Hey, I can respect that you don’t like Marriott or even RC because of the Marriott founder’s Mormonism and their placing Mormon Bibles at hotels. So be it.

I’m a gay liberal Jewish-raised atheist who lives in neofascist Orange County. But I could care less what Bible is in the drawer that I’m certainly going to ignore. It doesn’t impact my being who I am in the slightest.

Also, there is no StR in Tokyo. But I will say the Prince Gallery is a worthy competitor to the RC, so we still have options.

Taj outside India isn’t likely to rival RC, I’m afraid. Most of their non-India properties are weak 5*. And Shangri-La outside Paris isn’t going to rival RC much either.

FS isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be, either. There are many great FS...and plenty of overrated ones, too. The RC Boston is nicer than the FS Boston—in terms of hotel bar, it’s not even remotely close. The FS Sydney sucks. The FS San Fran isn’t any better than the RC, and neither quite is as impressive as the StR. The FS Bora Bora is no better than the StR, and the StR kills it on food/beverage.

RC isn’t always perfect. But it can be quite wonderful in some locations. If you want to avoid them all for your own set of reasons, so be it. But trying to blanket paint the brand as somehow subpar or less than some of the other brands mentioned is not based on the facts on the ground.