Maelstrom

- Name of the hotel:
Fairmont Nanjing

- What is your Le Club status?
Platinum

- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Very satisfied.

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked a Deluxe City View room (their basic room) - received a two-level upgrade to a Signature Deluxe River View Room (which I think is just a Deluxe River View Room on a higher floor)

- How are the rooms?
Very good. Good bedside lighting controls. Shower is a bit small. Has a Bose music dock, large working desk. Very comfortable rooms.

- What was good and what was bad?
The staff are extremely friendly and efficient, and a high level of English is spoken at the hotel. The drink vouchers can be exchanged for a variety of drinks, including cocktails. The meals in the Vancouver Grill restaurant are excellent, though pricey, and the Accor Plus discount is only 30% for two people, though we were advised about this upon making our reservation. I believe standard Accor Plus discount rates apply in the other venues.
The hotel WiFi also has a built in VPN, which is pretty convenient.

Nothing was bad. The only inconvenient thing is when leaving the hotel, having to take an elevator down to level 37 to the lobby, then switch to a different elevator to go to the ground floor.

- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge?
Not given access, as Platinums do not get access to Fairmont Gold. Breakfast for Platinums is served in the main restaurant on level 60, and the normal price is about CNY 218 or so.

- What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks?
Drink vouchers were given on arrival. I was a little surprised we were asked "how many" vouchers we would like (two person booking) - I just opted for two vouchers. I'm not sure if they would have granted extras if we asked for them? Welcome amenity was a fruit platter (maybe 5 pieces of fruit plus a small bunch of grapes) and a small plate of moon cakes.

- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return?
The rooms are quite pricey, running at about CNY 950 per night (after taxes) for the Deluxe City View rooms, so I would first give consideration to the Novotels and Sofitels in Nanjing, all of which have very good reviews and are much cheaper, especially since Fairmont does not give lounge access to platinums. The Fairmont is also located in the Wuxi financial district, which is in the south of the city, rather than the more central location that the Novotel Central and Sofitel Galaxy hotels have. However, I would absolutely return to this property. We had a fantastic stay and were very disappointed when we had to leave.

wkndtraveler

Maelstrom

- Name of the hotel:
Novotel Shanghai Atlantis

- What is your Le Club status?
Platinum

- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Very satisfied.

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked a Standard Room and received an upgrade to an Executive Superior Room.

- How are the rooms?
Very good. The bed is comfortable. Unfortunately, one of the bedside power points was basically detached from the wall, but that was the only thing about the room that was disappointing. There is a window between the bathroom and bedroom that has a blind for privacy, but it is not completely private, and turning the bathroom light on in the middle of the night results in light bathing the other poor soul still in bed in light.

- What was good and what was bad?
This was perhaps our fourth stay for the year, and it is nice to be welcomed by name. We checked in at the front reception, as there was no other guests checking in at the time we arrived. I am not sure if check-in services are provided in the Executive Lounge or not.

There was no welcome letter in the room, so we had to make a phone call to enquire about Lounge times etc.

- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge?
I'll preface this by saying that I am a newly minted Platinum member, so I don't have many prior visits to Executive Lounges to compare this one to.

The lounge is on level 48, with great views of the Lujiazui business district skyline. My girlfriend and I went during the afternoon to do some work and study, and we were the only people there for most of the afternoon. Service was attentive at first, as we were offered initial drinks and refills, however the staff then "went missing" for a while. Given there were three members of staff to look after the two of us (and they spent the whole time sitting at the desk near the entrance, seemingly on their phones), we didn't really like having to go and ask for another refill of our teas. There are no "help yourself" fridges here for soft drinks and juices - the staff need to get them for you.

The Happy Hour food selection was good, with a range of hot and cold foods, desserts and fruits, though some of the "hot" foods were starting to go cold. I didn't eat much because we had dinner plans, but my girlfriend allowed herself to sample everything, and didn't dislike any of the offerings. Beverage service appears to be handled by the staff - no self-service. A small range of base spirits are available, one red wine, one white wine, soft drinks and juices.

Breakfast was not served in the executive lounge when we were there (I assume due to the national holiday), so the Platinum-inclusive breakfast privileges were extended to the main restaurant on level 2, which has a decent buffet (it is also decently priced at about CNY 80pp). Interestingly, both mornings we were there, the staff wanted to charge us for breakfast as we were not booked on a breakfast-inclusive rate, so obviously the list of Platinum guests had not been effectively communicated from the executive lounge to the restaurant.

- What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks?
Drink vouchers are always given on arrival at this hotel - I have never had to ask for them here - and we always receive one voucher per registered guest in the room. I honestly don't know the full list of drinks the vouchers are valid for redemption for, as we usually get soft drinks take-away to the room in the event of cocktails/mocktails not being included (which they are not at this hotel).

- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return?
This hotel is consistently cheaper than the 5 star alternatives that are located in the city centre (obviously). Hotels in the Hongqiao district (and the equivalent distance to the east, out past the Novotel Atlantis) tend to be about the same price, or a bit cheaper, compared to this hotel. However, we find the room rates here are good value, when considered in combination with the facilities, location (close to Metro and still close-ish to the city) and consistent quality of service that we receive every time we visit.

savonarola

- Name of the hotel: Novotel Suites Malaga

- What is your Le Club status? Gold

- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay? Yes

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive? Booked Standard, got Standard (I guess the only diference from the superior category is the nespresso machine)

- How are the rooms? The Novotel Suites rooms, from my experience, always are a bit bigger than regular rooms, but are not a full suite. The "living" area is separated from the "bedroom" by curtains. On a locker, you have a microwave, fridge and kitchen sink. Separate toilet. Bathtub and shower in the bathroom. All in all, the size is the best feature.

- What was good and what was bad?
Good: room size, early check-in (around 9am), location, welcome gift
Bad: laundry was not delivered on time. No big deal. The problem was when the front desk could not locate the clothes for a few hours. The third-party laundry, when phoned, said they did not have it. The front desk said they didnt recall me leaving any laundry. I had no receipt. Only after much calling from the night front desk they were able to locate my stuff.

- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge? No lounge

- What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks? Welcome drinks for two, valid for anything except wine, champagne, spirits and cocktails (so beer and soft drinks only). The voucher made it very clear that I was a Gold member; I wonder if Plats have a wider choice or if Silvers should stick to tap water.
As a welcome gift, a bottle (full sized) of local white wine.

- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return? Yes and yes

LAXRuss

Name of the Hotel: Swissotel Chicago

Status: Accor Silver after being Platinum for many years

Welcome Drink: Checked in on a Friday night and the staff said, we're sorry, we only receive a limited number of welcome drink vouchers from management. We ran out and the other vouchers are locked in the safe. Come back tomorrow. We obtained the voucher the next day, came back from a show at 11:35PM and tried to use the vouchers at the bar. The bar staff said, we're sorry we had last call 5 minutes ago at 11:30 PM, even though there were no seats the bar with overflowing guests. We complained to the front desk, they said, oh, you were actually lucky because the bar staff has authority to shut down the bar starting at 10PM each night and it was a good thing they remained on a Saturday until 11:30PM. They said we could obtain a canned beer from the hotel store, but they could not offer wine. We complained again and they said we could call room service. So we got to the room, pressed the room service button and found we were waking up another guest in the hotel-- our call was routed to another room. We pressed the room service button again, and received the same guest. So we called the Hotel Service button on the phone and it awoke another guest. At that point, we called the zero and it did reach the front desk. They sent up two classes of Prosecco, took the voucher and then we ended up with a $36 charge on our bill which the front desk removed at check out.

Late check out: When we requested late check out on the last day, the hotel front desk said they generally never grant it. We asked about the Accor late check out benefit, they disappeared to check with management; they came back and said since the checkout is noon, we could stay until 1PM without incurring additional charges.

Room lock out: We called Swissotel to book a four night stay. They booked us two different rates on the phone based on availability. When we checked in, they said welcome for a one night stay. We said we are here for four nights, they quickly acknowledged that they created two reservations because of the rate change. Thus, after the first night, we had no bill under our door, but when we came back in the afternoon, we were locked out of the room. Then the last day we received a bill under the door with only the last three nights and had to request a bill at the front desk for the first night.

For a full service hotel-- what a hassle! Accor would be better off advertising no benefits than submitting guests to this keystone cops experience. I have had many welcome drinks at Accor hotels upon arrival but at the Swissotel Chicago, you really have to work for that voucher and then complain to have it credited. Too bad. Next trip to Chicago we will probably book the Peninsula AMEX fine hotel rate or the Intercontinental.

tris06

Name of the hotel: Pullman Dongguan Forum

What is your Le Club status? Platinum

Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Good enough

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Mountain view room given. No upgrade offered however was not disappointed that much because the next room up is the Junior suite and it faces the other side towards the city. But still noticed they did not mention about the upgrade at check in and it was very quiet at the hotel that weekend being Mid Autumn festival.

How are the rooms?
Rooms are acceptable clean, Not the newest design of Pullman but it was fine. Size was okay and it came with a balcony..

What was good and what was bad?

Good:
Location is nice.

Hotel was not that expensive at about 600-700 rmb per night (100USD per night).

