Four Seasons Hotel Firenze vs Four Seasons Ritz Lisbon

The garden is what you're paying for as much as the room. Eleven acres, the largest private grounds in central Florence, and you walk through the gate and the city noise just stops, even though the Duomo is a walk away, not a drive. That's the reason people keep coming back even though the hotel sits slightly outside the main tourist core. The garden and the Michelin-starred cooking at Il Palagio are the two reasons to book this over anywhere else in the city. Staff show up by name and by specific act: a server named Francesco pushed the signature Negroni and made the table's night; a spa technician named Letizia got singled out for a nail appointment that ran long in the best way.

The real thing to know about is check-in. One recent report describes a honeymooning couple told, as they were shown to their room, what they would have had if only they'd taken the paid suite upgrade they had already declined — that's a training problem, not bad luck, and worth shutting down politely if it starts. Base-category rooms draw a separate, fair complaint too: dark, small, and a real step down from the palazzo suites; one guest was pushed toward one and only got moved after complaining twice. Summer brings enough toddlers to the pool that a couple of travellers found it more nursery than adult retreat, and the poolside burger gets called flavorless more than once.

None of that changes the case. Book above the base room if you can stretch to it, push back once if the upsell starts, and go outside peak family season if the pool matters to you. Book it for the garden and the kitchen at Il Palagio.

The case for the Ritz Lisbon is almost entirely about the people running it, not the rooms themselves. Doormen and housekeeping who greet you like they mean it, a concierge team that produces Benfica tickets on request, service that reads as natural rather than rehearsed. The bar keeps getting singled out as one of the better rooms in the city to sit in, the buffet breakfast is called out as genuinely excellent rather than just good for a hotel, and the pool and sauna setup (one traveller compared it to a proper Greek bath) is a real amenity rather than a box-tick.

The rooms are where the price gets harder to justify. Several recent stays flag stained carpets and thermostats that need constant resetting, and one guest priced the room itself closer to £200-300 a night on its own physical merits, separate from the name and the service. One weekday guest also ran into renovation noise that wasn't mentioned at booking and felt it should have been. Public spaces land as genuinely grand; the room you draw can feel a lot more tired than the lobby promised, so it's worth asking about your specific room and dates before you commit.

Location is the other trade-off: 15-20 minutes above Chiado and Alfama, fine if you want scale, views over Parque Eduardo VII, and a proper old-world base, less fine if you want to fall out of the hotel into the old city. If you want newer design, there are more central options in Lisbon; if you want staff who actually follow through and public rooms with real gravitas, this still delivers on the strength of its people, from the doormen who mean their good morning to a concierge desk that gets you into a Benfica match on request.