ultra luxury

Aman

9 properties in our collection.

FV17.1/20avg. score

Aman

Aman-i-Khas

Ten tents, eighty staff, and a butler system ("Batman") that guest after guest names by name months apart, unprompted, describing the kind of anticipatory service they say they haven't found anywhere else. That's not a coincidence of a few happy reviews; it's the one thing almost nobody who stays here disputes. The stepwell pool in grey stone, the on-site farm feeding the kitchen, the tiger sightings guides pull off that independent drivers apparently can't match: all of it reads as consistent across years of stays, not a single good season. The base rate is not the real number, and this is where the property earns its one legitimate complaint. Rooms run roughly $1,200–1,500 a night, but private safaris and airport transfers are priced separately and aggressively (guests describe a quoted $2,400 one-way transfer, versus $200 for an independently arranged driver over the same three-hour route), and a short stay can land $6,000–7,000 over the room cost in add-ons. That's a real gap between what Aman promises and what actually shows up on the bill, and it's worth knowing before you book, not after. Canvas walls also mean you hear the jungle, and sometimes your neighbors, at night; a few travelers report slow maintenance response (a stuck bathtub, a missed yoga pickup) that shouldn't happen at this rate but isn't universal either. Worth it if you book the room rate knowing the incidentals will roughly quintuple it, arrange your own transfer, and go for the tiger sightings and the service, not for an all-in package. Skip it if open-ended nickel-and-diming genuinely sours a trip for you, no matter how good the butler is.

Fat Legend

Aman

Amanpuri

Phuket, Thailand

Amanpuri is the 1988 original, and the thing almost every guest agrees on, months and years apart, is that the service here still outdoes the rest of the brand: housekeeping that refreshes a villa the moment you step out, staff who remember a tea order or a preferred pillow without being told twice. The beach is the other constant. Shared only with The Surin next door, it's repeatedly called the calmest, cleanest stretch of sand on the island, and unlike a lot of 1980s-vintage resorts, the teak-and-thatch architecture reads as timeless rather than tired. The gym gets singled out too, oddly enough for a beach resort: two floors, a boxing ring, a proper Muay Thai setup. The catch is what you book. Anything below a pool or ocean villa loses the plot fast, and guests are blunt about it: garden-view rooms don't deliver the same version of the hotel that the reviews are raving about. The hillside villas, especially 18 and 19, involve genuinely brutal staircases, and while a buggy fleet solves it for most people, at least one guest describes being stranded and needing a refund over it, so ask specifically about step count before booking if mobility is a concern. Dining is fine but nobody calls it a destination in itself, and a few reviewers found it thin for the price, especially set against Trisara or Pru's own ambitions. Book an ocean or pool villa and this is one of the most complete beach resorts in Southeast Asia. Families should know the villa-heavy layout occasionally pulls in kids in numbers that clash with the adults-oriented calm Aman is known for. Rosewood Phuket sits nearby, more modern, better value, and comes up constantly as the alternative, but reviewers who've done both still give Amanpuri's beach and service the edge.

Fat Favorite

Aman

Amanfayun

Hangzhou, China

What you're paying for at Amanfayun isn't the room. It's a reconstructed Longjing tea village strung along a stream beside Lingyin Temple, with monk-led chants at Yongfu at dawn and a footpath gate that lets you beat the tour buses. That setting is the whole case for the property, and travellers keep describing it the same way years apart: the stream-lined pool against centuries-old stone, the tea gardens, the sense of arriving somewhere old rather than merely nice. Guest after guest names the same staff by first name, unprompted, and mentions the same soft spot for grandparents and toddlers. The rooms are the catch, and it's not a minor one: the "cottages" are consistently reported as too dark, by fans and critics alike, in reviews years apart, so this isn't one bad villa. Dining is genuinely strong at the vegetarian restaurant and the in-house Steam House, but Hangzhou House (the Michelin-starred restaurant on property, run separately from Aman) draws a real split — some call it among the best hotel meals in China, others paid roughly SGD 350 for two and found the food bland and the service checked-out. Service overall skews warm and attentive, but there's a genuine minority of accounts describing poor English and dismissive front desk staff, including one detailed 2024 report of serious lapses that reads as an outlier against years of warm accounts, not the rule. Worth noting too: the public footpath means non-guests wander the grounds, which undercuts the sense of exclusivity you'd expect at this price. Book it for the temple access and the atmosphere, not for a polished five-star room experience — and budget the transfer time, since the traffic-controlled West Lake area makes arrival genuinely complicated.

