Is it better to stay at the Four Seasons or the Breakers?
It All Begins Here
The pool area at the Four Seasons
If you want serenity and a beautiful beach, choose the Four Seasons. If you are traveling with active kids or want more hustle and bustle, choose the Breakers, but be aware that the lobby is VERY depressing. It looks more like a somber cathedral than a hotel, complete with sections of wooden walls that look like confessionals. HOWEVER, when you leave the lobby, you will discover lovely pockets of prettiness. Here are more details to help you choose between the two…
Why choose the Four Seasons over the Breakers
The beach.
It is magnificent. Much prettier than the beach access you have at the Breakers, although the view of the ocean is beautiful there too.
See these photos…
A front row seat at the Four Seasons beautiful beach area
A view of the beach from the pool area of the Four Seasons
More reasons to choose the Four Seasons:
Serene lobby.
Beautiful view from many of the rooms.
Many of the rooms have terraces. The Breakers does not have any.
It is quiet. When you walk in, it’s rare to see more than six guests in the beautiful lobby.
Very well-groomed and polished clientele even in the earliest hours of the morning. Perfect hair, perfect clothes. I wear my best bathing suit here, use my nicest beach bag, and definitely opt for a straw hat instead of a baseball cap when headed to the pool or beach.
Free coffee. When rooms are so expensive, I think a hotel should give you free coffee. The Breakers does not. I love it because you can grab a cup to go and head straight to the beach.
Free bicycles. The Breakers charges for bikes and they were in poor condition. We needed to return one because the air in the front tire was low and my replacement bike had handlebars that wobbled. From the Breakers, you can bike to the lovely Palm Beach Bicycle Trail. It’s a paved, flat bike path that takes you along the Intracoastal and then loops back along the ocean front road. (For more details about the bike path and where to rent bikes see my post on What to See and Do in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach.) In addition to seeing the water, you’ll view the gardens of some lovely Intracoastal waterfront homes and then loop back along the ocean front road. The bike path is too far away from the Four Seasons for you to bike there and you would be doing so on a heavily trafficked road. You will need to rent bikes at the bike store in town. This is no big deal but just something to know. If biking at the Four Seasons, you’ll be biking in the immediate area of the hotel.
View of the pool and ocean from our room at the Four Seasons.
Why choose the Breakers over the Four Seasons
One of the pool-side restaurants at the Breakers. The view of the ocean is beautiful but the beach is very narrow.
Another pool at the Breakers and the restaurant behind it.
More hustle and bustle. It is a huge hotel with many private events. On the way to the pool areas, you will often pass huge trucks unloading party furniture and paraphernalia and forklifts carrying materials. (On the days there are no events, it is serene and lovely out there.)
Multiple pools and restaurants overlooking the pool and ocean. There are nice cabanas, and it’s pretty to walk in that area. If your family is loud or your kids play Marco Polo in the pool, you will feel more comfortable here. The pool at the Four Seasons is small. All it takes is a few kids playing Marco Polo or a loud group having a loud conversation for the peaceful ambiance to be ruined.
A more casual clientele with many working on their laptops in the outdoor courtyard. To be sure, there are many stylish people on these grounds, but there is also a lot of bedhead hair in the morning. You will see sweatpants (sweatpants, not yoga pants) and denim. To me, it’s nice to not feel like the worst groomed person in the hotel in the morning. When I wake up at a resort, I like to roll out of bed, pull on a pair of shorts, grab a cup of coffee and wake up slowly on the beach or by the pool. The idea of having to get dressed up to go relax is anathema to me.
Better, and happier service. The service at the Breakers was perfect, from the restaurant, to check in, to the pool. The people cared, tried, and seemed very happy to be working there. At the Four Seasons, many of the staff seem burnt out and unhappy. One year, the concierge ignored us for a long time. When we finally cleared our throats, she looked at us in great annoyance. “Bad day?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. Then caught herself and said, “You don’t need to hear this.”
The wait staff by the Four Seasons pool sometimes rolled its eyes at customers’ requests. And after a few stays, I had the sense that palms were greased there and certain customers were definitely given preference. Here are two classic examples of what we experienced.
One day, we wanted to put towels on some chairs by the pool and then go have breakfast. We were told, “We don’t reserve chairs.”
Okay. That was fine.
We had breakfast, came back, and went to sit down at some empty chairs by the pool. There were no towels or personal belongings onthem. Yet, we were told, “You can’t sit there because those chairs are reserved for Mr. C____.”
??????
Another time, my husband called a car to take him to a meeting some distance away. He waited and waited and the guy at the door told him to take a black car that was parked there. (It was a car that the hotel used to give guests a ride.) My husband got in the car and was driven away. Ten minutes later, the driver got a call from the hotel. The person on the line was furious that he had left the Four Seasons and told him to return. The driver argued that he had a passenger but was told, “You have to come back. ”He made a u-turn and began driving back. My husband told him to pull over, got out, and standing in no man’s land on the side of a busy road called for a car service.
SWEAR TO GOD. TRUE STORY.
As I type this, I am wondering why we went back there again one month later.
After staying at both, this is why I choose the Four Seasons over the Breakers
The beach.
The serenity.
The beach.
Ah, that beautiful beach. If you get up early and are lucky enough to grab one of the front row beach chairs, it is lovely. Sometimes you will get a doofus with a cell phone who will have a loud conversation on it on his beach chair, but most people are respectful of the need for quiet beach time and will take their calls elsewhere. And you can take a short, lovely walk to Worth Beach for a Kilwin’s ice cream or lunch.
The beach at the Breakers is narrower and not as pretty as the Four Seasons. As with all of Florida resort properties, the beach is public, so the hotel is limited in how close to the water the chairs can be set up.
I hope this helped you make a decision. Whichever hotel you choose, keep in mind how lucky you are to be able to stay at either one of them and overlook any minor annoyances that may crop up at either one. (I did.) After all, the people working there are human, they are catering to a very privileged clientele that can sometimes be very demanding, and we all have bad days sometimes. At both hotels, the beauty overshadows any favoritism or minor glitches that may occur.