Late checkout granted to 4-5pm if desired.

A very reasonable foot/body massage (105-125rmb for 70mins during afternoon/early evening hours) place at the front inside the Pullman grounds but 3rd party managed. (discount vouchers cannot be used here). The hotel has their own spa but the cost is triple the price.

Bad:
Asking for drink vouchers at check-in.

Staff did seem to not know about the benefits I was entitled to.

After mentioning I was a Plat member and them seeing that on their system I was granted 1 breakfast for 1 person when I asked about the breakfast. Was told this was the hotel policy. I told them it was not Accor's policy and that the number of guests staying in the room was also able to get the free breakfast. After going online with my phone to show them the Accor website they eventually granted the 2 breakfasts. Check in took over 20mins, thankfully I was not in a rush.

First morning walked down to the restaurant and was told I had no breakfast unless I paid for it. So I had to make another trip to the front desk.

Like last time the hotel only supplies x2 300ml Watson water bottles per day which is too small. Remember water from the tap is not drinkable unless boiled. So before we arrived I guessed this and bought two 1.5L bottles to satisfy our needs. There are no nearby shops apart from the hotel bars.

Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge?
No lounge at this hotel.

What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks?
Granted 2 drink vouchers. A 50rmb voucher for Spa. No welcome amenity.

Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return?
At 100 USD per night after tax I think it is good enough especially when you include the breakfast. Overall I would recommend the hotel but they don't do Accor benefits very well. We may return for another weekend as it is only about an hour and a half from our home so it is nice short getaway.

tris06

Name of the hotel: Sofitel Shanghai Hongqiao

What is your Le Club status? Platinum

Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Excellent

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked Luxury room without lounge access, given Prestige suite.(No Junior suite at this hotel)

How are the rooms?
Rooms are very new as the hotel is only 2 years old but long enough for the new smell of the paint to have mostly gone.Very nicely furnished and quite large 92 meters squared. 1 bedroom, 1 Living room with small dinning table in 1 corner. Good bathroom with a seperate bathtub. View is not much though.



What was good and what was bad?

Good:
Very close to the airport just a 5 min taxi ride.

Hotel was very reasonable at around 1000rmb per night (140USD per night).

Upon check in we were welcomed and thanked for our loyalty. Their manager came out to welcome us and told us all had been prepared.(I had called the hotel 2 days before check in to confirm everything)

Great loyalty recognition and a proactive manager that took us to our suite.

Lounge staff were great.

Bad:

Not much unless you wanted to visit as a tourist there is not much around (Was here for business) and to get to the city center would be a good 40-50mins on the subway which is about a 1-2km walk away from the hotel.
Also the nearby shopping center is still opening up as many stores were still closed but had opening soon notices.

Breakfast was not that great in the restaurant and I consider it below standard compared to the Sofitel Macau and Sofitel Guangzhou. So it was okay but felt like what you would expect at a Novotel or Pullman in China.

Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge?




Very nice lounge. No breakfast served however and so you need to eat downstairs. Afternoon tea and happy hour was good. The lounge is not huge but still plenty of space. No real view out the window but very comfortable place. Soft drinks, teas coffees available at all times when lounge is open. The staff are very good. And I chatted with them on many occasions. I saw another Platinum member checking out at 9pm on the first evening. The staff will consider a late evening check out up to 9-10pm if you have a mid night flight or etc if the hotel is not full. They have active western hotel mangers that came around to ask if all is well with our stay.

What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks?
Granted 2 drink vouchers but did not use. Plenty of snacks and gifts given for both nights. As mentioned before they allowed my son to keep 1 of the toy trucks that was used in the decoration.

Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return?
Definitely if I have a flight out of Hongqiao airport and very good value. But if I was wanting to be city center I think it is too far away.

gilbertaue

By the look of things, training of Swissotel properties has not gone well.
I know the Swissotel Bremen has a snr staff who used to work in a number of higher end AccorHotels properties,and as such it will probably be better handled.
But generally it loos like swissotel management has not received the LCAH training manual.

Maelstrom

My experience at the Swissotel in Shanghai was that I received my drink vouchers (without prompt).
However, in regards to the room upgrade, the gentleman just said he would give us "a very nice room", without expressly stating 'upgrade'. We had booked a Business Advantage Room, and looking at all their room types online, they all look pretty similar anyway.
The welcome amenity was never delivered, either.

Goldorak

Oh yes, I know that kind of BS language. I heard it so many times...

ContinentalVoyager7

- Name of the hotel: Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbor

- What is your Le Club status? Platinum

- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay? No, not happy at all!

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive? Booked Superior Room and got a so called "Upgrade" to a partial view Darling Harbor Superior Room.

