I stayed a handful of times in the past at Fairmont and Hilton in Barcelona and for this trip I was originally booked in Fairmont but when I heard about Hotel SOFIA joining Hyatt it raised my interest. With Accor’s announced paltry benefits for the new Diamond top tier (above Platinum), I have cancelled some Fairmont bookings because I will most likely not pursue top tier status with Accor anymore. Fairmont Barcelona was a victim of that, and Hotel SOFIA was a beneficiary.  I used one of my Globalist Suite Upgrade awards for my 6-night stay when I found out that TSUs upgrade into a First Wish suite which sells for a lot more money than the entry level rooms and gives lounge access.  

Location

Hotel SOFIA is located in a nice neighborhood but not very close to tourist attractions.  It is 8 subway stops from the beginning of La Rambla on a direct subway line (L3), but for access to the beach area / Barceloneta then the subway transfers will not be convenient. For tourists, SOFIA’s location is not ideal and it does not have any of the “wow” factor of W’s location; it is also an inferior location compared to Ritz Carlton or EDITION.  SOFIA is less than 1km from Camp Nou so it is great for people going to an event at the stadium, and I suspect SOFIA targets football teams coming to play in Barcelona or guests attending other events in the stadium.  SOFIA is even closer to the stadium than the Fairmont nearby.  

Room

I found the First Wish suite to have excellent hardware throughout, particularly the bathroom with high quality finishes, for example the small round light near the floor that lights up automatically when you walk in the toilet enclosure during the night.  The shower is large and has a dual rain shower and hand shower which can work at the same time.  There is a large bathtub at an angle near the window which looks good but perhaps a bit of wasted space.  The bathroom has Natura Bissé Barcelona products refilled generously daily, some of them in large bottles.  There is a large flat screen TV straight in front of the bed on a wall with soft color tiles.  All furniture is of good quality including leather chairs near the bed.  The only negative about renovations would be the carpet in the bedroom - they could have easily put floor tiles instead.  Most new and modern hotels have floor to ceiling windows but you can notice it’s an older hotel that was renovated because the two windows only cover part of the wall in the bedroom and bathroom; the windows themselves have been replaced and are brand new however.  The window in the bathroom provides good natural light in the entire bathroom, including in the shower because there is a tinted glass so the shower is not dark.  The toilet enclosure has the same tinted glass door – it is perhaps not as good a design as for the shower.  

The bar area of the room looks sharp and includes premium spirits and Riedel glasses.  Just to give an idea of the kind of guests they target in these suites, the mini-bar in the room has Dom Perignon 2009 and several top red wines such as Cos D’Estournel. For millionaire footballers having a party, it would be awesome.   

A couple more features which might betray this being an older property is that air conditioning was not working very well. Even if we left the room with curtains closed during the day and AC at maximum strength, when we came back it was about 23C.  Also with AC at the max all night, the temperature was still not below 22C in the morning.  So I would not say the room was hot, but we would have preferred cooler than 22-23C particularly for sleep.  The other temperature issue was with water.  In some hotels water starts cool in the shower and you need to let it run before it becomes warm, but oddly at Hotel SOFIA it was the other way around at times: water would start too hot and you need to let it run quite a while before it becomes bearable.  Sometimes water would be fine to begin with.  Go figure.  It was the same for tap water, if you wanted cool water sometimes it was hot even from the cold tap.

One thing which is missing is that the entrance door does not have a fisheye to see who is knocking at the door.  Also the “do not disturb” button on the electronic wall panel does not seem to turn on any light outside the room so it does not work; you need to use the old fashion DND card on the door.

Dining

Breakfast is free for Globalists in the restaurant with convenient hours 7-11am.  The quality of the food was very good and the choice of fruits was nice for example blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, and cherries on a daily rotation.  This being Barcelona the breakfast offerings were heavy on meat which I am not a fan of, but I recognize that others would be pleased with the choice.  There were several cold cuts and three kinds of sausages as well.  The cold buffet had smoked salmon which was very tasty, along with a few kinds of olives and giant capers.  Cereals were provided in individual small bags which might not be the most environmentally friendly thing to do but it’s more sanitary than when cereals are provided in the buffet to all guests in a big bowl.  There were also some gluten-free crackers and cakes individually wrapped as well with a sticker from a local pastry shop.  To cap it off they have free flow Cava available as well.  The layout of the restaurant is well thought out with lots of tables available so breakfast never felt crowded and there are also tables available to eat outside. Similar to our room, the design of the restaurant is attractive and furniture of good quality.  Regarding service, unfortunately it was not as good as the food. Once you arrive at the restaurant nobody brings you to a table, after you give your room number they just say “sit where you want”.  As a result nobody took our drink order and we had to ask near the bar area.  For refills it was the same thing, staff was not proactive so we had to ask, in addition staff forgot on a few occasions our requests and we had to either ask again or just let it go, rather than disturb them a second time.  I wish breakfast had been available in the lounge – service was infinitely better there. 

Some of the most exclusive lounges I have been to are Ritz Carlton and Fairmont lounges in large part because they are limited to paying guests – status does not get you access.  In Hotel SOFIA, similarly the Wish lounge is accessible only to guests booked in the Wish suites which means there are not a lot of people.  Globalists staying at this hotel and not using a Globalist suite upgrade award can be upgraded to a junior suite but not to a Wish suite so Globalists will not get lounge access unless they pay for a Wish suite or if using an upgrade award.  

