Another great and perfect 1 week stay at Sofitel Angkor (yes, one week is now my minimum requirement :-)), the best hotel in the world.

I was of course expected and I had of course some communications with the hotel before arriving. I was warmly welcomed and greeted by all the management and all the staff members I know after some many years and stays (this was my 14th). Back to family :)

The big new thing this year was the recent opening of the Club Millésime !! I will detail the Club in the Dining section below.

Check In

Early check-in was OK (at 12, arriving from Paris). A welcome drink (lemongrass cold tea) and cold towel bring during check-in operations (note : this is not the Le Club welcome drink).

Two drink vouchers were given + the usual welcome letters. As you can see, Plat benefits include late check-out until 17:00 (other hotels, please take note) and I even had it until 18:30. The other letter (in English) was mentioning 15% off for all spa treatments and 10% off at the hotel boutique, for “long stay guests”. So, not sure those are Platinum benefits or for all long stay guests, but for sure the 15% off at the spa was nice and I used it ;)

Formalities were quick and I was escorted to my Junior suite, upgraded from Luxury/King.

Room

I think I already posted some pics of the Junior suite, but anyway…here are are some fresh ones. This is quite a large room with a huge dressing room and a balcony.

Very nice welcome gift/VIP treatment. A glass of wine available at the bath tub !

Complemented nicely by a trio of crème brûlée placed in room twice during the stay.

As usual, during the turndown service, some gifts were given twice during the stay:

• a Khmer scarf (I have now a nice collection)
• once they came with a tray having different big soap bars (different scents) and asking you to choose one (see picture). And they cut me a piece of the one I choose (lemongrass) and it was packed for bringing it back home. Nice touch.

Also to show you how seriously they handle the problems and the consideration they have for customers at this hotel : one evening, I had one of the bedside lamp which was not working (likely the ampoule). No big deal of course and I informed the front desk going out for dinner. When I came back, it was of course fixed and I had the below apology note along with a few sweets.

The property

I can’t resist to share with you a new set of pictures of this beautiful property.

Pictures of the main bar. They created a small terrace at the bar (new).

A ceremony with monks to celebrate Khmer new year.

Club Millésime

Last year when they explained me their plan, I understood they wanted to demolish the French restaurant (Mouhot’s dream) building, which is above the pond and rebuild a smaller building for the lounge. I obviously misunderstood because the former building is still there. What they did is to enlarge the base over the pond to create a terrace with outdoor seating. This has been nicely done as you can see on the pictures. To make it clear for you : the restaurant still exists (for dinner) but they use it also for the Club Millésime where you can have simplified breakfast, soft drinks all day, afternoon tea and cakes and the evening cocktails from 17:30 to 19:30. This new Club is more than welcome in this great property and they did a great job. Service is very classy.

Drinks proposed include all liquors, cocktails, Prosecco, 2 red, 2 white, 1 rosé wines. Warm and cold finger food items, changing every day for most of them.

I had a lot of discussions with the F&B Director who was very open to suggestions. I suggested 2 main improvement points :

• to have an additional daily warm item like a small cassolette, freshly prepared and bring to the guest at their seats (as they do in the Club in Sofitel Singapore City centre or Sofitel Métropole Hanoi for instance)
• To add some sofas and armchairs indoor. The reason is that, for outdoor seating, the atmosphere fits well for a Club Lounge. But inside, you feel more in a restaurant that in a Club Lounge because this is only tables and chairs, as the restaurant still exists for the dinner.

For the 1st point, he said they note my suggestion and will study it. For the 2nd point, he told me I was not the 1st person to make this remark and it is already decided to remove some tables and install some sofas & armchairs to have a real lounge part. This will be done in the coming weeks. Very good !

There is a private room that you can book in the lounge. I never had the BF in the lounge, only at the main restaurant as I didn’t want to be responsible for staff riots ;) (I mean that I know well the staff of the main restaurant and so they and I would not be happy to not see each other every morning).

Overall

Overall, another excellent stay. Service was top notch all the way, as usual and total care from the staff with plenty of special attentions all the time. A new Club Millésime to our list and this is always welcome. This property is definitely still at the top and extremely well managed and run. A big thank you to all of them for those great moments.

