel quite pleasant and not dingy or run-down as others had suggested.

I will review further pros and cons of the hotel below:

Pros:

The hotel seems to be fantastic for children. Although we did not bring our children on this trip, they have small child pools, chairs, toys, etc. everywhere. They also have a daycare program for children that seemed quite nice. However, the hotel has also balanced this, where as an adult without children, you do not get the sense that you are surrounded by them and having to put up with the antics and/or noise of other people's children on your vacation. We enjoyed the pool, the beach, etc. without excessive noise or even being aware of the kids, which is somethin that worried us and steered us away from the Breakers. Well done.

Restaurant - There are four restaurants. One is aptly called "The Restaurant." It is outstanding in every way. Whether you are staying here or at the Breakers or Ritz, I highly, highly recommend that you visit here. The chef is incredible at balancing different tastes and wonderfully creative. The food is simply to die for. The service is also impeccable. From the moment you walk in, the staff will remember your name if you have visited before. They will take your purse and bring a little cushion for it. They provide white or black napkins depending upon your attire. They printed special menus without prices because we were treating our parents. They serve the most amazing fresh baked breads with a gorgeous truffle butter. For vegetarians, they have a full tasting menu that is one of the most gourmet vegetarian experiences you will ever have (very rare for non-vegetarian chefs to be able to pull off). It is a beautiful, sophisticated, pleasant and quiet environment. In short, a perfect dining experience both times we ate there. You also must try their souffles. Dissatisfied with the amount of rise they were getting from their souffles, the chef and certain of his staff flew to France and decided to improve their art. Whatever they came back with has worked. We had souffles from the Restaurant three nights in a row, they were so good - the perfect top, beautiful rise, excellent blend of sweet and not too sweet. And surprisingly, all of this service and food and atmosphere came at a price that we thought was quite reasonable and far less than some of the other Palm Beach restaurants. The Restaurant was the highlight of our time at the Four Seasons.

Service - When the service was good, it wasn't just good, it was outstanding. (This doesn't mean it was 100% good - see below.) When we checked in, they upgraded us and our parents to beautiful ocean-view rooms. We had honeymooned at the Four Seasons the year before, and they sent up an anniversary cake the first night. When my parents checked in, they sent up a birthday cake for my father's birthday the first night. The concierge, Jan, was fantastic at making reservations and recommendations for us. She even made sure that the flowers coming for my mother were put in a fresh vase and delivered timely. The lobby and valet attendants were always extremely courteous and punctual and gave us fresh bottles of water when leaving. This service made us feel warm and valued, and we thought it was really outstanding and made us want to come back, year after year.

Atmosphere - I really thought the FS achieved a perfect blend between sophisticated and elegant, but still comfortable. The library is gorgeous, as is the living room area and lobbies. It is beautiful and a pleasure to walk through or enjoy a drink, but we never had the feeling that it was stuffy or ostentatious or that we had to dress up (which we don't like doing on vacation). It also felt private and intimate, not huge or overwhelming. It also does not have that "Hollywood trainer" atmosphere where everyone on the beach or pool looks they've been eating celery sticks for the past 6 months before vacationing there. Everyone seemed perfectly UN-self-conscious, and again, it was private yet elegant and casual all at the same time. Very nice and relaxing atmosphere.

Cons:

Smoking - The pool and beach areas all allow smoking. The problem is that when it is crowded, it is almost impossible to avoid smokers. Even cigarette smokers would not be so bad, but on one gorgeous afternoon, we finally left the pool because a cigar smoker insisted on smoking for two hours and with the direction of the wind, everyone in that area of the pool had to experience the strong smell. I asked the attendants whether they had separate smoking and non-smoking sections and they confirmed that they did not. I think this would be an excellent idea. For those of us that are non-smokers, it would be nice not to have be downwind of it, and if I were bringing my children, I would definitely not want them having to suck in second-hand smoke when playing by the pool area. I understand that some are smokers and want to enjoy this on vacation, so I think the best thing would be to have one side be for one and the other side for non-smokers, so everyone could be happy. I also think that cigars should not be permitted at the pool area given the very strong smell and permeation throughout the area that results. This man turned off so many guests around him that even his wife came around, apologizing, suggesting that a non-smoking section would be a good idea (it didn't seem like she had any ability to curb his smoking more than anyone else). She finally suggested that if he at least had been smoking GOOD cigars, we all wouldn't have minded so much. It wasn't much help, but at least it made us all laugh.

