The Cheapest Four Seasons Is a Bargain—if You Can Stand the Heat

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—Ten minutes into my free Saturday morning hike at the luxury Four Seasons Scottsdale, the local guide leading us to Pinnacle Peak Park questioned our travel smarts.

“Can I ask all of you why you decided to come to the heat in the summer?” she said.

It was 91 degrees at 6:45 a.m. on the last weekend of a month with a record 30 days of high temperatures at or above 110 degrees. The local NPR station was peddling “I survived July” T-shirts and hoodies.

While Four Seasons resorts from Orlando, Fla., to Vail, Colo., are charging $1,000 a night and up in this summer of cuckoo travel demand, you can book a room at the Four Seasons Scottsdale at Troon North for under $400 a night. As with any deal in travel, be it a flight, a rental car or a hotel, saving money comes with an asterisk: in this case, searing heat. 

The secluded 210-room resort in north Scottsdale is routinely the cheapest Four Seasons resort—and sometimes the cheapest Four Seasons hotel overall—in the country in the summer.

I checked in for a weekend to size up the highs and lows of an off-peak but still pricey stay, a twist on my stay last summer at the most expensive Motel 6. (I live in Arizona and am no stranger to—nor a fan of—the heat.) The Wall Street Journal paid for my stay and the resort wasn’t notified until my trip was over.

My last-minute weekend stay cost $365 a night before taxes, resort fee and parking, less than I paid for my 2022 Motel 6 stay in Santa Barbara, Calif. The package included a $100 resort credit for food and beverage. I met guests who paid as little as $275 a night.

We get it, it’s hot

Whitney Dougherty, a 40-year-old teacher from Denver, says she and her husband get plenty of side-eye when they mention their annual anniversary trip to Scottsdale in late July. They have 4-year-old twins and cherish time together at a resort they wouldn’t typically be able to afford.

“The heat is brutal, to say the least,” she says. “We just sit in the shade and sit in the pool and drink lots of water.”

The excessive-heat warnings began the second I searched for directions to the resort. Every route in my navigation app came with a heat warning.

It was 107 degrees when I pulled in. That made the choice of valet parking, at $38 a night, a no-brainer. The first thing you notice besides the resort’s desert botanical garden-like setting: a table with two large jugs of infused water and jumbo containers of sunscreen and aloe dispensed like ketchup.

The luxury touches continued when the valet attendant quietly radioed my arrival to the front desk. I skipped the golf cart ride to my casita, the resort’s name for standard rooms. That turned out to be a mistake after a wrong turn delayed my arrival to my air-conditioned room.

The room had all the trappings you’d expect from a resort where guests pay $1,200 a night during the times of year when Scottsdale doesn’t feel like the surface of the sun. There was a Nespresso machine, minibar featuring a tiny box of M&M-type candies for $10 and two free cans of water. Free water was everywhere on the property. 

Unlike many hotels today, there is daily housekeeping. During nightly turndown service they place slippers by the side of the bed. Want to replicate the resort’s dreamy bed setup at home? That’ll be $7,199 for a king-size set. 

Ice, water and frozen grapes

I didn’t find a shortage of help here despite the seasonal slowdown and overall industry labor struggles. An eager bellman delivered my bags and ice to the room. At the pool, attendants set me up with shaded lounge chairs (cabanas are extra and run $200 to $425). On the first day, they delivered chilled white towels infused with essential oils. 

The real stars of the resort were the turbocharged ceiling fan/misters at the pool bar and the Proof restaurant patio. They made sitting outside for a drink or breakfast or dinner more than bearable. (Lunch remained out of the question.)

The fans, which look like jet engines, are made by a Scottsdale company called MistAmerica and run about $5,000 a piece with installation. The company pitches them to resorts as a way to keep guests comfortable and spending more money and time on property.

Four Seasons says the resort was about half-full during my visit, typical for this time of year. The average daily occupancy for luxury Phoenix area hotels in June, the latest month available, was 58.7%, according to CoStar, a real-estate data and analytics firm.

Jeffrey and Jenene Schaffer and their college-age daughters were on their fifth summer visit to the Four Seasons from Dallas. They discovered Scottsdale’s summer hotel bargains on a side trip with their daughters from the Grand Canyon several years ago and now make the resort their destination. The family paid $400 a night including taxes and fees for a four-night stay.

They say the heat doesn’t bother them. The morning they arrived this year, they headed straight to the pool, where they swam and were treated to free frozen grapes and smoothies. 

When the temperatures climbed after lunch, they headed inside for a free wine tasting. So did I.

On the menu, by design: sparkling wines.

“Since it’s hot out, I thought that’d be the nice, refreshing answer,” said the sommelier-in-training who served us.

Ryan Harrison grew up in Arizona and introduced his partner to summer resort deals for their anniversary getaway several years ago. The couple, from Raleigh, N.C., stayed at the Four Seasons for five nights this year, eating breakfast outside, taking the desert bathing hike and shopping. 

The temperatures were hotter than normal, but Harrison managed to find an upside: “My partner said he’ll never complain about the heat again.”

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Write to Dawn Gilbertson at [email protected]