Fat Favorite

Aman

Amanzoe

Porto Heli, Greece

What you're paying for at Amanzoe is space and architecture, and on both counts it delivers: pavilions run around 2,200 square feet with private pools, and the hilltop temple design above the Aegean is the kind of thing guests describe as feeling suspended between sky and sea rather than just "nice views." Multiple stays through late 2025 describe rooms as immaculately maintained with no visible wear, which matters at a property this size and this old (Amanzoe opened in 2012). Service is the other half of the case, and it's unusually well corroborated: staff wrapping a child's twisted ankle before being asked, remembering coffee orders unprompted, quietly rearranging a private dinner around bad weather. That's not one grateful guest, it's a pattern across a year of independent stays. Where it slips is dining and logistics. Guests consistently flag the Japanese restaurant and general food quality as not matching the price, with the beach club restaurant Nura the reliable exception — book there over the main dining room if you can. The beach itself sits apart from the hilltop property, so daily transport needs planning, not spontaneity. And the 3-hour drive from Athens (helicopter transfer exists but isn't cheap or included) is a real commitment, not a footnote. One recent report described a serious unresolved security complaint and a stonewalling front desk; it's an outlier against a strong service record, but worth knowing it exists. Worth it for the architecture and the sense of scale; go in expecting to eat well only at the beach club.

Fat Favorite

Aman

Aman Venice

Venice, Italy

Palazzo Papadopoli is doing almost all the work here, and it's worth saying plainly: no other hotel in Venice has original Tiepolo ceilings over the breakfast tables and a walled private garden a few steps from the Grand Canal. That's not marketing, it's the building. Guests keep describing breakfast in the frescoed ballroom as one of the best things they've done in the city, and multiple travellers unprompted call the service among the strongest anywhere in the Aman network, up to and including a lost bag chased down by staff without being asked twice. The catch is room category, and it's not a small one. Entry-level rooms get Aman's stripped-back minimalism with none of the frescoes or gilding that make the story work, and more than one guest has described being assigned an oddly placed or partly subterranean room despite paying well over €1,000 a night. Book below a fresco or canal-facing suite and you're paying palazzo prices for a room that could be a well-made hotel anywhere. The spa is the other soft spot — small to begin with, and one detailed account this year described a genuinely alarming massage experience and a dismissive response from spa management, which lines up with the wider pattern of it being underbuilt for a property at this rate. Dining draws real praise for the setting and the staff, less for the food itself being destination-level, and extras (a lunch here ran well into three figures for two) add up fast. It's also not built for children or a resort-style stay; families consistently point elsewhere for that. Book the right room, skip the spa, and this is genuinely special. Book wrong and you'll wonder what you paid for.

Fat Favorite

Aman

Aman Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan

Kerry Hill's 33rd-floor lobby, with its washi-paper ceilings and unbroken views over the Imperial Gardens, is still the most arresting arrival in Tokyo hospitality, and guest after guest describes it as a genuine "stop in your tracks" moment even years after opening. The suites are among the largest in the city, the pool and onsen are consistently called some of the best of any city hotel in Asia, and the eight-seat hinoki counter run by Chef Musashi (who grows his own rice and wasabi) reads as a singular, deeply personal experience rather than a hotel restaurant going through the motions. Where it comes apart is the gap between the building and the service around it. Recent reports describe a concierge team that struggles to land reservations at Tokyo's top sushi counters, sometimes leaving guests to sort it out themselves. In-room breakfast, once a genuine strength, has slipped enough that multiple 2026 accounts describe broken hollandaise and dry Western dishes, a real decline from what people were posting even a year earlier. And the price comparison keeps surfacing unprompted: guests who've stayed at both routinely say Bulgari Tokyo delivers similar or better service, 24-hour breakfast, and more confident English at a meaningfully lower rate, sometimes citing a gap of several hundred dollars a night for a comparable suite. None of this touches the room itself, which remains the reason to book: nobody disputes the scale, the light, or the bathing ritual. But if service anticipation and dining consistency matter as much to you as the view, that's a real trade-off worth pricing in, not a footnote.

