Overall, the two are within a point of each other.
Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown leads on service (+2), wellness (+1.5) and dining (+0.5); Four Seasons Bosphorus on rooms & design (+2) and location (+2).
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Fat Favorite, 16 out of 20. Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown
Fat Approved, 15.5 out of 20. Four Seasons BosphorusNew York, USA · Four Seasons
Most stays feature a standout by name (Vash, Assiya, Duran) but a real minority report unhelped valets and staff too cool to engage.
A Four Seasons in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center, with an indoor pool and CUT by Wolfgang Puck on site.
Read the full verdictIstanbul, Turkey · Four Seasons
Palace-wing rooms with 20-foot ceilings draw the most praise.
A Four Seasons hotel set directly on Istanbul’s Bosphorus waterway, with rooms and a restaurant overlooking the strait.
Read the full verdictOut of 20. The bars start at 10, so half a point still shows.
Overall +0.5
Overall: Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown 16 out of 20, Four Seasons Bosphorus 15.5 out of 20.Service +2 Why
Service: Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown 17 out of 20, Four Seasons Bosphorus 15 out of 20.Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: Most stays feature a standout by name (Vash, Assiya, Duran) but a real minority report unhelped valets and staff too cool to engage.
Four Seasons Bosphorus: Front desk and concierge staff get praised by name repeatedly, but a few guests describe being lectured or dismissed over pet and seating policies.
Rooms & Design +2 Why
Rooms & Design: Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown 15.5 out of 20, Four Seasons Bosphorus 17.5 out of 20.Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: Rooms and suites read as spacious and comfortable, but several guests call the lobby small and the decor bland or interchangeable with other Four Seasons.
Four Seasons Bosphorus: Palace-wing rooms with 20-foot ceilings draw the most praise, though several guests call the rooms themselves dated compared to newer Istanbul builds.
Location +2 Why
Location: Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown 16 out of 20, Four Seasons Bosphorus 18 out of 20.Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center, Tribeca and the subway, quieter than Midtown but a taxi ride from the busiest tourist core.
Four Seasons Bosphorus: Right on the water in Beylerbeyi with a garden setting, though it sits well outside the old town and requires a drive for sightseeing.
Dining +0.5 Why
Dining: Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown 15 out of 20, Four Seasons Bosphorus 14.5 out of 20.Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: CUT by Wolfgang Puck gets steady praise for steaks and breakfast pastries, but it’s the only restaurant and room service pricing draws complaints.
Four Seasons Bosphorus: Yali’s terrace and the breakfast buffet are standouts, but Ocakbasi’s kitchen and the single lunch restaurant get called out as weak links.
Wellness +1.5 Why
Wellness: Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown 17 out of 20, Four Seasons Bosphorus 15.5 out of 20.Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: The indoor pool and steam rooms in the locker area are the most consistently loved amenity, with the spa rated excellent though pricey.
Four Seasons Bosphorus: The hammam and spa treatments get strong marks even with parts of the steam room and indoor pool closed during some stays.
Strengths of Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown
Strengths of Four Seasons Bosphorus
Trade-offs of Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown
Trade-offs of Four Seasons Bosphorus
Only at Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown
Only at Four Seasons Bosphorus
This is Four Seasons doing what Four Seasons does, in a part of Manhattan that lets it do it quietly. Downtown near the World Trade Center and Tribeca, it trades the Midtown crush for calmer streets, a genuinely large indoor pool, and rooms that run bigger than almost anything comparable in the city. The suites are the strongest argument here, especially the newly renovated ones, and more than one long-time Four Seasons guest says this is the first property that made them loyal to the brand rather than just a fan of a particular city.
