I usually find it kind of disorienting to stay at a hotel in the same city where I live. No matter how indulgent the thread count, it can be hard to feel truly transported when the place I receive bills and tackle mountains of laundry is just a few nagging miles away.

But during my late-December stay at Tampa’s first true five-star luxury hotel — the JW Marriott Tampa Water Street — it was easy enough to imagine I was someplace quite removed from the town where I spent much of 2020 confined to my neighborhood.