Sofitel Auckland Viaduct Harbour — Hotel in Waitematā

Update: (18 Nov 2024) My partner and I celebrated our anniversary at Sofitel at the invitation of the general manager, Reto. Clearly a lot of improvements were made since our last visit and we had an amazing experience. Every detail was perfect and I struggle to think of anything that can be further improved.

We had a splendid dinner at La Marée, which we did not try during our first visit. I can confidently say it's the best restaurant of all the Accor hotels that I've stayed at in New Zealand. I would probably visit for the delicious food alone.

I'm very glad that Sofitel Auckland has someone who cares about patrons at the helm, appreciates feedback and actively drives staff to live up to expectations.

My partner and I will be getting married next year - Sofitel might just be the place for our special day!

Initial visit (17 Feb 2024) Service: Frankly a dreadful experience. Booked the Romance package through the official site, which advertised "in-room breakfast...daily accommodation and breakfast in-room.Once per stay, find a bottle of champagne or sparkling wine and a romantic gift (flowers, chocolates or other romantic amenity) in the room upon arrival. Guaranteed late check-out until 2 pm." I specified that it was to celebrate my partner's birthday during the booking process as well. Sofitel Wellington has always been amazing so I thought Sofitel Auckland would be a reliable way to treat her.

When we checked in at around 10pm, the issues began:

They seemed unaware of the 2pm checkout until I reminded the staff.

First, upon entering the room, there was no "romantic gift" of any sort. Just a single, foil-packaged piece of Whittaker's chocolate. As amazing as Whittaker's is, one piece was certainly not "chocolates(plural)". When the night manager delivered the champagne to our room, I asked her about the missing flower/chocolate. She was surprised and asked me to send a screenshot of the package deal to her, then retracted and said they would sort it out the next morning. My partner was certainly surprised, just not in the right way.

I called reception to double check the process to order the in-room breakfast. I was told, in no uncertain terms, to fill out the order form and leave it outside by 4 a.m. The form was filled in and hung outside well before 12 a.m. The requested delivery time was 9:45~10:00.

The next morning, there was no breakfast at 10. I opened the door. The order form was still hanging on the handle, clearly not collected by the night staff. Flowers and a nice dessert tray were brought up around this time, as promised, but a day too late to meet the "on arrival" part of the deal. The day manager apologised for the lack of breakfast and it was sent up eventually.

Between 11 and 12, housekeeping entered the room without knocking. When I called out to them (it was a corner room so there was a buffer before we could see each other), they said that they thought we had checked out.

That's not all.

At 1:30pm, staff came to the door and gave us a hand written card and a little goody bag of cookies. We initially thought that was a gesture to make up for the ridiculous level of service we received, but it was actually another demonstration of incompetence. The card was addressed to a Ms. N. I am not Ms. N. Neither is my partner.

I brought the awkward goody bag and card to the checkout counter and asked to speak to the manager. I returned Ms N's goodies and told the manager about everything that happened. The manager apologised, gave us a voucher for a couples massage, promised to make up for it next time (how?) and we were on our not-so-merry way.

Location: Not much to complain about. Relatively central but still a walk away from night life. A little noisy on the lower levels during the day due to traffic as well. No view to speak of.

Having been an Accor member for over 10 years and having had great experiences with other hotels under the brand, Sofitel Auckland currently has shown me only incompetence and...

Easy check in at reception, was greeted in the room with a Happy Birthday dessert plate which was a nice gesture for my husband's birthday. Unfortunately, that's where the positives stop.

Friday 6th September, we saw 2 x cockroaches in the mini bar fridge, we reported it to reception in person at 6am when we left for our full day tour. When we arrived back in the room at 6pm, the mini bar had not been cleaned. We rang reception and advised them. A cleaner came up, took a photo and only emptied the water tray within the fridge area where the cockroaches had retreated to - we were quite shocked that no effort was made to sterilise or disinfect the fridge in any way.

The next morning, 7th September, we went to reception and advised that we were surprised that the fridge was no cleaned properly. Really, in hindsight, we should have been moved to another room, as on the morning we departed, we actually saw 2 more smaller cockroaches crawling around the frame of the bathroom. So disgusting.

