I stayed at the Sofia last week, just finishing a three night stay. Nice hotel with good staff, but subpar Prive/WoH recognition. Very upscale hotel but should not be confused for a luxury hotel - mostly due to size and inconsistent recognition based on the prior posts.

Booked: King Room Harmony (base room) on Prive rate. Used TSU (which MHC mentioned would get a First Wish Suite). Ended up getting a Junior Suite - it’s about the same size as First Wish but does not have Wish Lounge access. That Junior Suite is the standard TSU upgrade, and since there were Great Wish Suites and First Wish suites available leading up to the stay, this upgrade didn’t really meet expectations.

To their credit - we were able to check in about noon, which was great since we had a really rough to travel due to weather issues in NYC. We arranged a transport by E-class (I was unfamiliar with the BCN metro so having this available was helpful). They provided an EQS for the same price (99 Euro). In the future I would use the airport lines (L9 to L3) because using the metro was straightforward.

Really liked the finishes in the room, along with the electronically operated blinds. Super comfortable bed. Rooms do get cool but I’ve noticed that there is not much ventilation, so the room doesn’t get cool very fast - we were able to maintain a temperature of about 20 C but the lack of airflow made it feel warmer. No elevator issues.

Concierges were responsive and very helpful for standard requests. Had some challenges with tougher ones (like Barca-Madrid basketball tickets during the finals), but they were communicative and really did their best to make the stay worthwhile.

Was provided 85 Euro credit for Prive but that was not able to be applied to laundry or transport (it could be applied to F&B or spa). Prive amenity was cava (0.5L).

Breakfast was fine - waffles, omelette, and scrambled eggs cooked to order, lots of meat options, sweet pastries acceptable but not exciting. Outside breakfast was nice but watch out for pigeons; staff was good about keeping the birds at bay. Do agree that tracking down someone for coffee was harder than it needed to be, and it was weird hearing from the same server three days in a row “is this your first time at the buffet?” - but it’s possible that may have been a translation issue, or just due to the large number of rooms (400+).

Would I stay here again? There are a lot of good options in Barcelona, and the next visit would still involve a lot of tourism, so I’d be ok staying at the Sofia, but I’d also be curious about other options (Hyatt or otherwise). I did like the area and found the more local feel appealing (wasn’t as concerned about crowding and petty crime). The Prive rate (about 300 Euro) was better than the 23K points for certain (Cat 5 peak).

Note for those interested in visiting Camp Nou - it is under construction and expansion. Barca plays at the Olympic stadium near Park Montjuic in 2023-2024.