Room

We stayed in a Superior Club Room. The room was well appointed and had a walk-in closet. Wifi connection in the room was good and was available free of charge. Fresh fruits (apples and pears) and 2 bottles of water were provided free of charge every day.

There was a panoramic view of central Jinan from our room. Although visibility wasn't great during my stay (because of smog), we were able to see Quancheng Square, Liberation Pavilion and Daming Lake.

Club Millésime

The Club Millesime executive lounge is situated on the 47th floor. There is a breakfast buffet (although the selection is quite limited compared with the one in the Silver Sky restaurant on the top floor). Happy Hour is between 5:30pm and 7:30pm (soup, snacks, cake etc are put out). Wine (sparkling white, white and red), spirits, beer, soft drinks, tea and coffee are available. The lounge staff were very friendly.

Breakfast in the Silver Sky restaurant

Silver Sky is the revolving restaurant located on the 49th floor at the top of the hotel with great views over Jinan. Lots of Chinese and Western food to choose from the breakfast buffet. Service was okay, but the quality of food was disappointing. However, there was a bottle of sparkling white wine which you could help yourself to freely! If the room rate which we had booked did not include breakfast, we would definintely not have paid 158 RMB per person for the buffet breakfast in Silver Sky.

Facilities

We didn't have a chance to use the swimming pool, gym and spa on the 7th floor, though the pool and gym seemed quite small.

Location

The hotel is very centrally located. You can walk through Quancheng Square to Baotu Spring in 15 minutes. There are many shopping centres nearby (including the Silver Plaza shopping centre adjoining the hotel). The central railway station is around 15-20 minutes away by taxi. The airport is around 1 hour away by taxi (taxi fare approx 150 RMB).

Overall

We were satisfied with our stay in Sofitel Jinan Silver Plaza. Our room was decent, service was generally good and the location was very convenient. However, the food both in the club lounge and the main restaurant was disappointing, and I would advise eating elsewhere instead.

Tips

Following our stay in Sofitel Jinan Silver Plaza, I discovered when I looked at the description for the Superior Club Room (the same room type that we had booked and stayed in) on booking.com that apparently club room guests enjoy express check-in and check-out at the club lounge reception desk, free late check-out until 4pm, the ability to bring 2 visitors free of charge to the club lounge, 1 hr free use of a club meeting room per day, free daily laundry and shoe shine service, 4 free drinks from the minibar per day and unlimited free local telephone calls. These benefits are not listed anywhere on the Sofitel website/booking page, nor were we informed of them at any point during our stay. If you are interested in staying in a club room at Sofitel Jinan Silver Plaza, I would suggest clarifying with the hotel as to what benefits are available.

Also, I didn't have Le Club AccorHotels elite membership status when I stayed in Sofitel Jinan Silver Plaza, so you may wish to refer to the review by gilbertaue 2 years ago for an idea on the type of treatment LCAH elite members receive.

Location

The hotel is located on Luoyang Avenue in the downtown district. The location is very good. There is an Inzone shopping mall attached to the hotel, with a Starbucks, supermarket and various luxury goods stalls. The city square is a five minute walk away and features a fountain water show in the evenings. The main shopping mall in Jinan is located on the other side of the city square (10 minute walk), the springs are about a 10 minute walk from the hotel and Daming Lake is probably a 20 minute walk.

There is no metro system in Jinan and traffic jams are common nightly. In “decent enough” traffic, Jinan central railway station is about a 15-20 minute drive away and the Jinan West railway station is about 40 minutes away. Airports in China are located well outside of the city limits, so expect to travel for over an hour to and from the airport.

Prior to Stay

This was my fifth stay at this hotel for the year. Upon making my booking, I contacted the hotel to confirm a number of requests for the room, including requesting to receive a phone call one or two days prior to our stay to confirm if an early check-in was available or not.

All of our requests were met, including a 10am early check in and 3pm late check out were granted and confirmed two days prior to arrival with a phone call. Fantastic.

Check In

Even though there were no guests in the lobby at 10:30am, we proceeded straight to the Club lounge for check-in, which is on the 47th floor. A staff member had to swipe their card for us to access the floor. The Club attendant spoke good English and conducted our check in efficiently. The Club Manager came out to greet us and offered us drinks. He informed us that the Front Office Manager had wanted to meet us on check-in, but as we had bypassed the front desk for check-in, we missed this opportunity to meet management.

We were not given drink vouchers on check in. At this hotel, the drink vouchers are only good for soft drink, juice, tea and coffee – so I was not too bothered. However, the Club Manager provided these to us the next day when we were working in the lounge; he had organised them but forgotten to give them to us when we checked in.

The Club Manager escorted us to our room on the 40th floor, ensuring that we were satisfied with the room and showing us that our requested amenities were supplied (more on this below).