There is very little to add to the other reviews of this hotel. I have tried to find some pictures that have not been shown before, and add my experiences of our short stay. I am sorry if this tends to be picture heavy, but my words cannot describe the hotel as well as a picture.

We planned not to visit the temples during our stay here, but the cost of the temple passes for an extra few days was only 10 USD. So we split our days from temple exploring to relaxing (and avoiding the rain = we did visit during the “green” season).

From arrival to our sad departure it was a pleasure to stay at this fine hotel at the top of its game.

We arrived at the hotel and were greeted like returning friends, with people helping with luggage and guiding us inside, where we were greeted with a refreshing glass of lemon grass tea and infused cold towels.  The GM came over and introduced himself, following a brief chat, the rest of the formalities were completed and we were escorted to our room ( double upgraded - junior suite room 129 ) where our luggage was already present.

The hotel is situated on the outskirts of the town, and is around twenty years old. During that time, the town has expanded around the hotel grounds. Inside the hotel is divided into two large triple story wings, one overlooking a lagoon and the other the large pool. There is no town noise inside the hotel main grounds and it is an oasis of calm and quiet.  The rooms have either a road view, or a water view.  There was no road noise despite the close proximity of some of the rooms.

The grounds are tended and maintained. We saw a team of gardeners sweeping leaves each time it rained, pro-actively cutting green coconuts from the palms before they could fall, and generally keeping the garden tidy.  Flowers are also an important feature of the hotel, and we watched the arrangements being made in the mornings (well one morning). The displays were always fresh and arranged.

When we stayed the hotel had a company team building group, and two river cruse groups staying. This did not distract from the tranquil atmosphere at the hotel. I cannot understand how you can come all the way to Cambodia and only spend 6 hours at the temples!

The lounge still looks very much like a restaurant during the day, but has a few areas to relax in a more informal setting. Breakfast is served until noon a la carte, and after the first day, our menu choices were remembered and served again. The tour groups used the buffet breakfast and were gone by 10! The food in the lounge was very nicely presented and tasted even better.

The turn down service each night provided a nice locally produced scarf on the first night, and then each subsequent night a selection of fresh macaroons, and many bottles of water. In the lounge the executive chef introduced himself to us the first day ( Eric ), and we happened to mention that my OH loved macrons.  These were then provided on the turn down each night. He was very hands on, and constantly checked if we needed anything that was not on the menu, and provided it if possible. His fresh horseradish sauce was superb. We are at the hotel each night. The buffet restaurant area was large enough to accommodate the tour groups, and there was also a private dining area that they used.  To answer my earlier question the Accor Plus card is accepted, and gave 50% discount on two persons.

There were only two very minor things that were negative on our stay. The first is that there is no easy access into the pool if you are unsteady on your feet and cannot use the pool steps. There is a sloping area but it was very slippery from the type of pool shoes I was using.  The Jacuzzi area was suggested but it was also unmanageable. It was not such a disappointment, although I would have thought that there would have been more provision.

The second is just strange. In the restaurant, my son ordered a bottle of French water. It arrived and was presented very similarly to a fine bottle of wine. It was the poured into his glass. after a few minutes another waiter arrived and proceeded to top everyone's glass ( including my sons ) with water from a jug, so negating the bottled water as it was now mixed. My son just found it funny. All others in the party had either wine or beer.  We ate in the restaurant a few more times, and observed that same happening with other guests as well.  My son learnt his lesson and stuck to the beer. The dancing show was different each time and very enjoyable.

Checking out was fast, but sad, and we took a tut tut to the small airport. It was six in the morning when we left as we had an early flight. We could check the flight status in our room as the hotel televisions showed the arrivals and departures of the local airport on a dedicated tv channel.

The airport has a nice Priority Pass lounge, that we had breakfast in. It was just not the same as the hotel.  There is no doubt that we will be back. We had a very relaxing stay and all Accor Platinum advantages and status benefits were provided. Points posted within a few hours.

They would not let me have this as the welcome drink .....