I stayed at the Four Seasons Astir Palace over the weekend as I was keen to compare it to the former Marriott-owned Westin and Luxury Collection hotels it has eaten up. It's obviously very off-season at the moment and they only had the Nafkisa (ex. Westin) building open, with the exception of the spa which is in the Arion. I stayed at a Garden room one category up from base, which was quite interesting. You access via the oceanfront, have a sofa and a small garden.
I booked via [MENTION=45003]Jeremy[/MENTION] who is a bit of a Four Seasons (and Maldives) specialist who had arranged a hand-written welcome note and an FSPP rate including breakfast, $100 credit and a space-available upgrade (there was unfortunately no space).
My thoughts are as follows:
- The hard product has definitely been upgraded. The interiors are noticeably more luxurious than before and there is a whole load of modern tech added, some of which is frankly overkill (the automatic opening and closing of the sliding door to my room was really quite annoying)
- I didn't see the issues of wear and tear which have been reported by [MENTION=94403]offerendum[/MENTION] in 2019. The single sign of it not being a new hotel was a staff side-door off a corridor to (new) toilets which looked like a Heathrow Terminal 5 lounge toilet - with dents, marks, etc. Everything else looked spotless
- I'm not a huge fan of the current Four Seasons style guide (it reminds me of new Park Hyatts which I don't like either). Similar to Bangkok, the white on white on white minimalism with highlighted Instagram design elements at times looks like it's trying a bit too hard. The giant "mirror TV" facing my bed was also pretty fun when you're in the mood for some kinks on a dirty weekend out, but seems like it would be a bit out of place for most guests
- The level of staffing at the hotel even off-season is like nothing else in Europe. Even out of season the deserted gym had two personal trainers on hand during office hours and even the tennis courts had a lonely trainer staffing the site, the clubhouse, the small coffeeshop and the shop
- On that note, I dislike the current trend for luxury hotels to come with more shops than a Dubai shopping mall. The Nafkisa building had perhaps five stores that I found, the tennis courts one, the main spa in the Arion is actually positioned as being inside yet another boutique. It reminded me of Mamounia in Marrakech and not in a good way
The elephant in the room for this resort is its cost. Staying off-season in one of the cheapest rooms it was over €700. In-season it seems that 30sqm rooms are rarely available for below €2,000 - which is testament to the Four Seasons brand pull and global inflation when you consider the same rooms were often to be had for below €400 in 2017. I realise the pricing is in the context of a new trend for multi-thousand Euro a night oceanfront hotels in Europe, but I'm not sure that the Athens Riviera is really comparable to the Cote D'Azur, or that the Astir Palace can justify a higher cost per sqm than Amanzoe.
Perhaps if money is no object, I can see that it might be convenient to blow €15,000 on a relatively unremarkable long weekend in the Schengen zone near an international airport, but for even most Luxury forum regulars here I suspect we'll need to wait and see whether prices stabilise at a more understandable level at some point before before incorporating the Four Seasons into our summer traditions.