A weekend break from Shanghai was mixed with good and annoying moments First the good..great location, walk to the main pedestrian area, hotel architecture fits in with the style Suzhou is famous for. Now, the annoying bits....the room was so stuffy---partially explained by a bathroom where everything is heated, floor and mirrors included. The heat generated by the bathroom fixtures cancels the air con! We were there on a very humid weekend where air con was required. The gym is adequate and the pool is cleverly accomodated into the hotel roof area. The rooms are large, clean, well maintained and the staff are very welcoming. I've stayed at the Sheraton Suzhou on a previous visit and will likely go back there on my next as its facilities are far better than here. Sofitel, I like the extra effort you put in design, but please, delete those silly super heated bathrooms..they are not necessary in Suzhou where it doesnt get so cold.

I don't know what hotel the previous reviewers stayed at, but it wasn't the Sofitel we experienced. I booked three nights at the Suzhou Sofitel to make a comparison. I usually stay at the Suzhou Sheraton and sometimes at the Suzhou Shangri-La. Bottom line; we checked out after one night at the Sofitel and moved to the Sheraton. The Sofitel is clean, big, and in a good location. The staff is very willing to help. Unfortunately the hotel and hotel policies seem designed to a standard well below that of international hotels. We had booked an Executive Floor room to take advantage of the included evening cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and morning breakfast. Check-in went fine and we were upgraded to a "premium" room. It was huge...perhaps the largest non-suite room I've ever seen. However, the furniture was sparse. One arm chair and one desk chair. That was it for seating. What looked like a dresser was actually a cabinet for the mini-bar. There were no drawers anywhere for clothes! The closet was behind very heavy, moderately opaque glass doors right next to the bed. They made a lot of noise, were hard to open, and you could see the outline of your clothes hanging inside the closet from the room. There was a nice packet of loose tea in the mini-bar, so I decided to boil water for tea. I took the hot water pot out of the mini-bar and looked for a place to plug it in. Nothing near the mini-bar. So I put the teapot on the desk and plugged it into a wall socket. Nothing. I called housekeeping and someone appeared promptly. She tried the same thing I had tried and then took the hot water pot into the bathroom and put it right next to the sink and plugged it in. She reportedly proudly that it worked in there. Five minutes later a repair man came to fix the wall socket. After working at it for fifteen minutes, he declared that it could not be fixed easily. The bathroom proved more problematic. The four switches for the wide assortment of lights in the bathroom are located out in the entry hall right next to the main entrance to the room. You can't see which lights each switch turns on in the bathroom without trying one and then walking around into the bathroom to see the effect...repeat...repeat...repeat. But the greater problem was the fact that the "wall" between the bathroom and the sleeping area is clear glass. It's actually the glass wall of the shower. There's a curtain to pull over the glass, but the curtain is on the sleeping area side and it's not opaque. The sleeping area is quite dark in the evening because there are few lights, and with any of the four light combinations in the bathroom turned on you can look right through the shower to the sink to the toilet to the bathtub on the far bathroom wall. Sitting at the work desk you look up and see whatever is going on in the bathroom! Finally, there wasn't enough light to read while sitting in the only arm chair. The only place where there was enough light to read was in the bed. So much for the "premium" room. Hors d'oeuvres were the meagerest I've ever seen! Dried out cut sandwiches and a few deviled eggs plus two or three plates of sweets. I picked up the red wine (Chinese Dragon Seal) to pour myself a glass. The bottle was empty. The attendant asked if I wanted red wine. I said that I did. He then called downstairs and a long argument ensued. Apparently "downstairs" said that more red wine was not available. The Executive Club attendant was persistent and about fifteen minutes later a bottle of Dragon Seal red appeared. Dining room....lunch and breakfast....was OK, but certainly not five-star standard. Again the staff was very eager to help, but seemed to have little training and appeared afraid of making mistakes. After one night of this I asked at the front desk if they had a suite that I could upgrade to. They said they did and that the additional cost would be about $90 more a night. I thought this might be worth it and asked to see the suite. I was shown a lovely suite...lots of light...seating...and no see-into bathroom. I told the front desk that I would take it. They gave me the key cards and I went up to pack and move. With an armful of clothes I tried the door of the suite I had seen. The key didn't work. Then I looked at the packet and saw that the key card was for a different room. I assumed that they'd made a mistake at the front desk. Take the clothes back to my old room and go down to the front desk. No mistake. I was told that the suite I was shown was for show only! No one actually used that suite. I thought that the suite they had given me was probably the same, so I went back up to look. Not nearly as big, bright, or nice. Now a bit upset at the strange bait-and-switch policy, I took the new room card down to the front desk and told them that I didn't want to move. I called the Sheraton and booked a suite. We took a taxi from the Sofitel to the Sheraton at noon. What a relief. Plenty of lights, bathrooms with solid walls, drawers for clothes, outstanding food, and a well-trained staff.

We booked a delux room and was given a compliementary upgrade to the club floor, which was very impressive for a hotel was paid AUD$100 per night. The room was spacious and had great features. Bathroom was big with seperate shower and bath. Location of the hotel was great as it was situated in the old town, which is just as hectic as any city CBD.

Read the other reviews, looked good but this is really a great hotel. Right in the heart of downtown, new and the service is outstanding, most speak English and nothing is too much trouble. Loved this hotel, one of the best.