Saturday, June 28, 2008

California: Hotel Sofitel

This part of the California story should have gone with yesterday's post, but as my friend Tish says, I didn't want my readers to start bleeding from the eyeballs. That post was way too long already--but let's be honest, most of my posts are way too long already!

On the Thursday of our vacation, after we watched the Celtics game in San Jose, we headed up to our hotel in Redwood City, Hotel Sofitel. The lobby of this place was ultra modern and super swanky--all the pictures we'd seen online certainly didn't disappoint. Aside from the front desk, a hip little gift shop and the fitness room, the entire first floor appeared to be one big open bar and restaurant--and it was completely packed when we arrived. The website says "Baybar is one of the newest hot spots in the Bay Area. Signature drinks and perfect food selections make Baybar the place to be and be seen...." I don't think they were exaggerating. That place was loud and crazy! Thankfully, unlike the HOJO in Miami, we couldn't actually hear the noise from our room on the 7th floor!

Our room was pretty nice, but certainly not as spectacular as the rest of the hotel. However, there was one thing about the room that will keep us from going back to a Sofitel again. Our bed was the "signature" Sofitel feather bed with a luxurious down comforter, which looks and sounds very nice at first. The bummer about having such a crazy soft bed was that we both woke up with terrible back aches--but of course I won't fault the hotel for that. What I did fault the hotel for was the way they made their bed. Maybe this is some fancy French way of bed making that I know nothing about (which is entirely possible), but there was no set of normal sheets on the bed. There was was looked like a top sheet hanging down over the feather topper and mattress, instead of a fitted sheet, but it wasn't even tucked in at the corners. Then there was no top sheet at all--just the down comforter. At first we thought they'd just forgotten the top sheet on accident, but later we realized that no, they just don't make your bed with a sheet on it at all. Do you know how weird it felt to sleep with a comforter (that wasn't yours, especially) right up against your body? There was something very not right about it, and yet in all the reviews we read everyone raved about the Sofitel feather beads. No one else seemed to have a problem with that. Is it me? Call me unschooled in fancy European culture, but it's the one thing that would keep me from going back to that hotel in the future. It's too bad, since the rest of the hotel was very nice!!

1 comment:

EmilyG said...

Your instincts are right...it's a european thing. :) Rest assured they change out the feather bed or feather bed cover b/t guests. At least that's what I tell myself in those types of situations. ha!