The nature of my work requires me to travel quite extensively and lately many of my friends have been asking me where to stay when in Doha. Unfortunately, I had yet to visit and while I hear good things about the Ritz-Carlton as well as the Sharq, the hotel that is dependably recommended over any other is the Four Seasons Doha.
Bespoke decided to send me on a covert assignment to really test out how good the service is at this particular hotel. The idea is that if you send a journalist to verify top- notch service and the hotel knows it is being reviewed then the service will not be indicative of what most people receive. In any case, I arrived in Doha late at night and drove out of the airport, past very well kept botanical roundabouts to the Corniche leading to the West Bay. This route took me past the new I.M.Pei designed Islamic Museum which is due to open in March 2008. There was a low lying ground mist or fog cloaking the ground which added to the feeling of being in an unknown and rather magical place.
The Four Seasons Hotel is just over two-years-old and wearing very well. Built on the waterfront of the West Bay residential and business complex most of its suites and bedrooms look out over the hotel’s private beach and marina to the Arabian Gulf beyond. Another Four Seasons is due to open in Qatar soon but that one will be situated on Marsa Arabia, a 72,000 square metre Island nestled inside the Porto Arabia section of Qatar’s Pearl development.
The entrance and reception area is very large, spacious and airy. The double, if not treble, height space leads your eye past a centrally placed circular table with a stunning flower arrangement to the view of the Gulf waters. The Four Seasons chain is world-renowned for its excellence in service and from your first step onto the premises this one does not disappoint. Certainly the smiling group of porters and staff at the entrance really do make you feel like you’re coming to home – albeit a grand one.
Upon arriving, as much as I noticed that there were many international businessmen milling about or conducting ‘power-meetings’ in the lobby and its surrounding area, the one aspect of the hotel that I was unable to look away from was the incredible arrangements and general abundance of flowers. While not perhaps the most crucial factor in any hotel, I have always felt that the strongest and most lasting impressions are made by the tiniest and most finicky of details and, in this the Four Seasons Doha really showed skill. Flowers were set just about everywhere – from the main areas in the lounges to the dining tables as well as near every lift.
At the entrance was a circular table filled with a collection of different vases of varying height ranging from small and square to large and oval. In the morning most of the vases were filled with an arrangement including red flowers, from roses and lilies to amaryllis and berries and other unusual varieties. Then at dinner time, low-lighted candles were added to the table. In the morning, some of the vases were changed to hold white or pale pink flowers, until the evening when red species predominate again.
Naturally, the most important aspect of any hotel, the bedroom, was no let down. I stayed in a deluxe double room which was extremely spacious, uncluttered and decorated in colours that are easy on the eye and add to the cool effect achieved by the somewhat over-efficient but silent air conditioning. The beds and pillows are understandably famous for their comfort. And the sheets have the softness that only a very high thread-count can produce. The bathrooms are all in marble and with a generous separate shower and a deep bath, furnished with as many Occitane products for bath and hair as you may ever desire.
Breakfast, if not taken in the bedroom, is served in a lower lobby level overlooking the garden and the Gulf. The choice is enormous, from Arabian to European to Japanese, with every type of bread to compliment your choice. The selection of freshly squeezed fruit juices is also unusually wide and any sort of cooked breakfast is prepared in front of you by the smiling cooks.
At this point I was off to attend to a full day of meetings but knowing that I would return to a host of treatments at the spa kept me going nicely all day. So, once changed and ready, the first thing I did was try out the gym which was very well equipped, with Technogym machines, and beautifully empty. After this came the visit to the spa which was quite simply one of the best I’ve ever been to. Everything is state-of-the-art, fantastically decorated and with an enormous menu of treatments. I had a masseuse called June and she was quite splendid. Should you require it there is even a team of make-up and hair stylists on hand to make sure you leave the spa looking beautiful not just revitalised.
Once my rejuvenation time came to an end, I realised how hungry I had become since I had eaten nothing since breakfast. So excited was I to try out Bespoke’s recommended Doha restaurant Il Teatro (vol. I, issue 6) that I forgot to send out some very important last minute emails. But it was not the end of the world and in fact dinner was like a quick trip to Italy. The whole restaurant is panelled in a warm wood with a wonderful collection of chandeliers, light-fittings and vases from Murano. Actually, I had just recently returned from a trip to Murano and I must say that the vases displayed at Il Teatro were quite exceptional and rare. The menu is Italian and the produce is as fresh as possible, some of it being locally grown vegetables and fish. The whole dinner was pleasingly light. Once back in my room I tried to send out those damned emails but the internet was a bit scatty – this was certainly the first and only negative point about the hotel.
All in all, the Four Seasons Doha is a great hotel. It certainly has not rewritten the book nor even did the luxury chain try to. But what is exceptional is that I couldn’t fault the hotel in any discipline or service, whether staff, rooms, facilities or spa. And for a hotel to take such care over fine details, such as flowers, shows that it has sussed out the major and minor points, effortlessly pleasing its testier clientele.
Contact
Four Season Hotel
Doha, Qatar
Tel +874 494 888
HYPERLINK "http://www.fourseasons.com/" \o "http://www.fourseasons.com/" www.fourseasons.com
