Four Seasons Resort and Residences Anguilla

This is our 2nd day here, so we are still on property and I will update this review later. But right now, the loud obnoxious music from Savi Beach Club (next to hotel) is killing a relaxing beach vacation. Their loud bass thumping music kept our family awake until 1am last night. And this morning, we were enjoying a quiet beach day on Mead’s Beach, when promptly at 12pm, Savi starts their clubbing music again… I think Savi is relatively new. But man, I’ve stayed at plenty of Four Seasons and I’m really disappointed. So sad the neighbors are killing the vibe.

We went to the Four Seasons Anguilla as a family of eight — six adults and two one year olds. We stayed in a five bedroom beachfront villa from January 29 - February 6, 2023. The resort and villa were beautiful. The Four Seasons service, while characteristically excellent sometimes, had some misses. The food was good, but the variety was a little lacking and several of our meals were not cooked quite right and the supervisor did not handle it very well. We are big Four Seasons fans and have stayed with the brand in more than 20 resorts worldwide. When the service is at its best, staff members anticipate what you need and offer it to you before you even ask. Other times, the service is responsive to your request. When you ask for something and it does not happen, that is a miss. We experienced very little anticipatory service here — no thoughtful little touches like a treat left in the room or check ins to see how we are doing. Our villa assistant, Jason, was very good when we asked for something. When he was not at the resort and we had to call or text the front desk, it was hit or miss. Several times, I asked for room service trays to be removed or to get more towels and it never happened. I had to ask again. That is a big fail for me. We also asked for our pool to be cleaned a few times and that did not happen until the last day. Service was also pretty slow. I think that is because the resort is understaffed. It is a huge resort spread across a lot of space with hundreds of room. They need a big staff and just do not seem to have it. One highlight on the staff was our housekeeping staff member, Augustina. She did a great job cleaning our villa. She was also friendly and responsive to our requests. We asked her to only clean certain rooms on certain days, and she was very accommodating. Many of the accommodations here are villas or residences with full kitchens and big tables that allow you to eat in your room. That means room service is critical. We found it lacking. The room service menu is pretty limited. Once you have eaten from it a couple of times, you have exhausted the menu. The room service was also slow. It always took at least an hour, and sometimes as long as 90 minutes. On several ocassions, we asked for something to be cooked well done for the one year olds. It did not come well done. It was red and raw in the middle — one time steak and one time salmon. One time, my wife called about it and the person she talked to was pretty rude, expressed disbelief and said “well, what do you want me to do about it?” That is just not the response we expected. The restaurants were good, but a little limited and also slow. We really liked the Shell Beach Bar. The Tacos and Calypso rice were delicious. SALT and the Sunset Bar and Grill had good food, but slightly slow service. There also was not a lot of variety. One other small example — one of our family members uses a heating pad to relieve pain to be able to sleep at night. She brought one with her. But when we got there, it did not work. I called and texted the front desk to ask if the hotel had one. They said it would take a while to find out. I didn’t hear back. I followed up and got a text that “no, we don’t have that.” No offer to find something else, procure one on the island, or provide something that could help. Typically, the word “no” does not exist at the Four Seasons. Here, it did. As a last comment, the beach in front of the villas (Barnes Bay) is not great for swimming. It is very rocky with rocks that are sharp in places and slippery in others. If you think you are going to walk down from your villa and enjoy a swim off the beach, you will find it is not as nice as the beach on the other side of the resort (Mead’s Bay), but that is a 15 minute golf cart ride. In all, the resort and accommodations are nice, but the service and some other factors were a little disappointing.

The infrastructure is fantastic--well-appointed, streamlined in a way that is perfect for the feel of the island, clean, highly functioning, and a clearly put together with the vacationer in mind. As great as the infrastructure is, the people making up both the front-of-the-house and the back-of-the-house created, with the hotel and hotel amenities, a simply fantastc experience for us. Whether we were hanging by the pool, hanging on the beach, playing on the courts or just interacting with a member of the team on the sidewalk, the feeling of vacation happiness just remained and grew. The people in every function came to know our names on sight, which provides for a nice touch when visiting that type of place. Accommodations great, food great, proximity great, service great, vibe great. Special shout out to Roxanne, who greeted us at the start and saw us out at the end, and did nothing but make each of our days better. Santiago and the whole staff at the pool--superb. The spa and staff and professionals--superb. Just a great experience.