The SO/ Hotels are part of the ALL Accor group. The SO/ brand clearly targets hippsters in their mid-thirties in the upper income bracket, which clearly puts me outside their target demographic. So far, I have stayed at Das Stue Berlin, which is also part of the SO/ collection, and at the SO/ Vienna, which was… meh.
Perhaps the most important thing to mention about the SO/ Paris is its location. From Gare de Lyon it’s just a short walk of ten minutes to the hotel. To the Place de La Bastille and the opera it’s merely a short, leisurely walk of five minutes. The closest metro stop is Bastille.
In addition to the suites, there are three different room types: Collection, Rooftop and Paris Skyline. The Collection rooms are located on the lower floors and look either onto a courtyard or garden. The Rooftop rooms are brighter because they are on the upper levels, but look out onto the city, so towards Bastille or Gare de Lyon. The Paris Skyline views overlook the Seine, La Tour Eiffel and Notre Dame.
On this visit, I booked a Rooftop room, but was upgraded to a Paris Skyline room thanks to my Diamond status in the ALL Accor membership programme. I’ll come back to that later.
My room is located on the 13th floor and very spacious, with a large King size bed.
The furniture in the room is simple, unpretentious and very comfortable. When I arrive in the room, there is a small Gugelhupf and a welcome card waiting for me.
Apparently, the hotel has teamed up with a French parfumier to create a unique collection of scents for hotel guests, although I’m not quite sure what the point is supposed to be. Perfume is a singularly personal choice or preference. So, if you wear perfume, I would assume that you wouldn’t rely on your hotel to provide and would simply bring your own.
The minibar is well stocked and all its contents are complimentary for Diamond card holders.
In addition, there are also tea and coffee making facilities. In fact, this is one of the few hotels I’ve recently stayed in where the box of Nespresso capsules actually contained Nespresso, and not some derivate.
The bathroom has a walk-in shower but no bath. Which is all the same for me. The water pressure in the shower is excellent, and unlike many other hotels, you can have a nice hot shower without flooding the place.
Breakfast is served on the 15th floor in the rooftop restaurant. The staff at the restaurant are great, and there is an extensive selection of food available from the buffet and to order from the à la carte menu. But what really sets the restuarant apart, is its spectacular view of Paris. There are windows on all sides, which give you a brilliant, 360 degree view.
And that brings me to the Diamond status with ALL Accor that I mentioned previously. As far as I’m concerned, ALL Accor have one of the best membership programmes currently out there. First, it’s fairly easy to acrue points, and for every 2000 points you collect, you receive one suite night upgrade which entitles you to an upgrade from any room category to a suite. Apart from that, Diamond members receive a complimentary upgrade to the next higher category, subject to availability. In my experience, it very frequently happens that an upgrade is availale. In the case of the SO/ Paris, I certinaly lucked out given the spectacular view from the room. Another interesting feature of the Diamond status is that on weekends breakfast is always included in the rate, and that extends to persons sharing a room.
knightofmalta 