Grand Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel

Feels like a fairly standard Four Seasons that would charge around $500-800 per night, but our room was $4800 - insane and not worth it at all. Don’t stay here - just skip this area and go to St Tropez instead, which has much better luxury hotels at (surprisingly) lower prices. So many issues. The pool area feels like a crowded resort since there’s nothing else to do on the property and only one pool - not the serene elegance you expect from a very expensive luxury hotel. A lot of kids screaming, feels like Disneyland. The pool is saltwater which is weird - every other luxury hotel I stayed at on the riviera has been a freshwater pool. And it is 29 degrees so doesn’t cool you down in the heat, needs to be a few degrees cooler. If I wanted salt water, I’d go in the ocean. Due to the weird layout of the hotel, the pool is very low next to the ocean, so you don’t have a good view of anything while lounging. There’s a funicular to take you up and down to the pool from the hotel, but it was BROKEN a few days before we arrived according to the staff. So you’ll have a 10 minute uphill hike back to the hotel to get sweaty after your pool time. I imagine this walk is prohibitive to old people, small children, or wheelchairs. The restaurant at the pool was shockingly average - tasted like you’d expect at an average cafe on the street in a town like Nice, not a fancy hotel. And the prices were ridiculous - $180 for lobster pasta and $85 for jumbo shrimp - neither of which tasted above average. I don’t really understand how this restaurant isn’t higher quality given that the pool is basically the only attraction at the hotel. We had lunch each day last week at the pool at La Reserve in St Tropez and it was an experience every time, incredibly delicious. This four seasons pool restaurant was just average and disappointing. I think the hotel must have a problem with people hiking the coastal trail coming up to use the pool without permission. We were accosted by 4 different staff demanding to know our room number and name (first and last). Felt very weird and uncomfortable and made me worried about leaving my cellphone on my pool chair while swimming if the staff was that concerned about strangers wandering around. The worst violation for me was that our room was not ready until 4pm. Check-in time is 3pm, and I booked thru Chase, so we should have had early check-in at 2pm or even 1pm. Instead, our room was delivered an hour late. At $4800 per night, we are paying $200 per hour (more really with a 3pm check in and noon check-out). If the hotel cannot deliver the room at the agreed time, it should repay the guest proportionally. Basically having the room ready for check-in time is the only actual responsibility of a hotel if you think about it - that is their most fundamental contractual obligation to the customer. Can they just deliver the room at 6pm if they feel like it? 9pm? No, of course not - there is a red line at the stated check-in time. These hotels are so snobbish about saying they cannot “guarantee” the room will be ready before 3pm if you arrive early. Well that cuts both ways - if the room is not available at the stated 3pm check-in time, the hotel has broken its contract with the customer. Inexcusable. As a meager compensation, the front desk offered to comp a drink or dessert. So at the pool we ordered the cookie (stated on the menu to have a peanut topping) and a smoothie. The cookie arrived 20 minutes later but was a pistachio cookie, weird. Then the smoothie never came. We asked two more times and finally got our smoothie 40 minutes after ordering, but it was only mediocre watery juice, not a thick refreshing smoothie at all. Gross. The room itself was nice, but the bathtub is really small - bizarre waste of space in an otherwise large room which has a big hallway entrance and walk-in closet, which space could have been better used in the small bathroom. And there is only one sink, which is not acceptable for a luxury room, especially in this price category. The bigger problem is that there is a lot of mold in the corners and under the handles on the bathtub (see picture). It’s disgusting and makes you wonder how much they clean anything in the room… And unfortunately you can hear everything in the hallway and in the room above you since the building is a historical mansion. Also, other luxury French Riviera hotels all give you lots of fun souvenirs - a nice beach bag that you can use in your daily life, flip flops, pajamas, insulated thermos cups, straw hats, baseball caps, etc. The Four Seasons Cap Ferrat gives you nothing, absolutely nothing (even though it costs more bizarrely). The Four Seasons San Domenico in Taormina at least gave us baseball caps. Another point to mention is that the lobby has almost no air conditioning, feels awful to be in there during the summer, such a terrible introduction to the hotel. You enter the hotel for check-in from the heat and it’s like walking into a stuffy sauna. Also annoying in the morning when you are walking to breakfast from your room, just instantly uncomfortable and sweaty to start your day. Just turn on some air conditioning, what is wrong with this place… The one bright spot is the breakfast. The buffet is very small, but you can order anything you like, and the chef is very skilled - this was the most delicious and highest quality breakfast of our trip, better than any of the other luxury hotel breakfasts we had. It’s a Michelin-quality breakfast, better than even somewhere like the Bristol in Paris, and the lobster scrambled eggs and French toast were both incredible. There is a bee problem at breakfast, which is common at these French and Italian riviera hotels, but the staff did not offer a smoke pot or other method of keeping the bees away unfortunately. The bees really do take away the relaxation from an otherwise wonderful breakfast. At checkout, we had to double check the folio and ask them to deduct the $100 food credit that comes with a Chase reservation (I suppose they would have not given the discount if I had not double checked and noticed the error). So that was another annoying waste of time conversation. Then we saw that the dessert and drink we had ordered at the pool the previous day as compensation for our late room had been charged as well. So that was another awkward and uncomfortable conversation where I had to request they take it off. And of course all of this happened in the stuffy hot lobby. True luxury hotels aren’t supposed to have all these accumulating screw-ups and messy, awkward conversations to resolve them. It shows the lack of attention to detail at this hotel - everything is a chaotic train wreck from start to finish. Throughout the experience, the staff feel like barely trained college students. They’re nice enough, but don’t feel like they own their responsibility, not like you see with employees at other luxury hotels. Especially at the pool area, my wife noted that it felt like we were guests at some sort of pool club for the college kid staff. There were so many staff around, moving in groups and talking to each other, but not really handling the problems or standing at posts, so it was difficult to get their attention. I understand it’s hot and uncomfortable and not as much fun to patrol and attend to guest needs, but that is the job, particularly at a very expensive luxury hotel. We left a car overnight, and apparently they charge 50 euros per night but no one told us at check in. Then we get into our car to leave the next day and no one offered us waters for the drive. You’d think for 50 euros they’d at least wipe off your windshield, but nope. And the hotel doesn’t give you any sort of goodbye gift. All the other French Riviera hotels we stayed at gave us gift bags with fancy chocolate and even personalized leather luggage tags for our luggage at Airelles (which, again, is much cheaper than this four seasons). Absolutely nothing from the Four Seasons Cap Ferrat. Overall, this is an extremely disappointing hotel. You can’t charge these rates and be this pathetic. I will definitely never come back on future French Riviera trips, and I highly recommend staying somewhere else. There’s no reason to stay here with much better competition in the region, and certain not at these hilariously high price levels.