Lukas was good at resolving our cockroach issue and understanding our frustration at the cleanliness, offering us a $200 bar credit for the error of handling the situation, that was appreciated by us. However, upon our departure, the man at reception (not Lukas) was telling us that we spent over our bar credit and owed an additional $50 or so. This was definitely not the case as our receipts show that we absolutely did not use the entire $200.

On the 8th September we were out for the whole day, we returned at 5pm and our room had not been serviced yet. This is definitely not the standard of the Sofitel - we definitely expected to come back to a clean room with the beds made and fresh towels.

On the topic of cleanliness, the cups we used daily in the bathroom were not replaced. Every day there seemed to be one bathroom towel missing or not replaced, one day it was the bath mat and the next day it was a hand towel, etc. A bath mat was definitely needed, as I don't think the bathroom floor was mopped or vacuumed once in the 6 days we stayed. I saw photos from other reviews on Google of the disgusting bathrooms with dust and mould build up around the bathroom surfaces and drains and grime build-up on the shower tiles, but I honestly never thought it would be the real-life situation. Unfortunately, it was. Chairs on the balcony outside were unusable due to having spider webs all over them.

Aside from the cockroach issue, many of these issues we did not discuss with reception, because, really, how many times can you complain or voice frustration? We would have been at reception complaining every single day which we definitely did not want to do on our holiday.

I was reluctant writing this, as Lukas did help to resolve the initial cockroach issue to keep happy customers, however, for being a loyal Accor member I certainly expected more for the Sofitel brand.

Aside from the cockroaches, everything else I mentioned in this review if definitely worth addressing, as it really puts a dampener and deflates the feeling of a 5 star hotel experience.

I, not long ago, stayed at the Sofitel in Dubai for 7 nights. My husband and I would NEVER dream of this service happening in Dubai or quite frankly any Sofitel and we will be very wary of booking Sofitel in the future. I really look forward...

Unfortunately this is a long review,

Disappointing stay and wish I was given a chance to request a refund or partial refund upon checkout. Arrival was smooth, we checked in. Was confused to see another hotel check in next door to our room (room 314), but initially it was not a problem. Our room was dirty, long term grime had built up on the shower floor making showering barefoot awkward and uncomfortable. The shower head was packed with buildup. The toilet was not cleaned with a dirty rim seen at the entrance of the bathroom by anyone taller than 5 foot, accompanied by suspicious brown marks along the wallpaper by the toilet (yuck). Don’t even get me started on the drains of the sink and bath. There was food and feathers under the bed, clearly not vacuumed. We bought this up to reception, who sent the cleaning supervisor up to our room to clean. The food under the bed was removed, the feathers remained. They had lovingly left a price list for the mini bar. The bathroom had not been cleaned (I’ve attached some photos for those who are keen to look).

The second night, we had no hot water! As we were already running late for dinner reservations, we really did not have the time to fuss about a room change at this time. We called reception and alerted them, they said they would call us back in 2 minutes. 15 minutes later we had to leave for said, reservations. When we returned 4 hours later (midnight) there was still no hot water. We were never compensated for this or received an apology from the Sofitel.

Further into our stay the Marsden hotel reception (running out of a refurnished hotel room) became more of a problem, as each time we left or returned to our luxury room, we were met with people and bags and suitcases crowding the hallway, right outside our room (room 314, on level 3). This is a complete lack of privacy and was the tip of the bucket that is giving this hotel less than a 1 star rating.

We planned on speaking to the hotel upon checkout, but were rushed out. The cards were taken and told to enjoy the rest of our day. I understand this was the day of the Auckland Marathon, which meant it was incredibly busy, but not even a question asking how our stay was, as even a budget hotel would do? I feel gutted and ripped off, by day 3 we couldn’t wait to get home as my own house felt better than this hotel. I contemplated posting this review because 1) we really wish we had complained more and spoken out about the mishaps during our stay and 2) as it is attached to my name and I’m very concerned about privacy, but if it’ll help another couple when picking a hotel, I guess it is worth it.

If you’re looking to stay in a hotel in Auckland- you might be better off in a backpackers...