Raffles Boston

Raffles Hotel (Boston): A stay here is like a visit at a museum: it’s a beautiful facility but that’s where it’s stops. The management and the services do not level up to the expectations. So glad we stayed for only 1 night. Facility 4*; management 1*; restaurant 1*; staff 2*. Overall: I would not recommend this establishment. Management: suggested we upgrade if we wanted room with a view; we had reserved the highest level King room (Grand) and our view was looking at the parking garage across the street. 👎 We ask for ice (no ice machine on floor); momentarily they say; 40min later, still no ice. We went to dinner and 1.5 later when we retuned we find open ice bucket on the floor outside our door. (Anyone could have spit in it!) As we lay down for the night btw 8-10, we were awaken 3 times by a faulty building alarm. Restaurants sampler: Burger $37, fries $15. Hmmm! Who they kidding! It’s a burger! The pool/fitness rooms: fabulous. However, we just got lucky. Hotel was low occupancy so not many guest. If a full house, it would not have been as pleasant!

Raffles by name, that is all. Doesn't live up to the standard at all. Cheap quality rooms, cheap quality staff, I was looking forward to it... I check out early it was so not worth it.

I’m normally a Four Seasons guy for our city breaks but my advisor suggested we try Raffles instead of the FS1D. To be honest, the initial experience with the Concierge wasn’t great, but this was resolved by my advisor. Post his intervention, the Concierge service (Bai) was stellar with them booking us tours and a restaurant in the North End (Trattoria Il Pannino which was unfortunately average, but did the trick). You enter the hotel via a small on street entrance, adjacent to their coffee shop. You then have to go via a lift to the main reception. The guys on the door and ground floor were really helpful, opening doors, doors to cabs and generally very attentive. Check in was interesting as there was an event on at their restaurant so lots of drunk and attractive people poising and ponsing around, which was quite fun to watch. Grateful for the upgrade from an Emerald Suite to a Signature suite (confirmed pre stay) which was very impressive, although it did suffer from a little road noise, noisy aircon - which was serviced whilst we were there but didn’t improve and a funky smell in the bathroom after showering. Had additional benefits from my Travel advisors such as credits for breakfast and general use. Service was generally great and when it was great, it had a warmth you don’t often find with the larger luxury chains. We interacted with lots of great team members, and Jason N who looked after for our three breakfasts in the Long Bar, was a real star!⭐ Was only contacted by the ‘Butler’ after 24-hours at the Hotel and wasn’t hugely impressed. To say Butler service, when it’s a WhatsApp service that most 5-star hotels provide, is a little misleading. Only ate in the Long Bar for breakfast, which was very good and had amazing views over the city. But overall we’d give Raffles Boston a 4.5 - we enjoyed our stay, the unique and boutique feel of the Hotel and loved the rose gold lift!

I wasn’t eager to share a negative review, but I wanted to provide my experience after our recent stay at Raffles. When we arrived in our room, there was a persistent fried food odor. We initially assumed it was lingering room service from a neighboring room, but when we returned after dinner, the smell had become even stronger. We mentioned this to the front desk and were told they had never received this comment before, but I later saw another recent review referencing a similar “cheap food smell” here on Tripadvisor, so I felt it was worth noting in case others encounter it as well. We had to call twice about the issue and ended up waiting over an hour before being moved to a different room on another floor. It’s also worth mentioning that it took multiple attempts each time to reach someone at the front desk, as the line just kept ringing with no answer. Additionally, we didn’t receive any butler service—no texts, messages, or check-ins—which was disappointing given that this has been a nice touch during previous stays and is an amenity strongly highlighted on their website. We’ve enjoyed Raffles before and haven’t run into issues like this, but this visit made us realize that other hotels are offering stronger service and amenities at a similar price point. Hoping this was just an off stay, but overall it left us underwhelmed.

What an amazing property and team! Now I know what all of the hype is about with this hotel. Everything was perfect, from the room to the food to the service. Every interaction I had with employees was so warm and so thoughtful! I had the pleasure of meeting Miko Okazaki and she is a super star. I would highly recommend staying here! Excited to see the future of this amazing brand!