We spent our three nights in the South of France at the 74-room Four Seasons Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat. This is such an incredible property that’s a blast from the past, with the modern amenities and flawless service you’d expect from a Four Seasons.
Continue reading: Review: Four Seasons Grand-Hotel Du Cap-Ferrat, France (Palace Perfection)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I've stayed in that exact room. It goes for something ridiculous like $2k/night in peak season, I think even higher.
I didn't really enjoy the hotel. I found the price to deliver not so much. The room isn't spacious or well designed and the furniture isn't particularly remarkable.
I'll give it to the hotel that the spaces are grand and glorious, both inside and outside, but the region is filled with similar types of places that offer more for the same price. For instance, I'm looking forward to the Lilly of the Valley in St. Tropez, where the room price is roughly the same but the design is simply outstanding and the services seem Aman-like. We shall see.
Ben, you and Ford didn't experience the D&G pool cabana?!?! I'm slightly kidding, because I personally wouldn't go near it, but at the same time I was hoping to see what it looks like. It comes with full butler service too. No idea what it would have cost you for the day...
Everything about the hotel seems perfect….except for the fact that the mini bar has Belvedere..and not Grey Goose in it.. just sayin.
Sad to see that the affectation of making a Salade Niçoise with fresh tuna -- which characterizes a peculiar intersection of snobbery and ignorance -- has reached even to within an hour of Nice.
Four seasons marketing dept is def onto you guys… first, suite upgrades at George IV (several category jump from base room) and now put you in a suite cost 6k euro in the summer at Cap Ferrat?! Lightening certainly hit twice in a row… lol. With that said, without one of the best service in the industry to back it up, suite upgrades doesn’t mean positive reviews from you.
Not surprised how well Hotel Cap Ferrat is ran. It’s a legendary hotel! Almost stayed there if not for pandemic. Thanks for the thorough review. Something to look forward to. Maybe if you are in that area again, can you review Eden Rock?
Ben - Just an overall request on your hotel reviews, would it be possible if you could keep wheelchair accessibility in mind when you do your reviews? Really could just be even small observations like "you can only get to spa by using stairs, no elevators available" or "the restaurant has no steps at the entry and would be wheelchair accessible". Love the amount of detail you have in your posts and adding these details would be very helpful to many people who have mobility issues.
Big fan of your website and your posts are always at the top of my reading list.
Although I agree that Four Seasons is really making Ben and Ford's stays special because they know they will write about it I lucked out a couple times with some incredible upgrades with no strings attached. Actually many times with Marriott believe it or not. I have a family of four and typically book 2 regular rooms using points. What I realized is that for the property it is much easier to sell two regular room for money vs selling a very expensive suite. Thus, all the times I received major upgrades it was clearly a way for the hotel to get my two regular rooms that I was paying with points so they could sell them for top money and give me a suite that very few people would ever pay for it so my family could all be in the same room. Here are some examples;
St Regis in Florence: upgraded to the royal suite with private butler (room was going for 13,000 euros/night)
Arts Hotel in Barcelona: upgraded to the penthouse (room was going for 3,000 euros/night)
Two hotels in Greece were we got suites with private pool vs two regular rooms
Park Hyatt Milan: suite with two separate rooms with a private door making it a two bedroom suite.
Thus, I find that at least in Europe you can luck out if you book more than 1 room on points.
Lily of the Valley is a great hotel, but service is most definitely not Aman level, or at least it wasn’t when I stayed there last year. Service was definitely the weak point. I have a number of other more minor qualms with the hotel from a functional design aspect as well, but it’s certain stunning visually for the most part, Otherwise, the location of the hotel is breathtaking and the area is charming, with a nice, not-too-crowded beach removed from all of the big beach clubs closer to Saint Tropez. I loved the area so much I returned this past summer (albeit to a rental house).
Hopefully you find that service has improved when you return, although it certainly doesn’t seem like their top priority.
Hotel looks amazing. And to the other commentators, Ben said in a previous review article that Ford had won seven night stay from Four Seasons (broken up into two different stays), so between winning that prize and this blog, the Hotel certainly knew who they were. I think it would have been nice to include what the cash rates were during your stay there (even if you stayed for free). Also, as having never stayed at a Four seasons in France (or anywhere for that matter) I have no idea who or when it is appropriate to tip. I think you did a tipping guide at one point, but that might be nice to include in your reviews.
My OCD kicking in with those 2 uneven pieces of art on either side of the TV. They didn't even *try*.
What a great looking hotel and experience! Have only been to the one in Paris..but this looks great too....And the food looks amazing
I do appreciate the look of glossy smooth marble or granite floors but I find them dangerous when they get wet. Is the bathroom floor as smooth and slippery as appears in the photo?
I do realize that outside of the US there is more of an expectation to be careful and less fear of lawsuits.
In the 90s, while I was a flight attendant with Northwest Airlines, one of our young co-pilots (with a wife and small children) stepped out of the shower, and slipped on the wet marble bathroom floor in our Mumbai layover hotel (which was the Oberoi). He apparently slammed his forehead on the edge of the marble bathroom counter. By the time he was found, he was dead. Ever since then, when staying at any hotel with marble bathroom floors I cover with towels the areas I'm going to be stepping on with wet feet.
This beautiful hotel - like many establishments in the Midi - is closed during the winter largely because of climate change. Winters USED to be mostly sunny and mild in the South of France, but sadly, that is not the case anymore. We gave-up spending winters in our holiday home - located several hours west of Cap-Ferrat - because of the endless weeks of driving rain, the frigid winds of the Tramontane/Mistral, and temperatures so low from December to April that we sometimes awoke to find snow on the ground.
never tried monkey shoulder scotch shown in the mini bar...what a gorgeous place...did they give you a menu in English? I would love to try their fish dishes.
The Pink "Hummus" is blasphemy. I dare them to serve that to any self respecting Middle Eastern,
I wanted to just add a quick comment here, as we booked this hotel off the back of this review and are just back from our stay in late March. Not everything was open yet, notably le Cap and the Pool Restaurant at Club Dauphin were closed as were the outside terrace spaces. You could still have drinks at the pool club though, and Le Veranda was open for lunch and dinner (in the internal space marked as the bar in Lucky's review above). Everything is very expensive, we were typically spending room rate again on drinks and dinner in the evening.
We booked a base room through Virtuoso and got upgraded to a Deluxe Terrace room, those rooms are in the adjacent building that holds the spa complex. I was initially disappointed to not be in the historic building but the room was spacious and well designed (with an identical bathroom to Ben's review) and the terrace was a lovely feature, where we enjoyed some room service one afternoon as well as breakfast on our last day.
A really lovely stay, but for me anyway one for the low season as the high season rates are out of my appetite! But I would definitely go back, it felt quite special and a real treat.