This hotel offers upmarket accommodation in the city centre. The rooms are excellent, the beds are so comfy!. Very quiet, good for sleeping! Cafe La has some of the best food i have ever eaten

We recently stayed here during the Australian Open tennis finals in January. We normally try to stay at the Grand Hyatt as a lot of the top tennis players stay there but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately due to substantial renovation work) it was booked out.

The location of the Sofitel is great (it's hard to beat Collins St) and our high-rise room had sensational views over Melbourne. The room was an OK size; however there are other five-star rooms on Collins St that have larger rooms e.g Westin. I agree with vietnambound's comments regarding the lack of storage and small bathrooms.

I was truly impressed with the room service menu. While the sevice was a little slow, the meals were imaginative and stylishly presented - not your standard hotel club sandwich, hamburgers or penne pasta offerings here. The two meals I ordered were certainly goumet with the best ingredients used. I considered it top restaurant quality. It was so good to see some creative thought put into the menu and presentation...other hotels could learn from them.

As for the gym...don't bother. It is located in a rabbit warren in the basement of the hotel. It was jam packed with equipment that looked like it was from the 60s. It was awful. In this health conscious world a lot of customers, me included, consider the gym a priority. Very disappointing.

We have stayed in the Sofitel before and had been upgraded due to an earlier problem at another Accor hotel so had stayed in a corner king suite so I was a little concerned that the room would be disappointingly small but was pleasantly surprised. The large floor length windows with the view make the room spacious and bright and the bed is really comfortable (although we remove the soft mattress topper as it was too soft for us!)

We arrived early off the ferry and were able to get our room at 8am which was great.

The restaurant is excellent and we ate there for dinner and breakfast. (We are advantage olus members so get 50% off food making it great value)

Our only issue was with the guest relations service. Our keycard failed on morning of departure and we had to wait nearly 20 minutes for someone to come and let us in. (Had I known this I would have gone to reception myself but I kept calling and they kept saying someone was coming - and as previous reviews have said, the lifts are slow!)

Concierge very helpful printing maps etc but not very knowledgable about shops - told me all shops were closed on public holiday when they were mostly open.

Overall though a great experience and would return.

I have stayed at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney a few times, and can now confidently say that the Sofitel Melbourne is so much better. (Not surprising, as Melbourne does most things better.) Great location, impressive foyer, lovely rooms with the furnishings and fittings being just that bit better than their Sydney cousin. Instead of a crummy little desk to do work on, you get an expansive desk with plenty of room. Room larger, bathroom more spacious. Sorry if this is coming across as a Melbourne v Sydney diatribe, but that's the perspective of my review. Did I mention the view? It is great, looking out over Melbourne towards the famed Melbourne Cricket Ground. Breakfast is excellent, again with a nice view to enjoy, and the hotel possesses that typically Melbourne sense of good service. I recommend this hotel without question.