Review Sofitel Warsaw Victoria

First time stay at this hotel (2 nights) which celebrates this year its 40th birthday. I was quite satisfied with this stay, but unfortunately I had to face once again some unnecessary reluctance to grant a Le Club Platinum benefit (room upgrade). It was rapidly solved, but why on earth do we still have to face this...

I was spending the week-end in WAW for an AF-KL-AZ Flyertalk Do. Among the participants, 2 other members of FT having status were staying also at the Sofitel. They both checked-in before me and were upgraded without question, so I believe the problem I will describe below is not due to an hotel policy, but I still don't know what to think...

I had booked a Prestige Suite. Before boarding my flight to WAW, I checked wether the upper room categories were available (Opera suite and Imperial suite) and they were. I checked-in around 11 pm and the front desk agent told me "we have prepared a nice Prestige suite for you". This is the room category I booked, so no upgrade available ? "Sorry sir, but the upper category, the Opera suite, is fully booked so not available". Oh, strange, 3 hrs ago it was available. "Sorry, but no it's not"

OK, here we go again....it was obvious she was lying but I could not prove it yet, having not yet internet access, I decided to go to the room and study this a bit more. An envelope was given with a welcome letter, the drink voucher and a premium wifi code.

Below are pictures of the reception area.

The Prestige suite was nice (55 m2). The furnitures are a bit dated for their style but still in good condition. It is important to mention that the hotel has started a complete refurbishment of their rooms and it looks nice. But the suites are apparently not yet done. The view was lovely on the main square on which the hotel is located. You can see below pictures of the Prestige suite.

So I connected to the wifi and confirmed what I saw in CDG : the 2 upper room categories were available for the 2 nights. Went down again and showed my iPad to the same lady who checked me in.

Why are you telling me the Opera suite is not available while it is ?

She was obviously very annoyed by my demand

"Let me see" - some keyboard typing - "it is indeed available, but it was eventually blocked for somebody else. If this is sooo important for you, would you like to be upgraded in this room ?" I want to precise that I'm quoting her exact words here and the way she said "sooo important" was somewhat ironic. It was obvious she was not happy that her lies or poor excuses were discovered. I asked her if the room had the same view on the square. The answer was yes, so I took it.

The Opera suite is very large (83 m2), with first a little entrance with a toilet cabinet for guests, then the very large living room, a kitchen ! the bedroom, the wardrobe and the main bathroom. There is a Nespresso machine and a Bose speaker. Toiletry products are unfortunately Lanvin and not Hermes. A plate of sliced fresh fruits was placed on the table. Mineral water was given during the turndown service.

The only weird thing was this very ugly and old chair in the bathroom facing the shower :-))

View from the room:

Premium wifi works very well. Late check-out was granted without problem (4 pm).

The bar has a very modern and pleasant design. The drink voucher was valid for soft drinks, beers, wine. Not for champagne but Prosecco was OK.

The breakfast restaurant (different from the main brasserie restaurant) is also very pleasant and the breakfast buffet is very good with a large selection of cold and warm items.

The location in town is perfect for visiting (100 m walking to the old town) and it is also convenient for the business district. It is only a 20 min drive from the airport.

Overall, if you except the problem at check-in with the employee obviously lying, I had a very good stay. But, to Accor people if you read this, please tell your hotels that the customers have some ways to check what we are told and the false excuse of "the hotel is full" is unacceptable when not the caseand way too frequent (this forum is full of reports of this problem). In my case, this is the 2nd time in 2 months.