Four Seasons Resort and Residences Napa Valley — Hotel in Calistoga

We traveled here from Philadelphia (over five hour flight and then a two hour drive) with our four year old daughter for my birthday. A surprise trip from my husband. We are Four Seasons LOVERS. We’ve stayed at Anguilla, Nevis, Ten Trinity London, Dubai, Westlake Village, Toronto (three times), and Palm Beach. We were thrilled to add this property to our list and I have to say this was the worst of them by far and for many reasons and the only one we’ve actually disliked. See previous reviews. ||Upon check in at 2:30pm, we were told our room wasn’t ready. Disappointing as I mentioned we flew over five hours and then drove another two hours to get there with our toddler, we all woke up at 3am to get our flight and it was now nearly 12 hours later…. We were beyond exhausted. It’s not great to entertain a toddler in a lobby for an hour and a half (our room was finally ready at 3:59pm lolol). Then we were told that we weren’t given an upgrade- also fine. We booked through AMEX Fine Hotels and Resorts so we should’ve been granted an upgrade when available. This was all fine and understandable….. until…. Four seperate couples checked in while we sat in the lobby and ALL of their rooms were ready and two out of the four were given upgrades. The worst was a couple who had DRIVEN there said they weren’t celebrating anything and they were immediately checked in with an upgrade through AMEX! It was actually laughable. There was no regard for us looking like a totally wiped out family there to celebrate my birthday. We were offered red or white wine. We chose one of each and then they said they were out of a red (aren’t we on a working vineyard?). We asked for some waters as we sat in the lobby and were told to get them from the valet guy outside ourselves- weird. Wouldn’t you offer us some water to begin with knowing how far we traveled? ||From there things continued to be weird. Our room was beautiful. Brand new and very large. Two double beds- not queens- which are snug for two adults. Bathrooms are amazing! Huge porch with a full size table and chairs, couch which overlooked the vineyard (this was the best part!). The rooms are paper thin. We had two kids next to us who were up playing until 10:30pm which basically we felt like they were in the room with us it was so loud and clear. Another night we listened to the “sheep dog” across the street barking NONSTOP for four to five hours. It was actually terrible. ||Housekeeping was amazing. They did a phenomenal job every day. It was a bit disappointing that they did not automatically give us any kids toiletries, robe or slippers like they always do? We asked and then they did bring them. But why not just bring them for us? Again, slacking. Other FS properties are just much more “on it”. ||The pools are just squared off and cement. Feels very community pool. There is nothing luxurious about them. Service pool service shuts down around 4:30 when we would be arriving each day with our daughter and other families. We weren’t offered towels, chair set ups, menus or water unless we flagged someone down to ask for them. The other families and ourselves couldn’t understand the shut down as it was 90 degrees and sunny every day at that time….? The other families we met all said the same thing- that this was the worst Four Seasons service they’d experienced by far. Things don’t cleaned up around the pools either. There were four Corona bottle caps next to the hot tub on the day we arrived and they were there on our last day too (we stayed four nights) and I’d bet they’re still there today! |Breakfast in TRUSS is great. The food is all excellent as were the staff. Dinner at TRUSS was pretty flat. It felt like two different chefs?! With all that being said, it’s a very pretty property and every server we encountered at breakfast and at dinner, and by the pool (when you can catch them)- we were very good and friendly. You’re also very much on a main busy road and situated on a parking lot. |Oh and we got a 9pm text message the NEXT DAY from the assistant front desk manager wanting to “check in” on us because they knew we’re upset about our crappy check in…. what professional texts at 9pm, let alone the next day? Clearly no actual urgency for us there. I immediately replied and explained everything I mentioned here above- and he never replied back. Why text at all if there’s no follow up? Again, bizarre. ||Really a mixed bag review. Can’t say I’d recommend it and definitely won’t be returning...

Update: We are still dealing with the mess that the hotel made as they’re dragging their feet to pay for the rental car related bills that occurred while our car was in the shop. They also offered us a one night free stay with all the restrictions and strings attached as compensation which is insulting. I don’t even want to drive by the place, let alone spend another night there.

