Heading Home for Chinese New Year: Sofitel So Bangkok

• Introduction
• Hilton Bentley Miami South Beach
• Miami to Zurich - Swiss First Class
• Swiss First Class Lounge
• Zurich to Bangkok - Thai First Class
• Sofitel So Bangkok
• The Private Room and SQ First Class Lounge
• Singapore to San Francisco - Singapore Suites
• Singapore to San Francisco - Business Class

__________________________________________________________________________________

We were welcomed at the hotel by a bunch of police motorcycles and a security check at the entrance. Apparently there were some foreign ministers/VIPs staying at the hotel so security was super tight.

Check in itself was a small adventure as I had two reservations - one paid reservation that I made a couple of weeks before due to good rates from a Sofitel sale and a free night Advantage Plus reservation that I made months ago that I forgot to cancel. We were escorted to the Club Lounge for check-in where we were welcomed with a refreshing drink and cold towel. Since we arrived really early at 7am, a room was only available an hour later which was not a big deal since we had some breakfast and caught up on email in the lounge.

Club Lounge

Congee Breakfast

It was rather disappointing not to have an upgrade and the "element" of our choice. We had requested a "water" theme room but due to the early arrival and full occupancy, the hotel could only initially accommodate us in a "metal theme" room which was essentially an all white room. The room itself was rather small and we didn't enjoy the whiteness of the room.

We spent the rest of the morning lazing around the pool. We enjoyed that the pool was just long enough to do laps to work off some of the copious amount of food we were having.

Gym

Infinity Pool

A bottle of wine and some snacks were waiting for us when we got back to our room after enjoying lunch at MBK food court and a much needed foot massage.

We spent the rest of the day at the hotel. We headed to the complimentary happy hour/evening cocktails during the evening and had a massage booked later during the night at the hotel Spa. The massage was definitely pricier than the many massage jaunts in Bangkok but the massage at the Sofitel was way better.

While we were enjoying evening cocktails at the executive lounge, a manager came to checked on how our stay was going. After sharing our disappointment that we weren't upgraded, he not only managed to find a suite to upgrade us to and arranged for our bags to get moved, he threw in an additional thirty minutes to our massage. Nice service recovery!

The upgraded water theme suite was definitely more amazing than the initial room we had. The room was huge and boasted an amazing view of Bangkok city. Best of all, we preferred the blue theme as compared to the all white the metal room.

Walk in Wardrobe

Huge Bathroom

Shower & Toilet

Since we already tried the breakfast at the executive lounge when we arrived, we decided to try the breakfast at the main restaurant the next day. As with most hotels in Asia, the breakfast buffet was lavish and choices range from the typical western choices of eggs, sausages, pancakes and pastries to the local Thai/Asian choices of congee and dim sum. We loved the Thai mangoes that were served that we had at least three helpings between the both of us.

Overall, we enjoyed our stay at the Sofitel So Bangkok especially after the service recovery in getting us upgraded. The hotel is pretty "quirky" similar to a W so it might not suit everyone's taste. We didn't like the location all too much with the nearest BTS a good 15 minute hike in Bangkok's humidity away.  We won't be rushing back unless there was a amazing/mistake deal since there are just other probably as good hotels to try out in Bangkok.