Side by side Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal vs Waldorf Astoria New York

You're paying anywhere from $2,000 to $3,000 a night here, or burning around 200,000 Hilton points plus a free-night certificate for the same room, and what arrives is a butler who texts back in two minutes, a plunge pool on your own balcony, and an arrival through a tunnel cut into the rock that people still mention years later. One guest's butler, Eloy, picked them up for every off-site dinner and kept the chips, guacamole and Coronitas coming like clockwork; that kind of attention is the real case for booking this over almost anything else in Cabo.

The catch is what's on property to eat. El Farallon's cliffside setting over crashing waves is genuinely dramatic, but more than one guest has described the kitchen as slow and the food as merely fine for the price, and a full week here can mean running out of good options fast since there's really only a handful of restaurants. The ocean here isn't swimmable either, so the plunge pools and resort pools are doing all the work, and the beach rocks mean most people just stay on property or walk the ten minutes into town for dinner. The spa's three-waterfall pool is reserved for guests actually booking treatments, which catches people off guard, and the gym, despite its size, is stocked with equipment regular lifters find underwhelming.

Book this for the service and the privacy, not for a food-forward trip or a swim-in-the-ocean vacation. Couples and points travelers get the most out of it: it's quiet, exclusive, and the staff treat you like you've been coming for years even on your first stay. Families with very young kids may find Four Seasons Punta Mita or Montage Los Cabos a better fit given their broader kids' programming, but for a romantic long weekend from the West Coast, this is still the move.

The 2026 reopening gave the Waldorf Astoria New York 375 rooms where it used to have over 1,400, and the trade shows up immediately: a junior suite now runs upward of 600 square feet, with a sitting area, desk and bar that older Manhattan hotels don't bother with. Pierre-Yves Rochon, who did the George V, restored the bronze elevator doors, the lobby mosaics and the Silver Corridor murals rather than papering over them, so the public rooms still look like 1931 while the guest rooms are unmistakably new. Staff get named constantly and specifically: a doorman walking a first-time guest's luggage in with real warmth, a front desk agent who found room for a family's 10th-birthday trip during the tennis tournament crush, a concierge who turned a casual question about hotel history into an hour-long private tour.

The catch is scale in the wrong places. Several guests flag the bathrooms and closets as tight even in suites, and one detailed report calls out bathroom tile that doesn't line up at the seams, a strange miss on a renovation this expensive. There's no pool, and no hot tub, which matters if that's part of how you unwind on a trip, though the Guerlain spa compensates somewhat with a treatment room that actually generates snow. Park Avenue–facing rooms get traffic noise, so ask for the other side if you're a light sleeper. One guest who has also stayed at Aman New York put it plainly: Aman's rooms and pool win on paper, but the Waldorf's service and food pull ahead for less money, and the public spaces here feel lived-in rather than hushed.

Book it if you want Art Deco history with modern rooms and don't need a pool or a sprawling bathroom. Families and pet owners get real consideration here, down to chef-prepared dog amenities and connecting rooms across nearly every category. If a pool is non-negotiable, that's a fair reason to look elsewhere; if it isn't, this is the Midtown stay worth the splurge.