By Staff and Wire Reports
Published November 9, 2003
Three hotels in Florida have been awarded the highest rating, five stars, in the 2004 Mobil Travel Guide rankings.
They are the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach; the Ritz-Carlton Naples; and the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach, which is in Manalapan. Those three also were awarded five stars in the listing for 2003.
Mobil's inspectors named just 30 hotels and 14 restaurants nationwide to the five-star list. The others include widely known hotels such as the Four Seasons in New York and the Peninsula Beverly Hills, as well as first-time honorees such as the Woodlands Resort and Inn in Summerville, S.C.
There were no five-star restaurants named in Florida.
Eleven hotels and resorts were awarded four stars. The only four-star accommodations on the west coast are the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples, and the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota. Both repeated from the 2003 list.
The four-star restaurants in the state include Armani's, Tampa; Vernona Restaurant, Sarasota; and the Dining Room, Naples. Vernona, which is in the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota, was not on the four-star list last year.
The awards coincide with the release of Mobil's 16 Regional Travel Planner books on the United States and Canada. The books are $18.95 each.
In 2004, Mobil will also issue a series of City Guide books on 10 U.S. cities, including Miami and Orlando, along with specialty guides such as America's Byways, on 100 famous drives.
