Hotel Sofitel Marseille Vieux Port — Hotel in Marseille

OK so this place has some things about it which are fantastic, the view from the 5th and 7th floor restaurants and bars are fantastic, the breakfast is also very nice and really well done and some of the staff are lovely. The TVs in the room are state of the art also. As said by other reviewers, the walk way into the entrance is wonderfully refurbished and works well with the setting as a whole. In addition, it's in Marseille which is a fantastic town but it is not right in the middle, so there is a little bit of air between the town and the hotel, which should give it the space to breathe a little. However it does not seem to be making the best use of these attributes, and much like Marseille the city, this hotel has a lot of great characteristics which are simply intrinsic to the place itself, which means that there may be a temptation not to try very hard...

Which brings me to the things I didn't enjoy so much about the Sofitel Marseille. I dont want to labor the point on these so I will quickly surmise.

The service veers from obsequious kow-towing to total disregard and contempt depending on the person serving. The bar staff in the bars are fairly unrelentingly haughty, reflecting the manners of many of the clientele in those bars but alsi reflecting badly on the hotel. Quite often they will either ignore you entirely or simply ignore your requests. I watched them do this to many other customers. The concierge were either delighted to help or simply viewed your presence as a pain which they would endeavour to endure by contemptuously not helping or simply failing to bring bags up, call taxis, help family, etc. The housekeeping staff were extremely upset to be having to clean rooms or provide towels or coffee or water or, well, you get the picture. Housekeeping were fairly unfriendly. But this was not true for all, some of the Housekeeping were extremely helpful.

The place itself is expensive; both the bars are extortionately priced (€11 for a bottle of water). The room service was, as usual, pretty expensive but was very good and I would recommend it. The pool was rammed all the time which is understandable given the time of year but it might be worth thinking about how to manage it. The hotel itself looks tired from the outside and the rooms are fairly battered and in need of a renovation. The air conditioning system smelled through out the hotel...a damp musty and unpleasent smell.

But at the end of the day, what got me about this hotel was the wasted potential. This hotel has so much potential. It looks fairly awful from the outside but the location is great and it sits between the beach, the town, the harbour, the park and the castle. But none of this is utilised by the hotel, which feels like a place which is trading on a past reputation which perhaps has slipped a little. The bars are amazingly well located and the breakfast terrace is ridiculously beautiful. But somehow none of this is being utilised to the full because for however long, they havent really needed to try too hard and there isnt much competition. I would love to go back if it could pull itself together a bit, get more involved with the city and other establishments, perhaps offer something a little more exciting and innovative. Not the same things it has been offering for the last 30 years with a slightly posher lobby and...

The location of the hotel is great. You can easily walk to most things in the city or take a quick cab. The views from some rooms are fantastic but if you’re not facing the port, you will be looking at a parking lot with a dumpster and a wall.

The rooms are all outdated and the outside of the hotel is actually falling apart with strips of insulation hanging off the side (see photos). We stayed for two nights and had to switch rooms because the first room had a shower they couldn’t fix and holes in the wall. After telling the front desk about the shower, we were told it would be fixed. We came back 4+ hours later and nobody had even tried. We were also told the roof top bar and restaurant served food till midnight so we did not stop on our way back from a soccer match to eat at the hotel. We arrived at 11pm, the front desk said the bar was serving food but the restaurant was closed. We got to the bar and they said their kitchen closed at 11pm and would serve us. We ended up having to walk to a McDonald’s 20 minutes away at midnight on a Wednesday just to eat because there was nothing else open.

On our way to the match, the concierge arranged two taxis for us and other guests. Taxis in Marseille have meters yet he pre-arranged a rate that was over double the metered amount. I wouldn’t be surprised if he profited off of the inflated rate as he then disappeared any time we walked through the lobby after that.

The “spa” is essentially a wading pool and you have to make a reservation just to sit in a few feet of water. If you want to is the pool, you’ll also need to make a reservation as it’s at another hotel next door!

The next day, we spoke to the front desk manager who “upgraded” us to a room facing the port with a terrace for all the trouble. That room was smaller, even older and had more holes in the walls. Also had broken furniture and the electrical outlets were actually falling out of the walls (see photos).

When checking out, the same manager told us he would email us later that day and compensate us for the trouble. It has now been three weeks and we have heard nothing.

This is a 3 star hotel at best yet with so few options in the city they are rated higher. Most of the staff is friendly yet they are unknowledgeable of their own property and don’t follow through with anything promised. They couldn’t even make a recommendation for dinner aside from the overpriced, unappealing...

We stayed in Sofitel Marseille for 3 nights in the summer of 2023. The hotel is located right on the periphery of the old port of Marseille where all the shops and restaurants are located. It takes about a 15-minute walk to get from the hotel all the way to the centre of the old port so the hotel is fairly insulated from the hustle and bustle of the old port. The exterior of the hotel looks a bit dated but the interiors feel very fresh, clean and bright. We upgraded our room to a deluxe room facing the old port at the reception and we thought it was worth it. We never tired of waking up to a view of the old port with a clear blue sky. The room itself was quite clean and spacious. There was enough room to open up two luggages and still move around comfortably. There is also a turn down service where the staff will put out the bedroom slippers and play some nice Jazz music when you come back. The bed was nice and comfortable and the pillows were fluffy. The only complaint we had was that the air conditioning would turn off in the middle of the night. The air conditioning control did not seem to work and it seems like the air conditioning is centrally controlled so the in-room controls did nothing. I could not sleep the first night as it was too warm and stuffy so we asked for a ventilateur (fan) the next day. That helped us to sleep better. Obviously, if you are planning to stay during the winter months then the heat at night should not be an issue. The staff at the reception were always pleasant, warm, friendly and polite. We were upsold the room with a view when we checked in so that should say something about how friendly the staff were. It was EUR70 per night for the room with a view and it included overnight parking (EUR27 per night) so it was really only about EUR50 extra per night. The valet and the concierge were all very helpful and nice and they all speak English well enough. If you intend to park here, do note that the roads within the hotel property can be quite narrow and the parking lots are quite narrow as well. It may be worthwhile getting the valet to help you park your car at least for the first day because driving from the car rental agencies at the Marseille train station to the hotel was stressful enough for us.We paid around EUR300 - 350 a night but we thought it was worth it and we thoroughly enjoyed...