The catch is consistency. Plenty of stays get a doorman who drives you to Little Italy when your Uber cancels, or a front desk that tracks down a coffee order and a pastry preference by day two. Just as many describe staff who walk past an open door without offering to help, or a valet who watched a bag get loaded without lifting a finger. Room service runs $10-12 over what you'd expect for the quality, the lobby reads small and can feel cold rather than welcoming, and the one on-site restaurant, CUT by Wolfgang Puck, is good but not a reason to skip the rest of the neighborhood's options. None of that is disqualifying at this price, but it means the experience depends more on which shift you catch than it should.
Book it for the pool, the room size, and a location that lets you avoid Midtown chaos without losing subway access. Business travelers and families both report being genuinely well taken care of, especially with kids or pets in tow. If flawless, name-remembered service every single day is the whole point of paying Four Seasons rates, know that it's inconsistent here rather than guaranteed, and price that in before you book.
A room in the old palace wing here comes with 20-foot ceilings and a view of the Bosphorus that nobody guesses from a listing photo. That's the case for booking: this is one of the only hotels in Istanbul built into actual palace architecture, and the front desk and doormen get named and praised constantly, from airport pickup through checkout. Breakfast keeps coming up as one of the best hotel spreads in the city, with real effort put into dietary requests.
The catch is that a Four Seasons rate here doesn't buy Four Seasons consistency. One family was pulled aside over dog policy after checking in and paying, then denied pool seating with no apparent resolution. A business breakfast group got told to vacate a table mid-meal by a seating manager who blamed them for sitting down unassisted. Guests who've been coming for years mention the palace rooms have no balconies and the bathrooms in some categories feel like they haven't been touched in a refurb, and the smoking policy around the pool bothers more than one traveller enough to say they wouldn't return. The breakfast and the palace suites are worth the price; the day-to-day staff experience outside the front desk is the real gamble.
Book it if the palace history and the water views are the point of the trip, not a fast pass through old town. First-timers who want to walk to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are better off at the brand's own Sultanahmet property, a converted prison a short walk from everything. For a Bosphorus base with resort space, a proper spa day, and one of the better breakfasts in Istanbul, this earns the booking.
We’re Sofie and Nicolas, and we’ve stayed in hotels like these ourselves. Tell us what the trip is and we’ll tell you which one we’d book, and why. We’re not really a booking service, but a few times a year we plan one properly for someone; if that’s what you’re after, say so.
It's just the two of us, so we take on a handful of trips at a time. If we're full, we'll say so. We reply within a working day. The hotel pays us, not you: your rate is the same as booking direct, and the perks come on top.
Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: Most stays feature a standout by name (Vash, Assiya, Duran) but a real minority report unhelped valets and staff too cool to engage. Four Seasons Bosphorus: Palace-wing rooms with 20-foot ceilings draw the most praise.
Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown is ahead on how you’re looked after. Four Seasons Bosphorus is ahead on where it puts you. Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown adds Design and Family; Four Seasons Bosphorus adds Heritage, Architecture and Romantic. Both are tagged Urban, Wellness and Culinary.
Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown leads on this. Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: Most stays feature a standout by name (Vash, Assiya, Duran) but a real minority report unhelped valets and staff too cool to engage. Four Seasons Bosphorus: Front desk and concierge staff get praised by name repeatedly, but a few guests describe being lectured or dismissed over pet and seating policies.
Four Seasons Bosphorus leads on this. Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown: Rooms and suites read as spacious and comfortable, but several guests call the lobby small and the decor bland or interchangeable with other Four Seasons. Four Seasons Bosphorus: Palace-wing rooms with 20-foot ceilings draw the most praise, though several guests call the rooms themselves dated compared to newer Istanbul builds.
Four Seasons Hotel New York Downtown is in New York, USA; Four Seasons Bosphorus is in Istanbul, Turkey.
Fat Voyage scores every hotel out of 20 across five dimensions — service, rooms & design, location, dining and wellness — read from the trip reports in the most active luxury travel communities, critics’ reviews and verified guest reviews, with the long, detailed and recent ones counting most. Nothing is paid for, and no hotel can buy a place.
