Check In

We arrived quite late Thursday evening and the walk from the Milan Central station is a mere 5 min walk in a straight line from the station thus very easy to find.

Upon arriving our reservation was quickly found by "M" - name withheld - and all our Elite Gold Le Club perks were given to us without us having to mention it (this is usually a 50/50 chance in some places). Drink voucher and complimentary room upgrade were given and further instructions on breakfast, restaurants, fitness room etc was given. 10/10 (if not even a 11/10 for checkin service had it been possible).

Room

The room upgrade was a junior suite on the 2nd floor (room 1 to be more precise so 01.02 : Room 1 Floor 2). The room was spacious with minimalistic layout (the way I like it), nice size bathroom and a little note from the managment and a box of Italian chocolates.

Bathroom: There was both a tub and rainforest type shower head (which sprayed water all over the place due to clogged rubber nostrils). Easy fix for the shower head as the rubber nostrils just had to be wiped a few times with the back of my hand and I found it odd that cleaning didn't do this. Lots of amenities were also available like a his/her kits and plenty of towels and a lovely towel warmer (which was not on when we arrived and I didn't find out before next morning).

Room: Very nice large bed which was not too hard nor to soft. There was a desk with lots of amenities such as an espresso machine and your usual pens etc. Another thing that struck me that one of the sugar "straws" had been opened by earlier guest, put back and cleaning had not picked up on this. The sugar had gone quite hard so not a recent miss. Flatscreen with Sky Italia meaning that most channels have dual language selection which was great, but took some time to figure out (no instructions in how to change this though).

The blinds are controlled electrically from the side of the bed and unfortunately they are automatically raised when you leave the room so need go through the full routine again when one comes back - which is easily forgotten. It's also very tempting to leave stuff at the window which again causes issues when playing around with the blinds. Because of all the buttons etc it was difficult to figure out which was room light, blinds and/or bed light...

Now sleep quality: Unfortunately there was so much noise from the fire escape door opening and closing and people running in and out so every time this happened we woke up as it sounded like someone was opening the room door wanting to get in. It's odd as room 1 on floor 2 is the end room in a "hidden" corner. Still we didn't get much uninterrupted sleep tbh.

Now we didn't say anything to the reception as

1) They MUST be aware of this from before so what could they do, and

2) We were there for a long weekend only and my parter didn't feel 100% (flue) so not in the mode to start moving around.

Would have been a 10/10 had the unbearable noise not been there...

Service

Over all the staff were top notch. From check in/out through to the staff at the breakfast room so nothing to put a finger on.

If cleaning (as touched based on earlier) is part of the service experience this was hit or miss even though we only stayed 3 nights. Not much concistancy what so ever but it was cleaned so not a deal breaker.

Dining

We only had breakfast and for once I stayed clear of the cooked breakfast option. Did have a quick sniff and it looked pretty much like your bog standard breakfast offering, meaning all is pre-made in some factory somewhere then transported in bags to the breakfast prepration area of the kitchen and then served in hot water tray sections.

The nice thing was that it was at the opposite side of the restaurant so your continetal offerings were at the center, Drinks at one end and the warm breakfast offerings at the other.

The staff working the breakfast were all smiley and helpfull and didn't seem to be too busy...

Location

The hotel is in walking distance from The Central Station so very easy to get to. Also it's only 30 min walk to the Duomo and to high end shopping which is nice.

Trams are easily accessible from the hotel and there's even a One star Michelin Restaurant (Berton) 10 min wal from the hotel (which, btw is highly recommendable).

Overall

This is a great hotel (bar the noise from the fire escape next to what seem to be the placement of the Junior Suites) so if you get room 01.02 ask for anther one away from the fire escape.

One fun thing is the outside light of the hotel.

When we arrived:

Which changed to a more Christmas themed look the last evening we were there:

Not sure how this works out in side the rooms as ours was on the other side without the lights...

So, based on my experiences staying at this hotel, I would without hesitation book/stay here again BUT get a room as far away from the escape route as much as humanly possible even though it would mean decline a room upgrade...

This said, there is nothing indicating this as being even remotely close to a Sofitel so do not be lured into thinking so. The hotel is nice in it's own right though.