INTRODUCTION ______________________________________________ I'm never one to publically leave a review; however after numerous stays at this particular property with a consistent negative experience, I really feel compelled to leave one. To preface this, I am a VERY loyal Four Seasons patron, having stayed at numerous properties all over the World, with my home base in Toronto, where the brand was founded (which is spectacular; I can't say enough about the team there). Suffice it to say, a lot of that goes out the window with the Surf Club. Even after this being my fourth stay, pre-empted by numerous e-mails containing feedback and other points of contention. Lastly, don't even think about trying to speak to the General Manager, Daniella Trovoto, as she is clearly up in some Ivory tower, who wouldn't dare speak to a regular hotel guest, as I requested to speak with her numerous times. I think I've spoken to every other manager in every department EXCEPT her. Anything short of someone dying in a hotel suite, she's not coming around or speaking to anybody. It's really quite hilarious. PRE-STAY EXPERIENCE ______________________________________________ Don't expect them to recognize loyalty with any leniency with deposit structures or other requests unless you intend on really making a fuss. This is after having stayed at this property over 3 times with a fully paid folio. Additionally, you need to really be on top of things with both the chat and the e-mail, as I have often been told someone will get back to you, and nobody gets back to you for hours or even days. Even after my particular deposit structure was agreed upon, my reservation was cancelled THREE times, once without notification. DURING THE STAY ______________________________________________ So we get to the hotel, and after all of the reservation cancellations and other hassles, etc., our welcome amenity was this glass dome over the tiniest vegetables you could ever imagine, shoved into some hummus, which I ended up learning was the welcome amenity for our friends room, I was supposed to receive a bottle of wine (still a very stingy welcome amenity for this property). You book this place for $3000 - $5000 per night, yet all the rooms are just glorified regular hotel rooms with a lot of Marble and natural light. Even the rooms without a balcony with a city view cost $2000 - $3000 per night. The only way you get a separate living room of any kind is if you go for one of the "one-bedroom suites", which are technically residences that the hotel leases from the actual owners of the unit, which the hotel has less control over in terms of minimum stays etc. Rooms with a balcony are very sparsely decorated for room rates of this calibre. Just a very simple set of two white chairs and a little table. No decoration, plant(s), nothing. Beyond the nightly rate, there's ALWAYS something weird going on with the room, whether it be door handles falling off and brown stains on the towels in the Ocean Cabanas, wonky child-sized ironing boards and irons spewing out white calcification, to missing furniture and creepy manakin statues looking at you from an adjacent balcony. Housekeeping is OK; however, they do not coordinate with the guests. They were ALWAYS in our room when we returned to change after breakfast, or being out at the pool, etc. Even one day, we informed them that we would be gone all day from about 10 am - 2 pm, yet low and behold, at 2:15 pm, they were in our room cleaning. Then the following day, at 9:00 am, a knock on the door... "housekeeping"...."come back in 30 minutes we'll be at breakfast", yet like clockwork, right after breakfast, housekeeping is in our room. One last thing I find strange at this hotel is that housekeeping will NEVER call down to room service to pick up dirty cups or dishes etc., you have to specifically call room service yourself, or they will literally sit there for days. One stay I purposely left empty bottles and things out and they were left there the entire stay.....$3000 per night LOL. SERVICE ______________________________________________ We arrived early, before our rooms were ready, and were never offered a place to change into swimsuits, an offer to use the facilities, the spa amenities, or anything of that nature. It was very weird. One of my guests staying with us went to the front desk and inquired and was rudely told that we were informed of the check-in time and would be informed when our rooms would be ready. My guest immediately stated to all of us the unfriendly nature of the front guest lady who addressed her question, which prompted me to go to the front desk to see if I could rectify the situation. Long story short, a very nice gentleman who was some sort of front desk manager happily escorted us to a pool-side cabana with a full-size washroom and a couch with refreshments, where we could access our bags and change. They're good with damage control, however, I don't want to pay 2 - 3K per night at a place where you experience numerous bad experiences followed by comps and other remedies. FOOD AND BEVERAGE ______________________________________________ Overarching perception: Food and Drink prices are borderline price gouging, even for someone who doesn't mind spending money on food. Snake River Farms Wagyu, caviar, otoro sushi, fine, I'll pay the money, but a simple orange juice, white toast, fruit; these are things that can only cost so much, and the presentation isn't even that spectacular to boot. Regarding the restaurants, you have LIDO for Breakfast / Dinner, and LIDO or "Winston's at the Beach" for Lunch. Both have very friendly servers, however it is definitely not 5-Star. Things are forgotten, items are vastly overpriced ($9.00 for two pieces of white wonder bread toast, $30 for a glass of orange juice brought to your room on a full-size room service cart), proper cutlery for dishes is forgotten, etc. Drinks from the pool-side bar are very inconsistent, and the poolside service is very hit-and-miss, even when they're not very busy. One day, we sat down for lunch at the poolside restaurant with a couple who lived in Miami, and we were never offered any water. When we finally requested it, the wrong number of cups were brought. One person didn't get their pizza, which arrived over 30 minutes later, and it was burnt. The couple's child didn't get their gelato until I got up and asked. The list goes on and on. This meal was eventually comped. However, I had to make a big fuss about the meal, request a manager, etc. Was completely embarrassed in front of my guests. Needless to say they weren't impressed. Fast forward to the evening, and we sat down at one of the couches at the Champagne bar, ordered drinks, and waited over FORTY minutes to receive our drinks. The funny part of it all was we were positioned near one of the doors and witnessed numerous parties that came in after us, walking out with drinks in their hand. We made a comment to our waiter about our discontent regarding the time and weren't offered a thing. The manager didn't come over; nothing else was said. At this point, we were so kinda over the whole "talk to a manager" schtick by this point of the vacation and had to get to our dinner at the Surf Club Restaurant that we just decided to let it go. Particular individuals are standouts, e.g. Matteo and Straw, and don't get me wrong, everyone is very lovely; it's just, again, a lot of corrections and apologies and efforts to correct mistakes. CHECKOUT ______________________________________________ The night before check-out, we were sitting down for dinner, this was around 8:00 PM, when suddenly, I got a security block warning on my credit card regarding a large charge made by the hotel. I reached out via chat and they stated that it was for the last nights room charge and some incidentals and that it "needed to be settled tonight". Yet again, I had to make a fuss. I informed them that I had to call the bank to clear this block, and it was now too late in the day to do so. Eventually, they relented and allowed me to clear the charge in the morning. Again, numerous stays, always paid my folio in full. Fast forward to checking out, and someone put our baggage under my partner's name, which wasn't on the reservation, resulting in a 45-minute delay in finding our bags, which in turn created a domino effect of charges, including chauffeur waiting time, as well as a late departure fee for our plane, inability to leave the tarmac until over an hour later. It was a disaster. CONCLUSION ______________________________________________ Long-Story short, I don't see the value in staying at this particular property whatsoever. Stay at another property and come in for drinks and/or dinner to experience the beautiful Surf Club building; other than that, I would steer clear.…