Fat Approved

Aman

Aman Kyoto

Kyoto, Japan

Kerry Hill's forest pavilions sit inside a three-generation garden in the hills above Kyoto, and at rates that run $3,000 to $5,000 a night, the design and the onsen are what most guests say actually justify the number. The property is genuinely embedded in its landscape rather than merely landscaped around, and the outdoor hot spring comes up again and again as one of the best settings people have sat in, in Japan or anywhere else. Taka-An, the kaiseki restaurant, gets similarly specific praise: guests who pre-arrange a seasonal ingredient (snow crab, say) describe multi-course menus built entirely around it, good enough that more than one couple went back a second night. The isolation is the actual product, not a flaw to route around: complimentary house cars (BMW i7s and X7s) get you into central Kyoto in 15-20 minutes, but this only works if you want a deliberate retreat rather than a base for temple-hopping. Weigh that against no pool and no gym at this price, which surprises people even when they'd read about it beforehand. Service is where the reports genuinely split: most describe staff remembering names and anticipating needs at the 25-room scale, but a few guests paying top rate note small lapses — a forgotten drink order, common areas that read as sparse rather than serene — that stand out precisely because the price leaves no room for them. Book it as the quiet chapter of a longer Japan trip, ideally paired with something central like the Park Hyatt Kyoto for the days you actually want to be in the city. Book it as your only Kyoto hotel and the location will grate.

Fat Approved

Aman

Amanusa

Nusa Dua, Indonesia

Amanusa runs on the same formula as every Aman villa property: private pool, round-the-clock butler, a clifftop perch above Nusa Dua. On the evidence, that formula still delivers. Butlers get named and praised across stays years apart (Dandy, in one 2026 account), the in-villa chef's sambal gets singled out more than once, and the staff running the beach area come up as the standout for families with young kids. Where it slips is the building itself and the fine print. One detailed 2023 stay found the villa interiors generic, bare enough that a longtime Aman guest said it could have been any hotel anywhere: no local decor, nothing that felt distinctly Amanusa. The same stay flagged a real design problem for families, two-bedroom villas that don't connect internally, so getting to a child's room means walking outside past the pool; the family ended up sharing one room for five nights rather than risk it. That trip also had the kids' menu shown a day before checkout instead of at booking. None of this touched the butler service, which the same reviewer rated fine. Separately, a couple of longtime Aman loyalists who've done Amanusa, Amandari, and Amankila across decades now describe the style as familiar rather than exciting, which reads less like decline and more like the format having aged in place. Worth booking for seclusion, a private pool, and service that consistently over-delivers, especially with kids on the beach side. Confirm room configuration before you book if traveling with young children, and go in expecting comfort over character; Amandari gets described as more atmospheric by people who've stayed at both. We haven't stayed ourselves, and the villa-layout complaint comes from a single detailed report rather than a pattern.

Fat Approved

Aman

Amangiri

Canyon Point, USA

The architecture is the reason to go, and it still delivers: guest after guest describes the same moment, climbing the stairs into that picture-frame window onto the canyon, and calling it the best first impression they've had at any hotel in the country. The building disappears into the Colorado Plateau rather than sitting on it, and the private estate around it is so vast that arriving still feels like crossing into another world, even for people on their fourth or fifth stay. Camp Sarika's pavilions, with private plunge pools and total seclusion, come up again and again as some of the best rooms of their kind in the US. The spa is the one thing almost nobody complains about. Everything else is where the argument starts. Rates have moved from roughly $1,000-2,500/night a decade ago to $4,500-10,000+ now, often $30k+ for a long weekend once excursions and dining are added, and a large number of repeat guests, the loyal cohort who used to defend this place reflexively, now say the product hasn't moved with the price. Restaurant service is the recurring complaint: two-hour dinners, 30-40 minute waits for a drink, one person running an entire pool bar. Food splits sharply, some call it Michelin-level, others got underripe fruit and undercooked potatoes on the same trip. Reservations and gate staff come up repeatedly as cold rather than gracious, which is a bad note to hit before someone's even parked. There's a real signal, dated late 2025, that new leadership at Camp Sarika (Mario and Sergio) has tightened things up; whether that holds is untested by us. Worth it if the landscape and the excursions (via ferrata, slot canyons, Lake Powell) are the trip. Not worth it if you're booking for flawless five-star service, in which case treat it as a coin flip, not a guarantee.