Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square

e had an amazing stay at the Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square. The hotel was beautiful, the location was perfect, and the service was outstanding. A special thank you to Jahki Thomas, who was absolutely amazing and truly went above and beyond to make our stay even better. People like Jahki are what turn a great hotel stay into a memorable one. We would absolutely stay here again!

My husband and I stayed at The Sofitel for a couple’s get away weekend. We had a great experience here from start to finish. The staff was friendly, the rooms were clean and comfortable. Location is perfect. On day one we walked to most major monuments. On day two we wanted to relaxed so we booked a tour bus only a block away. There are quite a few amazing restaurants walking distance as well or the Hotel Restaurant is also fantastic. We loved the bar. We will definitely come back again.

We stayed at the Sofitel DC for 3 nights and our stay was plagued with issues. What I found amusing is when we checked out we were asked "Did you have a great stay?" by the same front desk agent who knew about some of the issues. When I mentioned the issues we had he said "Well, except all the issues you had." This shows how much the Sofitel seems to care about customer issues and why I most likely will never go there again. When you book a luxury brand you expect service to be good, sad to say, it seems Sofitel is not up to Motel 6 its former sister brand in terms of service. So what went wrong? Lots of things, too many to fully cover here, except to say we had issues with our room on the first night, the business center was unusable, the coffe machine didn't work, the restaurant was a disaster(to be covered on another review). What's most troubling is the service recovery side - which was a complete lack of it. With everything that went wrong, discussed with front desk staff and escalated to the front desk managers the best we got is a "sorry", but no solution or compensation. All in all, we were pretty disappointed with the hotel based on the brand promise. You book a high end hotel with the promise of better service above all and when the hotel acknoledges it didn't deliver and still consider it acceptable - you've reach the level of Motel 6 without calling yourself that. Won't be back.

1. I checked in on Sept 6, 2026 was charged a bar bill for Sept. 4, 2026, and breakfast on Sept 10, 2026, both were from other rooms and clearly marked as such on the folio emailed to me. Those charges were reverted for 10% of the original charges, leaving 90% of the charges on my bill. When I called the hotel, they claimed that they didn't see the charges and couldn't see the folio emailed to me. The manager then asked me to email their folio back, claiming that there was a different bill. Essentially there is a second bill that the hotel did not show me nor emailed to me as requested. So I had to call American Express to dispute charges. 2. Also, the front desk required my CC twice, once on check-in, once 2 days later, claiming that the first one was missing. The odd thing was I was in my room for two days before they "discovered" the missing CC. Instead of calling me, they disabled my room key, requiring me to go to the front desk to provide the same CC again. Tactic I expected from a lesser hotel, not the Sofitel. Maybe because I was a single Asian female traveler and thus the harsher treatment? 3. Upon checking out, I checked my luggage with the front desk so I can attend a meeting two blocks away. This was a service offered by the hotel. Upon returning, they tried to give me someone else luggage not matching my luggage ticket and then claimed that they couldn't find mine. I had to go in to the luggage storage room and retrieve my bags. 4. There is a $34 Urban Experience Daily Charge, plus tax, essentially for location, no other service associated. The Sofitel Hotel Chain is supposedly a better class chain, but this experience did not reflect that. If anything, it is either incompetent or fraudulent service provided. Either way, I am not using the Sofitel going forward. Caveat Emptor!

Nice hotel. A little run down. Gym is very disappointing. The only 2 machines were out of service. Not what I would expect from a Sofitel