Sofitel Kunming

excellent stay

Nice and clean hotel. Convenient location. Value for money

Overall our room was upgraded, the room was spacious and clean. Most probably will not recommend getting the breakfast as food was not replenish on time and the quality of food can be better. Asked the chef to make the fried popiah however was served charred one.

There were certainly things I liked about this hotel. The room was very clean and spacious, with a good panoramic view. The bathroom was particularly impressive as it was spacious and beautifully decorated. Unfortunately, the service experience was a major disappointment and, in my opinion, not what I would expect from a 5-star hotel of international standard. When my friend and I arrived by taxi, no one came to assist us with our luggage. Both of us (we are ladies) had to struggle to remove our luggage from the taxi's boot ourselves. At check-in, there was only one young lady available to attend to guests. Another staff member was beside her but appeared preoccupied with her own work and did not seem bothered to help. While the young lady was processing our check-in, another guest barged in and loudly demanded that his issue be resolved immediately, totally ignoring the fact that we were being served at that moment. He mentioned that he had called the front desk several times but nobody answered. Thankfully, the lady serving us remained professional and told him that she would finish our check-in first before attending to him. What was disappointing was that none of her colleagues stepped in to assist, leaving her to manage the situation alone. The breakfast experience the following morning was even more chaotic. We found a table and were told by a staff member that we could flip the sign on the table to indicate that it was occupied, allowing us to leave briefly to get our food. However, when we returned, other guests were sitting at our table. After we reclaimed it, the same staff member did not seem to know how to handle the situation properly. He initially only wanted to provide new cutlery, and we had to specifically ask for all the placemats and cutlery to be replaced because they had already been used by other guests. Another incident was particularly frustrating. As breakfast was nearing its closing time, my friend was told by a staff member to quickly take whatever food she wanted to try. She took some food and left it on the table while going back to get more. A staff member standing next to our table even assured her that he would keep an eye on the food so that it would not be cleared. Yet, when she returned, her plate of uneaten food had been removed by another staff member. This completely contradicted what we had just been told and wasted both her food and her time. We also discovered that we had been given a pair of chopsticks of visibly uneven lengths. When we asked another staff member for a replacement, we were given a blank face, no apology or acknowledgement of the mistake. Taken together, these incidents made the stay much more frustrating than it should have been. The individual issues may seem small on their own, but the repeated lack of attentiveness, communication and basic service recovery made the overall experience particularly disappointing. That said, I would like to commend Manager Yang, whom we gave our feedback to. She was extremely apologetic, understanding and sincere. Her service recovery was impressive, and she offered us a complimentary buffet dinner at the hotel. Although my friend and I only had about half an hour to enjoy the dinner because we had to leave for the airport, we genuinely appreciated the gesture and could feel her sincerity in trying to make things right. Overall, the hotel has many strengths, especially its cleanliness, spacious rooms, views and beautiful facilities. However, the service during our stay was significantly below expectations. I hope management will take our feedback seriously and use it to improve staff coordination, attentiveness and guest service. Manager Yang demonstrated the level of care and professionalism I would have expected throughout the stay, and her response showed that the hotel is capable of much better.