Sofitel Sydney Wentworth
What is your Le Club status?
Platinum.
Were you happy with the hotel/stay?
No. This is a Sofitel that definitely doesn’t deserve the “luxury hotel” label that the brand claims for itself.
Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked a “classic” room and received a “luxury” room on a high floor, but this is one of those properties where you need to read the room descriptions to find out what the (minimal) differences between room categories are.
How are the rooms?
On the small side. Tired. Our room didn’t get any sun at any time of the day.
What was good and what was bad?
Good: Front desk staff were friendly and efficient.
Bad:- No lounge access.
- High def television being fed with a distinctly low def signal.
- The safe door was slow to open/close and didn’t always make it. Despite two reports and one set of new batteries the problem continued.
- Housekeeping tried too hard to ‘restore order’. (No, we’re not going to buy your $9 bottled water -- so please don’t put it back on my bedside table every day!)
Did you get lounge access?
No. At the time we booked, Accor had started promoting lounge access as a Platinum benefit and the Sofitel Sydney had nothing on its website to say it would not be following the new policy. Advising the hotel of this in advance didn’t cut any ice and an online message to Accor produced contradictory and unhelpful responses.
Value for money? Would you return
We paid nightly rates between 212 and 228 AUD for a non-refundable stay booked months in advance. That was okay. We would not return, partly because of the lounge access issue but mainly because it just isn’t a particularly good hotel. We liked the Mercure on George Street, where we stayed the following week, much better -- which isn't something one should really be able to say about a Sofitel.