Sofitel Shahd Al Madinah

I would like to warmly thank Mr. Ahmed, the Housekeeping Manager, and his team for their exceptional kindness and professionalism – it truly makes all the difference! A big thank you as well to Mr. Muslim from the breakfast service team, always attentive and caring. This hotel is very well managed and ideally located, but above all, its staff’s outstanding kindness is what makes it truly special!

I wanted to share my recent experience during my stay at your hotel, hoping it will help improve the experience for future guests. Prior to my arrival, I emailed the hotel requesting assistance due to our car breaking down on the way to Madinah, which delayed our arrival until around 10 PM. I had also respectfully requested an upgrade, if available. Unfortunately, the front desk informed us that the hotel was fully booked and could not accommodate the request. Upon checking into the room, we were disappointed to find it was not clean. I called the front desk, and I would like to especially acknowledge Mr. Basim, who was very understanding and courteous. He arranged for a room change, though the new room was on the 10th floor—far from the other room we had booked. I even requested Mr. Basim to personally inspect the first room, as the condition of the furniture and overall cleanliness was quite poor and significantly different from what was shown in the pictures online. Later, I requested the fruit basket we had left in the original room—it only arrived around 2 AM. Additionally, the room service meal we ordered was unfortunately of such poor quality that we had to leave it uneaten. Overall, I had high expectations from Sofitel, especially as part of the Accor group, having previously enjoyed a wonderful stay at Raffles. However, this experience fell short. As a suggestion for improvement, it would be helpful to assign elevators to specific floor ranges (e.g., 1–5, 6–12) to ease congestion. Also, having more staff available during breakfast hours would greatly improve guest satisfaction. Thank you for your attention, and I hope my feedback is taken constructively.

We stay at another Hotel Brand directly across and decided to stay at this brand this time. The room was very warm. We called to complain and someone one sent with a shirt with ENGINEER written on it. He opened the thermostat cover and just moved wires around and said it was fixed. There is no way he could have just fixed the thermostat. It was just a show by him to fool me. The room stayed very warm. The breakfast area had NO SERVICE. We asked for hot Cafe Latte but never got one. We waited and asked again but it never came. We reminded the waiter and he assured us that it will be brought soon but never brought it. We waited and finally left. Very unhappy. I had been coming since 1975 and this is the first BAD review I am writing on any Hotel in this region.