We had a quick one-night stay at the Sofitel Philadelphia this past weekend. Check-in was fast, easy, and pleasant. Ditto for checkout. Our room was modern (but thankfully not ultramodern) and tasteful, and the bed was quite comfortable. We didn't stay long enough to check out the gym, bar, etc., but our short stay was nice. I would stay here again.

We have stayed at the Sofitel Chicago before and loved it. The reviews make this one top in Philly, and they are spot on. This is a class act. The staff are friendly and attentive. The rooms are luxurious, the bathrooms marbled and wonderfully equipped.The bed is sumptuous and the pillows feather-hypo are available.

Breakfast was fantastic as was the one in Chicago-possibly the best hotel breakfast I have ever had.

Check in and out were very quick-no queues and attentive staff.The security lady went out of her way to find me a phone charger at 1am!! The concierge helped plan our sightseeing and was only too happy to find us local cinemas and gave me a print out of all the shows and how far away they were.The gym was state of the art and empty-no one could laugh at me!!

Located centrally, I found this place hard to fault- in fact I cannot!!

Well done again the Sofitel team.

I was reluctant at first to try the Sofitel when my corporate travel booked me here, but boy was I glad they did. GPS made it easy to find, although I didn't check the neighborhood out, it's central downtown Philadelphia location made it covenient for me with work. It's just a few minutes off of I-76, but all my travel was during off peak commute times.

The check-in experience was a little odd, I had just checked my corp travel website, I had the correct days, but they didn't have my reservation, luckily they were able to find a room for me.

The guest room is very spacious with one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept on. It's a shame that both days I wasn't able to sleep in.

I found the lighting kind of odd, and at times there was not enough reading light in the room. Though there are light controls for the hallway right at bedside which is brilliant.

The bathroom is outstanding. Bath tub or walk-in glassed in shower. Granted I did find that at times space in the shower was at a minimum. I'm over 6' tall and trying to lift legs in the shower was a tough manuever. The water pressure was average, not low flow, but not peel the skin off either.

The toiletries were some brand I never heard of, but everyone I worked with was talking about them. They were quite nice.

Had a late dinner in the lobby lounge, $15 burger was overpriced for the size of entree received, though I wasn't going to be picky at midnight on a Monday.

Last month I wrote a very positive review about my recent stay at the Sofitel. I thought it might become my regular hotel for my frequent business trips to Philly. However, my recent experience with the hotel has left me completely dissatisfied.

Last November when I tried to make a reservation on the hotel's website I experienced an error when I tried to submit my reservation. After I entered all of my information and submitted the reservation I got an error message. So I had to call the reservation line and make the reservation over the phone. I was upset that I had to waste all that time, but I chalked it up as just one of those technical glitches and I ended up enjoying my stay at the hotel in December.

However, I experienced a similar problem on the hotel's website today. I entered my check-in and check-out dates and the website displayed a list of possible room options for my travel dates, including a Junior Suite King Bed for a decent rate under the heading "Hot deals - no change, no cancellation." So I hit the "Reserve" link for this option, and on the next screen I entered all of my reservation information, including my credit card information. When I hit the "Confirm your reservation" button I got an error message. This concerned me for several reasons. First, I was not sure if my reservation got submitted or not; Second, I wasn't sure if I was being charged on my credit card. I have had experiences in the past on other websites where I have submitted information on a website and received an error message, yet the information still went through. So it was reasonable for me to be concerned about this, especially since this was a reservation that didn't allow cancellations or changes.

So I called the hotel directly. After being put on hold for 20 minutes, I finally spoke with a reservationist and explained my situation to her. "Did you get a confirmation number?" she asked coldly. When I told her I did not, she said that meant that the reservation didn't go through, and said it in a sarcastic tone as if that should have been obvious to me. She then asked for the type of room I was trying to reserve and the rate, which I gave her, and she told me that the hotel didn't have a Junior Suite King Bed for that rate. She gave me a rate about $100 higher, with a "take it or leave it" tone. I told her I didn't want that rate, I wanted the rate promised on their website, but she was completely unsympathetic to my situation.

I was complete turned off by this experience. The hotel is offering rates on its website that it is not honoring, so be forewarned. The hotel's website clearly has some problems, so make reservations with extreme caution. And the hotel's reservation staff clearly don't understand good customer service. The reservationist acted like the website problem was my fault, and was rude and cold and acted like she was doing me a favor. She never apologized for the problem I experienced and didn't even apologize for the fact that I was on hold for 20 minutes.

Based on this bad experience I am definitely not staying at the Sofitel again. It is a nice hotel, but I don't need this hassle when trying to make a reservation. There are plenty of other hotels that are happy to take my business and are willing to offer a simple apology to their customers when they make mistakes.