Review Sofitel Philadelphia

This was my 2nd stay in this hotel, but the 1st one was something like 15 years ago at the beginning of my Accor enrollment :) . I stayed 3 nights. It was a good stay, although some details deserve improvements (and we know the devil hides in details !). Also, the hotel is now in need of renovation as some furnitures and room decoration look tired to very tired. But I don’t know if there is any plan for a renovation. 

the lobby:

Check-in was very professional and courteous. I was clearly expected. A few days before stay, I received an e-mail with the e-standby upgrade options. The display of info was correct as the next room category upgrade was proposed for free.  But, I was not very optimistic about an upgrade because the hotel was showing full (there was a wedding during the weekend) but I was upgraded from Superior room to Suite Luxury, so that was a double upgrade. Drink voucher was given. An envelope was prepared by the concierge for me with city map, recommendations for things to do/to visit. Nice touch.

When giving me the drink voucher, the employee told me “you can have a glass of Champagne with this”. I am telling you this now, because there is something about it later in the review ;)

I was escorted to my room and was explained all room amenities. Nice room. The living room part has a sofa bed, a coffee machine (unfortunately not an espresso one), a TV, the main desk and mini bar. Plenty of power sockets. There is also another empty fridge if you have something to store cold. 

In the bedroom part, there was another TV facing the wonderful MyBed. 

The bathroom was the typical North American Sofitel marble bathroom which are very nice and spacious. Unfortunately, no Hermès products, but the Lanvin ones. 

The closet is one example when I say the hotel is now in serious need of renovation. The carpet is OK but you can see it’s now an old one. But to make it clear, the room condition is still acceptable but a bit limit for a Sofitel, hence the need for renovation. Awaiting the renovation, maybe simply re-varnish the closet and other pieces of furniture concerned ? This is cheap and quick to do. 

There was a fruit platter with a welcome note from the GM. 

“Problems” encountered/points for improvement linked to the room :

• state of inside the closet (see above). Hardly acceptable. 
• I ate some fruits the 1st evening, using the plate and knife provided. The following day after housekeeping service, as you can see on the picture below, they removed the plate but did not replace it (very convenient to eat the rest of the fruits...) and the dirty knife was just placed on the napkin (the knife was just as I left it with small pieces of fruits on it, so was neither replaced, nor cleaned).

• The glass table was dirty from my arrival with plenty of traces of hands and fingers. As it was not cleaned by housekeeping, I did it myself...

Not huge problems of course, but we are far from “Sofitel Luxury” standards. My 2 first nights were priced at $300 before taxes, so I think they can clean a table and replace used cutlery at that price. 

I had dinner at the hotel the 1st evening. I ordered as an appetizer some grilled octopus on salad. It was the worst dish I ever had in a restaurant. I had in the past to send for instance dishes which were almost cold or beef not cooked as I ordered, but this is the first time in my life that I am sending back to the kitchen an awful inedible dish and this happens in a Sofitel. It was a tasteless rubber-like texture piece of octopus. Almost impossible to cut with your knife and tasteless. When you know how good this can be in Mediterranean countries (especially Greece), this is a shame that a Sofitel restaurant can serve such a sh.... I have to say that the staff handled it perfectly. They were very apologetic and let me ordered another appetizer and they offered me an extra glass of wine. The main course was good. To complete the story, the restaurant manager on duty this evening came at the end of the dinner to apologize again and confirmed the very bad quality of the dish (they tasted it in the kitchen).

Bar: as you can see on the picture, the bar area is quite nice. They installed a big screen for the soccer World Cup final match between France and Croatia (ha ha ha !!!!). I watched the match from my room and ordered a room service for lunch and the food was very good.

The anecdote for drink voucher use is the following: I asked for a glass of Champagne (as mentioned by the check-in agent). No special reaction from the bar tender. When I had the first sip of the drink he bring me I instantly recognized it was not Champagne but Prosecco (I am French so I can recognize instantly the difference ;) ). I have nothing against Prosecco which is a good sparkling wine, but this is not Champagne !!!. Never do that to a French guy, particularly the day we win the World Cup ;) ! Just for fun, I said to the bar tender “this is not Champagne”. He looked a bit surprised as I think it was unexpected for him but he was very honest saying “indeed, this is Prosecco”. He said Champagne is not covered by the voucher and that it would have cost me something like $30 (which is indeed what they charged for this). So why the colleague at check-in is saying that I can have Champagne with the voucher ?? Sofitel Washington gives you real champagne with the voucher. I said it was of course fine to stay with the Prosecco, but still...He was a bit embarrassed by the situation and he bring me another (free) glass of Prosecco after I finished the 1st one. Good recovery, but that kind of thing always leaves me a bitter taste in the mouth knowing that this is Sofitel and dealing with Platinum members. 

Overall a good stay with good Platinum treatment/recognition, but as you can guess from my review, there is room for improvement. Good staff everywhere which led to good recovery every time I had a problem. Need for renovation very soon. Great location in town (walking distance of main tourist attractions and shopping and business district). Would I return ? Yes.