- How are the rooms?
Rooms are fine. Comfortable and nice but no WOW factor. The only thing I liked were the views from the room. Sad I did not get the full Darling Harbor view room. Room was slightly on the small side with no bathtub. Standard Lanvin toiletries. Other than that, I wasn't that impressed to be honest.

- What was good and what was bad?

Good:
- Club Millesime was good. Service there was excellent (thank god as that was the thing saving me from leaving) and view from the top was beautiful. Food offerings were pretty good too and I was happy with getting access up there.
- Location was nice.
- Concierge staff were tip top good and were very friendly.

Bad:
- The service everywhere else sucked. Restaurant was not impressive after hearing good reviews of the place. Service did not match 5 star hotel and price alike. The steak I ordered came Well Done when I ordered it Medium Rare and not to mention no one apologised for the mistake. Other dishes were pretty average except for the Barramundi which was delicious and excellent. When I gave feedback about my meal and the Well Done steak incident when I was paying, a staff member from the restaurant assured me that a Manager would get back to me for a follow up but guess what????...... No one did! (* P.S, head over to Novotel Darling Harbour and have a meal at The Ternary, the service there is so much better and the food is much nicer compared to Sofitel. Apparently one of the top restaurant in Sydney too)
- The Welcome Amenity was not sent at all. Even after I reminded them 3 times on 3 separate occasion..... 3 TIMES and they still screw it up.
- Was not thank for my loyalty at all. (I know I am nitpicking but I notice the small details)
- For the price I paid per night, the service I got does not correspond to the price I paid.

- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge?
Club Millesime was the life saver of my stay! They were the only people I felt that showed the true Sofitel service. If not for them, I might have left the Hotel to stay somewhere else. Views from the lounge were good and Afternoon Tea and Evening Cocktails were a joy. Breakfast was pretty good too! Much better than the coffeehouse downstairs. Honestly, I kind of like the Club lounge concept and hope other Sofitel implement it. Love it lots! Pity my stay was ruined by everything else I encountered.
.
- What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks?
Drink vouchers given upon arrival. Usage at the restaurant, bar or Club Millesime. The usual standard welcome drinks.

- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return?
No! I will never stay here again. When the hotel sent us the after stay survey, I completely gave them a piece of my mind and even mentioned that a manager was suppose to get back to be but he/she did not after 1 week. I even stated I would like the GM to reply, but guess what? The Club Millesime Manager replied instead and offered a service recovery. I accepted the service recovery but I had to be honest with him saying that it was one of my worst stays in Accor. For a Sofitel to act like that, it's just unacceptable. For the newest 5 Star Hotel to open in Sydney, one would expect they are ready to impress but nope. If any of you had a better experience at this hotel, kudos to you, but for me, it was a disaster and I would't want to return. I can only hope my personal experience was an isolated one and not one that happens often there.

paulkevin

kaizen7

Maelstrom

Good to see that, while room upgrades do not apply from a non-Gold room to a Gold-room, upgrades do appear to apply within the Gold-rooms, when a Gold-room is initially booked. Thanks for your post!

patrickw

- Name of the hotel:
ibis Styles Stockholm Odenplan Hotel

- What is your Le Club status?
Platinum

- Were you (or for multi-stayers were you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Yes

- Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Booked cabin single which is the lowest level and upgraded to a standard double

- How are the rooms?
The room is pretty small as a double room but sufficient for one person and got everything needed. The decoration feels new (much better than the other ibis Styles in Stockholm which is now a Best Western).

- What was good and what was bad?
Good:
The location of the hotel is very central and just a few min from Odenplan station which has both metro and commuter train
loyalty recognition is quite good and staff I met are all very friendly and helpful

Bad:
The bathroom is very small and there is no 'separate' shower area which means you will basically make the whole bathroom floor wet when you shower

- Did you get club lounge access? How was the lounge?
There isn't a club lounge but they do have a small area with tea/coffee available for everyone 24/7 on ground floor near the breakfast area

- What about welcome drinks, welcome amenities or any other special perks?
One drink voucher was given for soft drink (You can't get 'free' alcohol due to Swedish law).
A set of shampoo/conditioner/body lotion was sent to the room slightly after check along with a small chocolate
Early check in is granted after seeing I'm a le club member (I was reminded the check in time is 2pm right away when approaching the front desk)

- Value for $ or Vouchers? Would you return?
As I've only paid a bit above 50EUR for my night on Sunday I would say the value is excellent for Stockholm. The usual rate is much higher especially during weekdays. On the other hand, with the only other Accor property in Stockholm (or Sweden) being a ibis so much further away from the city center I would definitely return if I'm planning to stay in an Accor property.