I visited Harbin in February 2008 during a business trip and I was very pleasantly surprised with the hotel. We stayed at the Sofitel Wanda, which apparently just opened a few months ago. The location was excellent and very convenient. The room was very impressive (it came with flat a screen TV) and very comfortable.

During our stay we had dinner at Elements and I was blown away by the quality of the food. Who knew that I would be raving about excellent European food in Harbin.

We had breakfast every morning at the hotel and the variety and the quality of the buffet was excellent (the freshly squeezed juice was a must every morning).

The service was great and overall this was a great place to stay. I recommend it to anyone planning a trip to that side of the world.

Beautiful hotel with excellent amenities. The rooms are comfortable and satisfy all needs. I liked the fact that i could watch TV directly from the bath.
Breakfast buffet offers quality food and great selection of oriental and western options.
If you stay in the hotel you must try the Japanese kitchen which gives you an unforgetable experience. BRILLIANT!!
The gym is well equiped swimming pool is adequate with just a right temperature water. Sauna needs a biy of improvement as i found it hard to pump up the temperature.
Staff very friendly and helpful always at your disposal.
During my stay i found everything up to my expectation and i would recommend it to everyone.

I have stayed at Sofitel Harbin when they opened, and returned in January. I definitely can see the improvement. The rooms are clean and comfortable. The staff may not speak English (which is localy problem) but they are very willing to find the way to help. Reception will need
some training as check-in time quite long.

Breakfast: variety of food up to satisfactory, service improved a lot. I have spoke to the Food & Beverage Director and found out they went through a profound training course with the staff as a result of customer feedback. They take on board every comments and made the necessary steps to improve customer satisfaction.

My overall stay was above avarage compare to the Chinese hospitality culture which does not exist, and this is not the hotel fault. When we tavel we should take into consideration the mentality and culture of the country as the standards may vary in different countries.

The room was very nice, clean sheets and duvet cover every day, bathroom looked lovely but impossible to shower without causing a flood due to the design of the tub and taps.
The restaurants were OK, we ate Japanese one night, very good, buffet the next....and a la carte the next....they have big time service problems. Most staff speak no English...this is not necessarily Sofitel's fault, very few people in Harbin speak any english, including at the luxury shopping store next door...Vans...(where they won't take an international credit card!) To be fair to the staff they were pleasant and seemed to want to help but need training and English big time!!!!!
We unfortunately saw housekeeping at work...glasses and mugs were washed in water in the bathroom sink and put back in place! Yuuuk! There was no trolley with clean glasses etc. on so this is obviously common practice, I will bring this to the managers' attention before we leave BUT again this comes down to TRAINING!
Having stayed at many hotels on many continents this was a disappointment by Sofitel standards and should be rated at max a 4 star until they sort themselves out. On another note we felt Harbin only needed one day to see the snow sculptures, Russian stuff and ice buildings, not enough for 2 days.