Property: Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour
Status: ALL+ Platinum
Room booked: Prestige Suite
Room upgraded/type: No - but highest floor / best location received
Rate: Member Flexible w/SNU applied (a rather steep $1,480 before SNU)
Welcome drink: Yes - 2 x 'Elite' drinks (Pommery NV) were taken in Atelier
Early check in/late out: Arrived 4PM and room ready; requested and given 12PM checkout
VIP treatment: Nothing special noted, aside from a few "thanks for being loyal" type comments
Access to executive lounge (if existing): Yes
Additional care: extra chocolates & a small cake in the room (wifes b'day), together with everyone's favourite cooking wine
Stayed a night at the weekend at SSDH for my wife's b'day, and it was a good experience overall; better than the last stay, and aided by the fact that the lounge was not as busy as usual on Friday night + Saturday morning, vs our usual Saturday night stay for such occasions. On arrival, the doorman very quickly came over to confirm we were checking in and got our name, and without asking he took us straight over to the lift and away from the typical melee in the lobby for check-in service at Club Millésime on L35. After a brief wait, we were looked after well by the lounge staff, who checked us in and helped with redeeming of a bunch of ALL rewards points towards the stay. French 'sparkling' was offered, but I declined as I could see it wasn't the real deal. My wife partook, but it caused an allergic reaction after a few sips, so we left that behind and headed to the room.
I'd booked a Prestige Suite, using one of my expiring SNUs to upgrade from another room and knocking off about $600 from the rate. There's only one upgrade possible from this suite, but the Bellerive Suite was unavailable, which is no issue - they are much the same in terms of location, size and layout anyway. Our suite was on L33 and under the Bellerive on the prime north east corner of the hotel, with 180 degree views from two sides of the building. It's a nice view, but soon to be impacted quite largely by the Mirvac Harbourside construction which has core work to about L17 of 48 at the moment. Below I have some pics of that, plus my estimate of what it will look like when finished, courtesy of some shoddy cut-and-paste edits to the image
We went back to the lounge for the second hour of Apéro Chic” evening drinks & canapés, which was nice. Drinks are reasonable, but nothing good for craft beer snobs like me, or champagne drinkers like my wife. You
could pay to get real champagne, but she opted for a coughtail instead, which she said was well prepared. The canapes were of a high quality, and unlike the last visit which was on a Saturday night vs this one on a Friday, there was plenty of them available, and they were replenished before running out. The club was about 1/2 to 2/3 full at this point, and it was easy to get a seat with a view.
Dinner at Atelier was up next, which I had pre-booked with a note about the special occasion. It turned out we probably didn't need to do anything in advance, as the place was
very quiet. Only a handful of parties near the area where you come in, and then across the harbour side window were a few more groups, and a space held for us. Service was fast and friendly, though a few slip-ups with things forgotten or coming at the wrong time stood out given how quiet it was. Food quality was much improved over the last time we stayed, though the choux pastry dessert my wife had been looking forward too wasn't great, and she left most of that behind. Amusingly, the free b'day mini cake she had from them was her favourite dessert item
Accor ALL+ discounts were applied to F&B (30% & 15% respectively) without issue. Our server did have some comments of frustration that they had finally gotten to the point where diners were adding the digital card to their phone wallets, and now ALL has taken the option away and replaced it with a card with a tiny number they can barely see, so they aren't too pleased with that; I'd agree it seems poorly thought out.
We opted for our included breakfast in the lounge, but were reminded we could have had the full buffet in Atelier had we preferred. Once again the lounge was not busy (this was at about 9AM), and we were able to get one of many available seats with a view with no waiting. Many of the prime spots were free as well, but I find the tables by the window to be a bit too low for a proper meal, plus we had the prime view from our room anyway. Breakfast quality was also high, with variety better than I recalled from the last stay.
We checked out down in the lobby at midday, as our key hadn't been re-coded following the later checkout confirmation, so we couldn't get back up to L35; oops! Other than us slowing things down by trying to do a live calculation of how many status points I needed vs paying with more ALL rewards points, it was pretty efficient, and we were soon on our way back home in an overpriced Uber (forgot that the Everest was running on Saturday!).
Clearly it was a mostly great stay, and we'll almost certainly be back for something similar again, but I'm also hoping that it might be with prices reduced to reflect the impact of the completed tower next door!
Welcome amenity and views from the suite (3308):
My projection on the build height next door (48 levels of apartments atop of 5 floors of commercial & public space):
Cheers,
Matt.
