Side by side Four Seasons Surf Club vs The Thief

The building is a restored 1930s beach club, and it shows in a way few hotels this size manage: coffered ceilings, archways, a champagne bar room guests describe as the best in the hotel. Rooms run large by Miami standards, under 80 keys total, so the pool and beach never feel packed even in season. That scarcity is most of what you're paying for, along with a front desk and pool staff that guests keep calling out by name for fixing problems before they escalate.

The trade-offs are worth knowing before you book. The property is pricey for what lands on the plate: Sunday brunch guests complain doesn't include coffee without an upcharge, and more than one person found the food merely fine for a Four Seasons, bland compared to other outposts of the same brand. The bigger issue is two separate reports of staff walking into occupied rooms unannounced, one at night, one involving a security officer standing over a sleeping guest who says the door was deadbolted. The hotel's handling of that second incident, a slow refund and a manager treating it like a late room service order, is a real mark against a brand that sells itself on trust. Book a cabana and ignore the brunch menu, and most of the complaints about food evaporate: in-room dining and dinner at Lido get consistent praise.

This is the right call for a quiet, grown-up Miami stay, away from the Faena scene and the crowding reported at 1 Hotel South Beach. Families do well here too, with a real kids club and sand toys by the beach, though anyone chasing nightlife should look toward South Beach proper instead. Worth the money for the room and the restaurant alone, less so if a flawless security record matters more to you than the building.

The Thief sits on its own spit of land in Tjuvholmen, and what you're paying for first is that setting: floor-to-ceiling windows, mirrors angled to pull in the fjord, art on every wall that more than one guest has compared to a small gallery. The breakfast is the other reason to book – several people who've stayed all over Oslo call it the best in the city, and the rooftop kitchen's Camembert starter and peach-and-chocolate dessert get named by guests who never even booked a room. Front-desk staff who go out of their way show up often enough to matter: one guest got upgraded to a higher floor after a rough travel day, another had the same breakfast table held for her all week by a waiter named Sylvester.

The rooms don't all deliver the marketing shot. Ask for a higher floor and you might still land facing the alley behind the museum, where garbage trucks and late-night chatter run past the window several times a night, and one guest counted being woken six to eight times over two stays. Base rooms run small, the gym is showing its age, and the spa – lovely as it is – won't blow away anyone who's been to a proper wellness hotel. A few stays have gone properly wrong too: a broken door lock patched with duct tape, a turndown team that walked in on a Do Not Disturb sign, a kitchen a guest watched cooking without gloves. None of it is the norm, but it happens often enough that you shouldn't assume five-star polish at every turn.

Book it if what you want is the location, the breakfast, and a design hotel with real character rather than a chain gloss – ask for a room away from the alley side and you'll dodge the worst of it. Skip it if you need flawless, hands-on service every time; that's inconsistent here. For the setting and the food alone, it's worth the rate.