My Honest Four Seasons Cruise Experience: Amazing Ship & Crew, But Not Frictionless

Hello from Dubrovnik, as I just completed a Four Seasons cruise, sailing with Four Seasons Yachts, which is the popular hotel brand’s new cruising venture. I’ve been fascinated by the recent trend of luxury hotel groups launching cruise brands, and it’s wild to see how quickly this industry is evolving.

More from OMAAT Four Seasons Yachts Cruise Review: Suites, Dining, Amenities, Service, And More Read more

Several months ago I sailed with Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, and had a great time, all things considered. Now the industry has moved even more upmarket, with the launch of Four Seasons Yachts’ first ship, Four Seasons 1. This has essentially been marketed as a Four Seasons resort at sea, aimed squarely at non-cruisers (including that most food & drinks aren’t even included, a major departure from the norm in the cruising industry).

I’ll be publishing a very detailed Four Seasons cruise review soon, but I would first like to provide some initial thoughts on the experience. Did the Four Seasons cruise experience live up to my (very high) expectations? Not quite.

On the plus side, the ship is beyond gorgeous, and the suites are incredible and unlike anything the industry has seen up until this point. The staff couldn’t be lovelier, and they really had a passion for taking care of guests.

That being said, I definitely felt like there were a number of teething problems that should’ve been worked out at this point, especially given the rates being charged. I’m a huge fan of Four Seasons, and generally what stands out to me most about the brand is the incredibly consistent service. That’s still missing from the Four Seasons Yacht, despite the promise of this being a resort at sea.

I trust Four Seasons can work out these issues and make the experience (close to) perfect, but I’m just a bit disappointed that it’s taking so long. Here’s the thing, though — a vast majority of people onboard we spoke to commented something along the lines of “yeah, there were some real issues, but we’d do it again.” So I guess on balance, that’s an endorsement of the experience.

For what it’s worth, our seven night cruise retailed for a staggering $35K in a base room, though we initially booked a sailing that was delayed, so we could rebook with a 30% discount, and get an additional shipboard credit. Let me of course acknowledge this is a massive amount to spend on a cruise, but Ford is increasingly booking a lot of cruises for clients, so it was an investment worth making.

The Four Seasons Yacht is absolutely stunning

Four Seasons 1 is a gorgeous and spacious ship. It’s 679 feet (207 meters) long, 89 feet (27 meters) wide, has 15(ish) decks, and is 34,000 gross tons. With just 95 suites onboard, the amount of space allocated to each guest is simply next level.

I’ll of course have a detailed review, but the design of this ship is of a different caliber than anything I’ve seen before. I was just in awe at the design, and I can’t imagine how much was spent on fitting this ship to bring it up to this standard.

Quite honestly, design-wise, this is next level compared to Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. I often forgot I was on a ship, because so many of the facilities are built to “land” standards, from the hallways, to the spa, and more. It is physically the pinnacle of luxury.

Four Seasons cruise suites are massive & luxurious

Generally cruise ships don’t have accommodations that are on the same level as hotels, but that’s not the case on the Four Seasons cruise. We stayed in an entry level room, which was 473 square feet (44 square meters).

This really felt every bit as luxurious as a Four Seasons property. From the design, to the signature Four Seasons bed, to (particularly) the bathroom… wow! I remember on Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection I wasn’t blown away by the bathroom design, in contrast to the Four Seasons Yacht.

Four Seasons cruise food & drinks are reasonably good

Unlike virtually all other cruise lines, Four Seasons cruises don’t include all food and drinks. Instead, breakfast is included for all (in Terrasse Restaurant and/or Pistachio Cafe), and non-alcoholic drinks and snacks in the minibar are complimentary. Other than that, everything is like staying at a Four Seasons hotel, where food and beverages are chargeable.

Obviously a lot of people aren’t a fan of that concept, but the argument is that the Four Seasons cruises are intended to be like a Four Seasons resort, and a vast majority of guests are first time cruisers, so they may not be conditioned to that “norm.”