⛔️DO NOT STAY HERE. It is the worst run hotel in the region. There are many better options. The rooms are the size of a small closet. Our luggage would not even fit in the rooms. The view is terrible beyond belief. The staff and manager are horrible people. The funicular was broken so you barely could even get to the pool. They ridicule the guests. They demean the guests. We overheard them saying horrible things about guests. Stay anywhere else. This was the worst experience of any hotel we have been in. Horrible everything. RUN AWAY FROM THIS TOTAL DUMP. EMBARRASSING THIS IS A FOUR SEASONS it reminded us more of a best western that should have cost $49. Worst manager in the entire country award goes to Francois Simon.

We booked our trip 8 months prior to stay at a hotel we once loved. Upon arrival after a huge journey we were met by HUGE disappointment. They took us to a tiny closet of a room facing the driveway. We couldn’t fit our luggage. When we asked for a different room they kept telling us we booked the lowest category and that’s what we got. Meanwhile we booked the 3rd level category. They were beyond rude and told us to find a diff place to stay if we didn’t like the only room they had. At 9pm we were forced to find an alternative. The manager couldn’t have been ruder. Boy has the four seasons group downgraded a once amazing hotel. We looked forward to this stay for month, planned our whole trip around the 4 days we were able to book (8 months prior). Do not stay here. It has gone way down hill from the management down.

Pros (1) Pool is heated at 29 degrees (2) Good check in experience (3) Room has extra gifts and free soft drinks (4) New kids club is good (5) Quality of breakfast food was very good but buffet range was not that wide (6) Quality of dinner food was good Cons (1) Hotel forgot to charge car despite saying they would do so. Luckily, the next hotel could charge the car (2) Pool area is rather crowded. Could by because there is not so much to do in neighborhood (3) Room was really expensive at 4000 plus in June and not really worth it for that price (4) Wines are very overpriced, can be 5 times retail price. Sommeliar was pushing domaine romaine conti.

The best hotel welcome we have ever received! The children were greeted by name as they stepped out of the car and were delighted and felt very special! The hotel is beautiful in every area and aspect. The restaurants, the lobby, the gardens, bedrooms are all spotless and sumptuous. The staff everywhere are welcoming and friendly and greet you by name. The service is first class. The pool area was a delight too. We had a fabulous day or two enjoying the sun, drinks, lunch, ice creams and were spoilt in wonderful surroundings. We stayed for a special birthday and the hotel made the event extra special with every detail requested carried out perfectly. Would return in a heartbeat!