Sofitel Philippines Plaza Manila — Hotel in Pasay

This will be a long one.

TLDR: Rooms need a refresh. Hotel seems overstaffed but not terribly efficient. Manager clearly doing her best but limited materials to work with. Definitely does not measure up to other ALL properties and pales in comparison to e.g. Sofitel in Bangkok.

Some issues I know the hotel has little control over but surely something could have at least been attempted as mitigation. Some issues are purely due to the hotel.

The rooms need a refresh, desperately, but I have been told refurbishment is being planned already. Soundproofing is a massive issue. Soundproofing being non-existence in the context of guests having little sense of decency or consideration is highly problematic - during my stay I once had a child being walked up and down the corridor, presumably because they were making too much noise and were disturbing the parents in the room, so the rest of us had to endure the clear lack of parenting. On another, a guest decided it was entirely acceptable to allow her child to kick a ball around and scream in the corridor. I leave you to decide whether that is acceptable behaviour. Multiple events taking place in the area with no warning from the hotel - had I been warned I would certainly have not booked a room here. On Sunday morning at FIVE (5) AM, there was a 'fun run' with bass-heavy music and some idiot wailing on a loudspeaker. The next morning at THREE (3) AM, there was a party with DnB going. Then on my last day there there was a wedding with the music being so loud (poor covers of soppy love songs) I could clearly hear each word of the lyric in the room with balcony doors shut. The wedding party were on my floor too, and you can imagine the amount of noise. Again, no warning from the hotel that there would be constant noise. Misleading advertising: what the website does not tell you is that there is current construction that clearly mars the view of the 'bay view' rooms. I clearly love cranes and construction noises because that was apparently what I paid for. High speed internet for members - max Mbps achieved on Wifi was 8 (eight). Enough said. Embarrassing in the 21st century. Left hand does not talk to the right hand - someone at the door will greet you. Then someone else will ask you what you're doing, and place you in a queue. Then someone else will come up to you and ask you what you're there for, and confirm that indeed you're in the queue for checking in - and meanwhile it's been twenty minutes and you're not checked in. Lack of common sense: I had an issue with the ALL app. I used points to book but realised I made a mistake with the dates. So just cancel and rebook, right? Not with these guys. Not possible. I emailed them and they keep quoting me a price that was 10-20% higher than what I had on the app, which I can't use. Any chance they would stretch a point and understand it's not really smart to punish a customer for the app not working? No chance. No understanding. Cockcroaches in the bathroom - twice. When mentioned the first question was "did you take a photo?". No, I was trying to kill it. They advertised a promo for the buffet. Very good. But when the bill comes it was for the full amount. Which they wanted us to sign. They simply could not understand why we were reluctant to . A massage I booked was billed as 'early check-in fee.' Why? When I questioned the bill - which was necessary as they billed some services separately and then three other unrelated things together, and mislabeled another (see 10), and had the nerve to say they were sorry I was "confused". Confused? By your lack of competence, perhaps. Not by your bill, which was a litany of lies.

The manager I spoke to about the above was good. She listened and made sympathetic noises, but clearly there was little she could do.

Basically, everything that Sofitels elsewhere had - quiet, peace, nice rooms, competent staff, this hotel...

I am a current hotel guest and I am considering ending my stay early. There have been many issues during my 3 night stay so far that have left me quite frustrated and disappointed. This hotel should not be labelled as a 5-star hotel primarily for the level of hospitality they provide. I had stayed at the Manila Hotel earlier this week and had an absolutely amazing experience. Sofitel pales in comparison to the level of hospitality and service I have received at the Manila Hotel. Here is a brief summary of my stay at Sofitel so far:

Check-in: it took us about an hour to check-in. There was a long line of guests and only 3 employees checking guests in, despite there being over 10 employees in the lobby area. Additionally, the person checking us in proceeded to try and upsell us on a breakfast package. They said we would have to pay double the price for breakfast unless we booked it now through them. Meanwhile, when I stayed at the Manila Hotel, they gave us a complimentary breakfast, which was a pleasant surprise.

Room: while our room at Sofitel is quite large and comfortable, we noticed cockroaches in the room on our first night. Additionally, the hair dryer is barely functional.

Elevators: as many other people have mentioned in their reviews, the elevators are a disaster. On multiple occasions, I have had to wait over 10 minutes to get an elevator from my floor back to the lobby.