Internet - It's rare nowadays for me to visit a hotel without wireless internet. The Four Seasons advertises internet, but the wireless does not work well - at least not in our room on the third floor (Room 303, which was otherwise a beautiful room). I bring an external antenna card, and despite this, neither my husband's nor my laptop could get a strong enough signal to connect wirelessly in our room to the internet. So I used the ethernet cable provided in each room to connect to the desk. The problem is that the ethernet internet is incredibly slow (think dial-up speeds at times) and disconnects frequently (one night, about every 15 minutes). I called the front desk and spoke to their internet service directly (Wayport) to troubleshoot this, but nothing worked. Because I had to get things out for work, I was forced to pay $10.00/day for the internet service, however bad it was, and just work with it as I could. But the result is that I wasn't very happy about having to pay for this service and I did not wind up doing as much work as I would have wanted, given that the internet was just too painful. In these modern times, I think a hotel of this caliber must fix this. There should be blazing fast ethernet and wireless throughout the hotel. (Note that I tried the business center one day, and it was not a helpful substitute, because it took me over 30 minutes to reach one of the computers, since there are only two desktops and one laptop station and no time limit for the fortunate few in place ahead of you. So using the hotel's computers will not be a good solution for you business travelers.)

Service - There were just a few glitches during our stay. My husband and I had wonderful turndown service every night, but for some reason, our parents did not get any until the third night, when realizing that they weren't getting it, we called and asked them specifically to come. There seemed to be an overall disconnect with which rooms were being occupied. The first two mornings, we also experienced very loud drilling and hammering two days in a row, waking us up. It sounded like someone had decided to remodel the room right next to us. When I called the front desk to complain, they fixed it, but it was odd that someone would even think to remodel without at least warning adjacent rooms or picking a different time. The outdoor restaurants have extremely haphazard service. I'm not sure why, because I looked at the number of waitpersons and the number of tables, and there was almost one service person per table. They just seemed disorganized, particularly the Ocean Bistro. The food was also haphazard. My husband loved the crab melt, but the fish tacos weren't good and the gazpacho (one of only two vegetarian options) tasted like relish that someone forgot to puree. I would strongly suggest that whoever handles hiring and training for the Restaurant lend a little help to the other restaurant operations at the Four Seasons, and they would be greatly improved.

The only other odd thing that happened during our stay was that my husband was attempting to videotape our parents while they were having a cocktail at one of the outdoor tables. The day was overcast and rainy, so we were the only ones in that area. A security guard came out and asked him not to videotape anymore, saying that it was against Four Seasons "video policy" and that any videotaping had to be cleared with PR, even though we were guests simply recording a family moment. My husband and I both contacted management, because this seemed crazy. The manager initially explained that the video policy was to prevent strangers coming from off the beach and videotaping guests at the hotel. That was perfectly understandable to us, and I explained that (a) we were not strangers, but guests for several nights at the hotel, and (b) we were videotaping only ourselves as no one else was anywhere near the area. (I even checked my husband's videotape afterwards to see if there was anyone remotely near, and there wasn't!) I wasn't impressed with the manager's initial reaction to this, which was simply to tell me that she was sorry I was upset, but that the guard was just trying to enforce Four Season's "video policy." The reaction I expected was: "We're so sorry. OF COURSE, you can videotape your father and mother sitting together." If that had been what happened, we would have forgotten all about it and not even mentioned it here. But I have to give Four Seasons kudos, because as angry as I was from the manager's initial reaction, when we got home from dinner, she had left a voicemail and personally handwritten note apologizing - which is all we wanted in the first place - along with a bottle of wine and spread of cheeses. It was very sweet. Thank goodness, because if I came with children later, i would be very unhappy to think that I couldn't videotape them playing by themselves because of some prohibition on videotaping (which, btw, we saw "violated" numerous times during our stay by others, who were videotaping amongst large numbers of other guests).

I hope the negative experiences above do not detract from the overall image of the hotel. We were very impressed with the positive experiences and particularly the quality of the Restaurant. I think the management can easily fix the above "cons" and the pros still made this a place to which we would return. The bathrooms were absolutely fine, as were the rooms, and I do think the service is very personalized and when the above kinks are worked out, should be just as good as any other Four Seasons. Certain service members, such as the concierge and other staff, were simply outstanding, even by Four Seasons standards.