Getting to Know Our Standards: Consideration

Every hotel has a bathrobe. Every hotel has slippers, a water bottle, a turndown routine. What varies — a lot, actually — is whether any of it was thought through, or just ordered from a catalog because that's where hotels have established distribution channels.

We don't think this is about luxury for its own sake. It's about feeling taken care of. Like the staff is happy to see you and wants you there. A robe with some weight to it, a bottle you'd actually want to refill, a kids' club with a real plan behind it — these are small signals that someone on the other end was paying attention to what a stay actually feels like, not just what it's supposed to include. And when that attention is missing, a room can check every box on paper and still feel like nobody was thinking about the people staying in it.

So here's our running list: the details that tell us a hotel is delighted to host you, the absences that tell us experience is an afterthought, and what a few of our favorite properties are doing lately that we think gets it right.

The General Standard

• A real looped bathrobe with some weight to it, not the thin waffle-weave kind.

• Slippers made from something better than foam — jute, bamboo, anything meant to survive more than one wear.

• House-bottled water in a debadged glass bottle, refillable instead of replaceable.

• Toiletries good enough that you'd consider buying the full size. If a local custom scent only found in the spa, even better.

• A turndown that's genuinely quiet: linens folded back, lights dimmed, something small left behind.

• Service that anticipates what you need before you have to ask for it.

• Organic and natural cleaning supplies. Nothing ruins a mood like Fabuloso!

• Locally made or organic condiments. The hotel can significantly support small businesses with this minor change.

None of this is really about spending more. A jute slipper doesn't cost more than a foam one. It's the difference between a detail that was designed and one that was just ordered in bulk. The difference is mindful and to me, means leadership is on the pulse.

Traveling With Kids

• A child-size robe and slippers already in the room when you arrive — not something you have to ask for.

• A kids' club with real programming behind it: arts and crafts, swimming, treasure hunts, and a printed schedule you get with the key card.

• Gear that's set up before you have to ask: crib assembled, bottle warmer and highchair in the room, blackout curtains already drawn.

• A kids' menu with some thought behind it, tied to where you actually are, not the same five fried and beige things.

• Staff who talk to the kids directly, not just about them to the parent standing next to them.

  
  

What's New Right Now

The properties actually setting the pace right now tend to be smaller and newer rather than legacy big-name chains:

Passalacqua (Lake Como, Italy) — a 24-room boutique property that opened in 2022 and has already been voted the World's Best Boutique Hotel two years running by The World's 50 Best Hotels, plus Europe's Best Hotel in 2025. Guests joke the staff-to-guest ratio feels close to 3:1.

NIHI Sumba (Indonesia) — repeatedly named Travel + Leisure's World's Best Hotel and won the inaugural Forbes Travel "Edge List" in 2025. What people rave about specifically is staff anticipating requests before they're asked, not just responding well when asked.

Amangiri (Utah) — the original Aman desert property, still cited alongside newer arrivals as one of the highest service benchmarks in the US; Aman's about to test that model in a new market with Amanvari opening in Baja California this spring.

Mii Amo (Sedona) and One&Only Portonovi (Montenegro) both just landed their first Five-Star rating in Forbes Travel Guide's 2026 Star Awards — inspector-based, not guest-voted, so it's a harder bar to clear than most "best of" lists.

The common thread across all of them: small room counts, high staff ratios, and service built around noticing rather than asking. I like this trend!