So, what did I make of the food on the Four Seasons cruise? The good thing is that for the most part, food pricing wasn’t unreasonable (and there’s obviously no sales tax). I think most people would be pleasantly surprised by the prices, and also keep in mind that if you book through Four Seasons Preferred Partner, you receive an onboard credit, so we didn’t actually end up spending that much on food.

When it comes to the actual quality of food, I found it to be mixed. Breakfast consists of a buffet and a la carte selection, and I found the quality to be quite good, though it quickly got repetitive. I wish the buffet had a little more variety across days and that the a la carte selection was a bit more imaginative.

The dining highlight onboard was Sedna, the fine dining restaurant, and I found that to be exceptional, comparable to what you’d expect at a great restaurant on land.

There was also Miuna, an omakase restaurant, which was good when you factor in that you’re on a ship, but don’t expect this to be comparable to an amazing omakase experience in Japan. We enjoyed our meal here, but we didn’t feel like we had to repeat it (we initially booked it twice, but then canceled the second reservation).

There’s also Terrasse, the all-day dining restaurant, and I found that to be a mixed bag. Some of the dishes were quite good, while others were simply disappointing.

For example, I ordered a pizza, and the crust was so hard that I literally couldn’t cut into it. I’m not a pizza snob (I’ll gladly eat frozen pizza from the supermarket), but it was awful. So I sent it back and they made another one for me, and it was… equally bad, to the point that I again couldn’t cut into the crust. I’ve never in my life sent a dish back twice, and I can’t even tell you the last time I sent a dish back once.

There are also some great bar venues, and in particular, Bar O has exceptional cocktails.

I should also mention that while most drinks aren’t included, on three of the seven nights there were parties of sorts, with free drinks for some amount of time. On the first night, there was even free flowing Dom Perignon… not bad, eh?

Staff on the Four Seasons cruise couldn’t be lovelier

Now we’ll get to the service portion of the Four Seasons cruise. Without exception, I found the staff onboard to be lovely. I was curious how exactly the ship would be staffed, and it was definitely more folks from the cruise industry than people from Four Seasons hotels (it felt like most of the service staff are ex-Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection).

There were just so many kind and engaging staff we interacted with, and they all had a passion for taking care of guests. Marco in particular put a smile on everyone’s face, and Sunny was a delight (and the list goes on). Our room attendant, Andrea, had amazing attention to detail, as well as perfect timing, as our room was always cleaned while we were gone, without having to ask.

The management onboard were also fabulous, from general manager Mel (who has a “true” hotel background, having spent much of her career at Kerzner as well Mandarin Oriental) to director of rooms Cynthia (a cruising veteran), who constantly checked on guests.

I also want to say that I loved the live music onboard, and in particular, guitarist Francesca and pianist Ashton — they were both incredible! With such a small ship, it was like having a private concert every night, as there were very few other guests hanging out in the Salon.

There was a real feeling that everyone onboard wanted to get everything right, and that’s nice to see.

Four Seasons cruise service needs improvement

I’m a huge fan of the Four Seasons brand, and I would love nothing more than to say “the service onboard lived up to Four Seasons brand standards.” But of course I’m going to be honest. For some context, let me point to my post from some time back about what I love about the Four Seasons brand:

I’d say that the single thing that impresses me most about Four Seasons is that the brand offers intuitive and frictionless service, and that comes down to the people. It doesn’t matter which property you stay at, I’ve found service to be more consistently excellent at Four Seasons than at any other major hotel group.

Many of the initial reviews I heard of the Four Seasons cruise talked about a lot of service issues. The yacht has now been sailing for around four months, so my hope was that many of these concerns would’ve been resolved at this point. However, I found way more issues than I was expecting.

It’s so weird, because before we took this sailing, I heard so many people say “the staff are amazing, but there are service issues,” and that confused me, because how could that be? Amazing people typically provide great service, right? Well, now I largely have to echo what I had heard.