The lounge is open 24/7 with staff available at all times and when we stopped by it was unsurprisingly very quiet given the few Wish suites in the hotel.  Food is limited to some small snacks including fruits or desserts, and you can have soft drinks for free as well.  There is no happy hour with hors d’oeuvres and alcohol at the bar of the lounge is available for purchase.  The price difference between the First Wish suites and the Junior Suites is about 400 EUR which is roughly double the cost of Club access at Ritz Carlton, where you can have food and alcoholic drinks included with lounge access, as is the case in most regular lounges.  The price you have to pay for Wish suites was puzzling before my stay, and remains so after my stay.  For that kind of money they should have more food on offer and free premium drinks available as well in my humble opinion.  Alternatively (or in addition) they should have an exclusive breakfast in the lounge with special a la carte options and avoid exposing guests to the subpar service downstairs, but unfortunately that is not the case.  As mentioned above since the hotel is so close to Camp Nou, given the pricing level of the Wish suites I can only wonder if this is because their target clientele are rich footballers who might not care if the lounge access costs twice as much as at Ritz Carlton, not to mention that Fairmont Barcelona does not have a lounge unlike many other Fairmonts in the world so a football team that wants 24/7 top service in a private lounge in proximity to the stadium might find that SOFIA is the best choice by far and they might be willing to pay good money for it, but tourists, not so much.  If we focus on the service provided by Wish staff specifically, you cannot ask for anything better, not only in the lounge itself, but also one time we came back to our room when housekeeping was about to finish, and Wish lounge staff was there to supervise and ensure everything was clean to perfection. 

Elevators

The hotel has the same elevator system as the one I saw in Westin Ottawa which is disastrous over there.  There are no buttons inside the elevator to select your floor, it needs to be keyed in right outside the elevator and then the screen tells you which elevator is coming for you.  Fortunately the system at SOFIA is not as awful as in Westin Ottawa because you cannot manually enter your floor: when you scan your key card it gives you a choice of what floors you can go to (you cannot go to a floor which is not yours) so you don’t end up with guests keying the wrong floor number which makes the elevator stop for nothing at random floors and then guests keying another floor on the screen.  However I could still see issues with those elevators in just a few days in the hotel. On one occasion the system was down and it would not accept any guest key for the scanner.  Staff had to enter the floor number for any guest wanting to go up by using staff keys.  A couple of other times, we entered of floor number, and once inside the elevator would stop at random floors but doors would not open, then it would start going back down, stop on another floor and doors not open, etc. until we could finally go to our floor and the doors would open, without us having done anything during this entire joy ride!  Also sometimes the elevator would bring you to another floor than what we selected; we would have to get out, rescan our card, and get back in.  So that’s the second hotel I see this elevator system, and both times it was memorable for the wrong reasons.  

Wifi

Wifi in the hotel had good speed of about 30 Mbps however there were some annoying disconnections.

Pool

I took a look at the pool but did not use it.  It is mostly suitable for laps because it is long and narrow, therefore not particularly great for just relaxing in the water as you are a bit in the way of active swimmers.  

Gym

The gym had new and shiny equipment and had a good selection of machines.  

Overall

In conclusion we had a nice stay at Hotel SOFIA and the hotel has very good quality hardware despite some issues such as AC, water temperature, and elevators, which will possibly be fixed over time.  They should also improve service in the restaurant for breakfast.  I paid 135 EUR per night for SOFIA which is quite low; I am assuming business is quiet in July-August for this neighborhood, and other hotels in touristy areas I was considering such as RC, W, and EDITION were all in the range 300-400+ EUR.  In conjunction with the suite upgrade award to stay in a Wish suite, SOFIA was hard to beat at that price.  If I had picked RC or EDITION for example, I wouldn’t get a lounge, no free breakfast, maybe no suite, and I would have paid a hefty premium over SOFIA.  However if I am going to Barcelona in a different month of the year in the future when there are more business travelers staying in SOFIA’s area, the price would be closer to Marriott chain competitors in tourist destinations and in that case I would not stay at SOFIA because the location is not that great for my purposes and the lounge is suitable for a different crowd than regular tourists.  I believe the lounge is a better fit for groups with lots of money to spend on a business conference or sporting event: you pay for lounge access, then you pay again in the lounge for premium spirits.  If I want to pay for a lounge, I will pay for the one at Ritz Carlton instead.

For people without suite upgrade awards, having not seen the standard rooms or non-Wish suites then I suspect you will get a good hard product but perhaps value for the money is more modest than if you can get a Wish suite. 

Bottom line, I would personally return to SOFIA with or without a Globalist suite upgrade in the future if once again I see material price discounts for SOFIA relative to the competition depending on the season, rather than stay at the nearby Fairmont.  I think using a Globalist suite upgrade award is beneficial at this property given that you will not get access to the lounge without the suite upgrade award and I am not familiar with any other Hyatt property where this is the case.  If I did not have an upgrade award remaining, I would not pay cash for the Wish rooms at SOFIA even though I occasionally do at RC or Fairmont hotels.