Amanpuri vs Cheval Blanc St-Tropez

Amanpuri is the original Aman, built in 1988, and what keeps coming up, from first-time guests and people on their fourth or fifth stay, is that the service here still outdoes most of the brand it started: housekeeping that refreshes a villa the moment you step out, staff who remember a tea order or a preferred pillow without being told twice. The beach, shared only with The Surin next door, is the other constant: hosed down, rarely crowded, and consistently called the calmest stretch of sand on the island. The teak-and-thatch architecture reads as timeless rather than dated for a property closing in on 40 years old, and enough people single out the gym — two floors, a boxing ring, a full Muay Thai setup — that it clearly isn't a throwaway amenity for a beach resort.

The catch is what you book. Anything below a pool or ocean villa loses the plot fast, and guests say so bluntly. The hillside villas (18 and 19 specifically) come with genuinely brutal staircases; a buggy fleet solves it for most people, but one guest was put in a room 170 steps from the lobby with no cart available and ended up asking for a refund on the remaining nights, so it's worth asking about step count directly when you book. Dining draws a mixed verdict against Trisara nearby: solid, occasionally very good, but rarely what people book the trip for, and at these rates a few guests wanted more. A handful of recent reviews also flag family-heavy villa bookings, with unsupervised children disrupting the quieter, adults-leaning mood Aman built its name on.

The Surin sits on the same beach for less, and people who've stayed at both still give Amanpuri the edge on service and grounds. Book the room category that matches the price and this stays the Aman most repeat guests call their favorite.

What you're paying for here is flat ground and a kitchen that never clocks off. The beach is level, no cliff steps or funicular to manage, which is why it keeps getting recommended over the clifftop Riviera names for anyone traveling with a baby or a stroller. Cheval Blanc treats young kids like actual guests, down to kid-sized robes. La Vague d'Or's three stars are the obvious pull, but the same discipline shows up in a pool sandwich or a room-service breakfast, which is the harder thing to sustain than one great tasting menu. Staff learn names fast, and one guest's write-up of the whole team lining up in the driveway to wave off a departing car says more about the culture here than any amenities list would.

The trade-off is space. Rooms run small for what you're paying, a complaint that shows up from first-timers and from a guest on their fifth Cheval Blanc stay alike, and there's no bigger category to book your way around it. The property also goes quiet after 1am: the shuttle stops, and a late night in town means an Uber rather than a house car. Breakfast has been reported slow when the hotel is full, with guests asking two or three times for coffee and bread even as the food itself gets no complaints. One 2024 review described being turned away rudely as a walk-in at the bar, worth knowing if you're hoping to eat there without a room key.

Book it for the beach and the kitchen, not the square footage. If more room in the same stretch of coast matters more to you than either of those, Byblos or the château at Airelles Messardière are the names worth weighing instead.