What a horrible hotel to add to otherwise superb Four Seasons! I'm currently waiting for the Calistoga police to arrive in the lobby because the hotel valet damaged my car and the security team is not providing me with the incident report. He and the manager tried to assure that the hotel will pay for the repairs without providing me with any written declaration and if I felt that this hotel was run more professionally, I might've taken their words at the face value but this place is run by amateurs. Here's the recap of last 20 hours -Arrived around 3 -notified by the valet that they had damaged the car. At this point we were planning on moving past this human error, enjoy our stay and deal with the situation when we go back home. -used the spa facility, the only cooling feature was out of order on a 90+ degree day. Attempted to use the shower to cool down and the heavy glass shower door slammed shut on my finger, leaving cuts and bruises. Took 2 tries to get antibiotic ointments and no waterproof bandages were available barring me from using pool and other wet facilities with open wound -water pressure of the shower in the room was dismal and soundproofing in the room was horrible as I could hear everything from upstairs -I saw a bunch of broken glasses on the pathway to the rooms/villas and instead of being swept up properly, they were shoved away to the bushes. -our main reason for the visit was to eat at their restaurant, Auro: the meal itself was pleasant, nothing exceptional and not worth the repeat, just what someone would expect from one Michelin star restaurant but a friend who came to eat dinner with us injured herself on the way out after the dinner. She rolled her ankle, hit her head and ear on the metal pole outside of the restaurant and while it wasn't the hotel's fault that she injured herself but the response from the restaurant/hotel was much less to be desired. No first kit was offered from the restaurant while my friend was on the ground with a bleeding ear. They called their security who took a while to arrive, but no empathetic gestures of bringing out a chair or even an offer to wait inside was made by the staff. When the security arrived, my friend finally got some first aid treatment and when she asked for a pair of slippers(her shoes were broken during the injury so she was barefoot), she was told it was not possible. They couldn't give her a pair of in-room slippers? I've worked at numerous high end hotels in SF, Las Vegas and Napa and this makes me think that they don't have proper emergency procedures or at least the staff is not trained. -I've texted the concierge/front desk to have the incident reports for the valet damage ready by the check out time and they agreed. -Following morning, I was woken up by in-room Bluetooth speaker blaring random navigation info. I think it just connected to random phone outside. Thin walls and shoddy construction, maybe? -the gym wasn't air conditioned when it was 88 degrees outside. -At the time of checkout we were met by the hotel manager and the head of security who didn't want to provide us with the written report which resulted in having to call the police and filing the report. While all of these were happening, there was not a single hospitable gestures/service recovery made by anyone along the way. We travel frequently for work and leisure and Napa is one of our favorite weekend destinations. We've been frequenting Auberge properties but had such a great time at the Four Seasons in Seoul this summer that we decided give this place a try. Well, what a waste of time and money it has been and at least I know to cross this property...

Our family loves staying at Four Seasons hotels, however this particular hotel was disappointing. ||1. check in - we were offered sparkling water or sparkling wine, but when we requested sparkling water, we were told there were no available and were handed room temperature bottled water on a hot day. Our kids were not offered anything. |2. The room itself was fine, albeit the beds were full size beds so it was tight for an adult and a child to sleep on. |3. Housekeeping - there were a number of small misses - left a robe on the desk instead of hanging it up, dirty table that was not wiped, refilled coffee pods with only decaf pods, didn't replace all the towels, sprayed a fragrance containing spray on one of the nights so we had to air out the room for 30 minutes. Definitely no sunglasses with wipes like other FS. Turndown service provided water for 2 people although there were 4 people staying in the room.|4. Golf cart - The resort is spread out with individual buildings. Our daughter was sick and could not walk. The golf cart required multiple phone calls over a span of over 20 minutes to arrive to help us. This was the experience multiple times through out our stay. We were told that the staff was overwhelmed, but when we walked over once (tired of waiting), there were people there and empty golf carts.|5. Pool - we were told there were kids pool toys but then told later that there were none. The family pool was extremely shallow, which is great for kids 6 and under but not for older kids.|6. Kids for all seasons - small room with a partition. There was a nice lady working there but the activities were geared towards younger kids (5 and under). There was a TV and one movie that the kids were interested in, but we were told since some parents may not want kids to watch TV, it was not possible to have it on.|7. Kids experience was lackluster. There was no welcome amenity, no stuffed animals, kids were generally not acknowledged.|8. Truss - Breakfast was fly ridden with some waitstaff who were inexperienced. Not the usual gracious experience. Dinner was disappointing. Dry house bread (not complimentary), completely burnt kid's pizza, lackluster Cesar salad. Inconsistent experience. We told them we were splitting the meal and they nicely plated the salad separately for us, but left the next two courses as is.|9. Water. No refillable water stations (bad for the environment). I asked for water at the front and was taken to the staff back office to fill my kids' water bottles. The water bottles provided by the hotel were also remarkably hard to twist open.|10. Tap water in the bathroom - noticed an algae odor when using the hot water in the bathroom at night.||Pros:|1. Breakfast (the food) at Truss was generally good.|2. Spa - there was no gift shop on the premises but there were some merchandise at the spa, so we went there to shop. The staff was really nice to our kids and showed them a puzzle with they found very entertaining.||Conclusion - we really wanted to like this experience, but there were just so many misses. Unfortunately, when we come back to Napa, we will have to try other hotels...