Room

We booked a Luxury room and the registration form said that we were in a Luxury Club Access room. I usually receive an upgrade to a Junior Suite at this hotel, however I honestly could not find any difference in the room layout or amenities, other than one of the windows was about half the width of the normal ones.

A fruit plate with welcome note from the GM was waiting. The welcome note mentioned ‘sweets,’ however in a miscommunication between myself and the Club Manager, these were never delivered. I assume the Manager thought I had said we did not want them. Out of embarrassment, I opted not to follow up on this. A letter outlining Club times and platinum privileges was also provided.

The room featured a combined living and sleeping area and is very roomy. The room features some pretty Chinese art above the bed. Each side of the bed has power points and a bedside table with drawers.

The living area has a sofa, a chair, a coffee table and a small working desk with chair. The desk has a number of power points nearby, however some of these are located in a small cubby in the desk and it is too narrow to get a laptop charger in there. The TV is in the middle of the room and can swing out and swivel for viewing from the bed or sofa.

There is a closet with a slab for placing a suitcase, with two large drawers underneath it. The closet is a little small and it is awkward to try to get to the back right-side of it. My profile requests extra clothes hangers and these were provided without reminder.

There is a window between the bedroom and bathroom with an electric blind provided. During the night, a lot of light bleeds through the blind into the bedroom, potentially waking up other guests in the room. The bathroom has a bath and the toilet and shower are each located in individual cubicles. The toilet in the Junior Suites and this room are electronic toilets that automatically open when it detects movement in front of it and has a seat warmer which automatically turns on when you sit on it. It has a remote control that control the seating. I did not try out the bidet or drying functions. In the standard Superior and Luxury rooms, standard toilets are provided. Lanvin toiletries were provided and there is plenty of bench space and some under-bench storage space.

• A wall-mounted handheld nozzle is also supplied, but I didn't get it in the photo apparently.

Wi-Fi was generally good, but there were moments where it was slow.

I requested a light blanket be provided, as the heating is centrally controlled and is often set too hot for me to comfortably sleep under the heavy MyBed quilt.

Even though the hotel is located in the downtown area, the windows actually have two separate windows between the room and the outside, so there are no issues with noise.

Upon arrival, there are four bottles of water in the room: two in the bathroom and two in the living room. The housekeepers are not shy about replenishing the waters. After housekeeping service on the second morning, we had a total of eight bottles in the room.

The Lounge

The lounge has seating for between 40-50 people. Breakfast is served between 6:30-10:00 (weekdays) / 11:00 (weekends). There is apparently afternoon tea from 15:00-17:00, however this just seemed to be some biscuits and cakes placed on the buffet (falls well short of the high tea that is offered at the Sofitel Macau). Happy Hour is from 17:30-19:30.

The staff are very friendly and all speak a passable level of English. They remembered our preferred tea order after the second time we visited the lounge (we spent a lot of time in the afternoon working in the lounge). There are about eight different types of tea available and they are served in a traditional style with a hot water jug on the side.

• In this photo, the tea was not supplied with a strainer for the tea leaves. In subsequent visits, all teapots had strainers in them.

Breakfast options featured Western staples of bacon, sausage and beans and the cooked vegetables were rotated daily. The buffet also features cereals, fruits, cold salad and meat, sushi (no good), bottled Evian and Perrier water, champagne, breads and cheese. There is also a cooked-to-order menu, which I forgot to take a photo of, but includes a selection of eggs (but no benedict), pancakes, French toast and waffles. Breakfast is packed down at exactly closing time, but the staff do come to let you know they are packing down.

We only attended the Happy Hour for one evening. A range of standard pour spirits are on offer. I did not look too closely at the wines, but there was sparkling (not sure if champagne), red and white. Soft drink and juice are also available. The food was ok, but not satisfying enough to fill up for a dinner.

Wi-Fi was generally good, but there were moments where it was slow.

Facilities

I did not look at the pool, but I have seen photos and it looks quite sad. The gym is small and the equipment dated. Two treadmills, two exercise bikes, one crosstrainer, some weights and weight machines. No yoga mats, and it is not big enough to lay these out anyway. Water and dried fruits are provided for replenishment. I think the gym is actually provided by a third-party. There were some blokes in military fatigues working out in an adjacent room, which I am not sure if hotel guests have access to or not.

The lobby bar is well designed and I believe has live entertainment from time to time (it has a piano). But, it is a smoking-permitted lounge and, being asthmatic, I have no interest in having a drink there in the evening, which is a shame.

Check Out

We used the Club lounge to check out. They had our account printed and ready for signing when we arrived. We did not have any room charges for our stay, so check out took about thirty seconds and they say goodbye until next time.

Overall

Good value and location. Definitely recommended. If you can book at least two weeks in advance, I find there are usually some Accor Plus Red Hot Rooms rates available to book and it has been this way for most of the year I have spent in China.

Timely transit to train stations and airports can be tricky, due to traffic. Allow plenty of time to travel the roads.