It’s not that service was awful, or anything, but there was just a myriad of little things that went wrong. Individually none of them are a big deal, but when you add them all up, it takes away from the experience. The thing is, these weren’t just isolated incidents — most people we talked to had a similar take.

Heck, I’m sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Dubrovnik where half of our ship is waiting to check-in, and there’s a bit of a debrief, and everyone has the same take — “amazing experience, but the service still needs help.” I’d be doing a disservice if I glossed over these details, because ultimately the perception a guest has of an experience is the difference between what they were expecting and what they get.

If I claim service was flawless and then people get onboard expecting that, they’ll probably be disappointed when that’s not the case. That’s why I think it’s important to set the right expectations, because the reality is that despite the service shortcomings, we had an amazing time, and I’d actually recommend the Four Seasons Yacht. As things currently stand, board a Four Seasons cruise expecting to have a great time, but don’t expect flawless service.

I don’t want to pick apart every little thing that went wrong, but let me just give some examples:

• When we arrived in our room, someone else’s luggage was there (and it was an obvious mistake, since we could see the tags were for a different room)
• We were traveling with some friends as a group of 12 and had booked dinner the first night for everyone — they seated us at two tables of six (without acknowledging that), then it took over 20 minutes before someone came to greet us (and he simply said “ready to order?”), then 25 minutes after that our drinks still hadn’t arrived, and then after that the manager came to verify what food we had ordered, as there was confusion
• Several times either the wrong order was brought out, or they just didn’t deliver things that were ordered at all; they’d bring out food, but not notice there was no cutlery, so you’d have to specifically ask, and still and sparkling water were frequently mixed up
• Here’s perhaps the most basic example of the consistency of minor issues; four days in a row I ordered an iced americano with milk in the coffee shop, and each time I was given the drink without any milk (and this isn’t a place where you pour your own milk in); on another day the coffee shop just didn’t open at the standard time, because staff were apparently confused
• Spa treatments are subject to an 18% service charge, but that’s not disclosed anywhere; not on the website, not on the price list, etc., and I find that to be deceiving four months in
• The Four Seasons cruise has a portal through which you make spa and dining reservations as well as reserve shore excursions, but it has so many glitches; it shows things as “waitlisted” when they’re not, when you cancel something it still shows as confirmed, etc.

Like I said, everyone was very friendly and wanted to do their best, but it just seems like there’s the issue of the newness of staff, and a lack of good procedures in place. For example, at dining outlets, some orders were taken with iPads, some were taken on notepads, and some people went off memory. There should be a standardized system in place, as that would help with consistency (as you’d expect, orders taken via iPad were most frequently correct).

In fairness, service got better throughout our journey. And we were very upfront with sharing our feedback with management, and they were keen to get all the feedback they could. There’s obviously some disconnect when it comes to service quality, and I can’t figure out why. But I’m confident that will be resolved… hopefully soon, but definitely… eventually.

Perception of service is highly subjective, so people will have varying takes. We asked a lot of other guests about their experience (in a non-leading way), and I found the answers to be interesting. I’d say maybe 25% of people just had good things to say. Then the other 75% of people talked about how beautiful the ship is, how much fun they were having, and how friendly the staff were, while also noting service issues. The most interesting part? Every single one said they’d sail on a Four Seasons cruise again, despite those issues.

Bottom line

We had an amazing time sailing on Four Seasons’ cruise ship, and it’s fascinating to see how the luxury cruising sector is evolving. We found the ship to be gorgeous, and the staff to be exceptionally friendly.

The thing to be aware of, though, is that service is a work in progress. Four Seasons is known for its seamless and anticipatory service, and that’s not yet consistent on a Four Seasons cruise. Everyone is lovely and is trying, but there’s some friction. I trust this will be worked out over time, because they have great staff and management.

The service issues were a common observation among guests. Obviously cruise logistics are hard, but the issue is that Four Seasons is charging through the roof for these cruises, so understandably, expectations are sky high. Despite these service issues, we had a great time, as did everyone else we spoke with.

What’s your take on the Four Seasons cruise experience?