Four Seasons Hotel New York vs Four Seasons Ritz Lisbon

The I.M. Pei limestone tower and the 52-storey lobby still stop people in their tracks, and on Central Park South that setting alone justifies a lot. The staff, over and over, is what guests remember — a bellman named Eddie, a concierge who got someone into every restaurant on their list, a bartender named Olga who adjusted an over-salted appetizer without being asked twice. That kind of consistent, unprompted staff-naming across unrelated stays doesn't happen at a hotel that's coasting.

The rooms are the catch, and travelers who know the brand elsewhere say so plainly: this reopened in late 2024 after a long closure and the guest rooms did not get the full overhaul some expected. Multiple stays describe furniture, fixtures and artificial flowers that read more 1990s hotel than 2020s Four Seasons, and more than one longtime FS guest has called it a noticeable step down from the brand's other flagships. The bathrooms and finishes are the specific complaint that keeps surfacing, alongside occasional housekeeping and room-service misses that feel out of step with the price.

Book it for the location, the lobby, and a staff that still performs like it's 1993 in the best sense — walking distance to the park, Fifth Avenue and Midtown's best restaurants, with a team that will genuinely go out of its way. Anyone chasing the newest rooms in the category has other options in the city; anyone who wants the classic New York hotel experience, done by people who still care, should book the higher floors and not worry about the decor.

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: guest after guest, months apart, describes the same thing. 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 story splits. 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. There's also a renovation-noise complaint from a weekday stay in late 2025 that the guest felt should have been disclosed at booking. The gap is between public spaces that land as genuinely grand and individual rooms that can feel tired depending on which one you draw, and 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 cutting-edge design, there are newer, 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.