Restaurant experience: the food at the restaurants had been good, but the service has been horrendous. My partner and I went to get a drink at Le Bar where the manager told us it was about to be last call. We were seated, but the manager disappeared for about 10 minutes and no employees took our order. The manager then came back to our table and asked if we were ready to order. We said we were, then she walked away from us without saying anything (didn’t take our order) and never came back. We finally placed our order with a server and my partner got one of the worst margaritas she has ever had.

Another night, we went to Snaps Sports bar, which is also in the hotel. They initially told us their credit card machine was not working and that we needed to pay in cash. I went back up to my hotel room to get USD to exchange, waited about 10 minutes for the elevator, then was told at the front desk that they could not exchange my USD since there was a slight tear in the bill. I explained the situation and they tried to call Snaps (despite it being directly in front of us) and the restaurant didn’t pick up the phone. They told me to discuss this with the restaurant and the restaurant said they would try to see if their credit card machine was working. Shockingly, the credit card reader worked and I was able to pay. This was yet another time consuming and frustrating experience, on top of the food being overpriced and multiple menu items not being available.

This afternoon, I went to Le Bar for lunch. It took us about 10 minutes to get seated despite the restaurant not being busy and there being many employees around. To add insult to injury, the chef walked by us with 2 photographers to have a photoshoot in the restaurant. This was all before the host had even acknowledged we had been waiting. Once we were seated, we waited another 10 minutes before we ultimately left. The server never came back and we were so frustrated that we left and took a cab to a nearby restaurant.

Sofitel does not deserve to have labelled as a 5-star hotel and I highly encourage anyone looking for a hotel to...

Hi Dey, Thanks for reaching out.

Frankly, this is the first time I am staying in this hotel and I am super disappointed. I was booked in a superior room and the room that was assigned to me is a faulty room that in my opinion, the hotel shouldn't even be selling this room to any guests. This is room 539. Firstly, the room is smelly with a cigarette smell even though it is a non-smoking room. Secondly, the room is so dark with only 1 standing lamp, 1 bedside lamp, 2 downlights on the TV wall and 1 reading light. It is so dark that it is impossible to work in the room nor will you feel comfortable. The standing lamp and bedside lamp are not in tip-top condition considering this is a 5 stars hotel. The lamp shade that is made up of acrylic-like material in multiple square shape tiles are either broken or missing! And the bedside lamp cannot even stand straight. My colleague who is booked in the same room type, do have 2 bedside lamps instead of one in my room! I gave a call to the front desk various times, no pickup. I decided to call the operator to see if they can help. The operator informed me that they will get the front office to give me a call. I have waited quite a while and decided to bring my luggage down directly instead of waiting as it is already late at night. I have asked for a room change to a higher category not wanting to subject myself to the same room type. I have asked for the luxury club room and managed to get a luxury club room without club access. However she can only give me a Hollywood twin room as there is no room with king size bed available. I agreed to it since I didn’t want to go back to the horrible room again. While waiting for the room key, the receptionist has informed me that your superior room is not renovated yet. I did not press further to ask if she meant not all superior rooms are renovated or she is referring to the room that I was assigned to that is not renovated. The luxury club room that I had is room 921. Well, it is definitely brighter and a lot better than room 539. Unfortunately, this room has its own issues too. The room door cannot double lock and the bathroom sink tap is not glued down properly, every time when I on the tap, the tap can move left, right, front and back. The water drainage of the bath tub has issues, the water cannot flow down. There is no separate bath room hence you need to bathe in the bath tub. After my bath, the water level is still at my ankle height where I still need to wash my feet before I moved out of the bath tub. On my last night of my stay, my colleague managed to get me another luxury room, room 644. Finally, this room assigned is proper and nice, a room that can meet the standard of what a 5 stars hotel supposed to offer. Throughout the room changing experience with the front office, the receptionists are not friendly nor do you see or hear them smile to you. There is no apology from the hotel too on my complaints for the faulty rooms that they assigned to me. On top of that, we had an event held in their function room. It was also a disaster. The function room is so hot. The temperature is a lot cooler outside the function room. We had asked for your engineer to rectify but after many attempts, they still did not manage to rectify the issue. In the end, we have to ask them to bring in one fan to put in the room!

Overall, I do not...