First of all it is a very beautiful hotel with nice chinese style decorated big rooms. It has a big nice swimming pool and a hotel own beach. The service is very well and the breakfast is mixed western and chinese style and tasty.
It is a five star hotel and that´s all for a room rate of 500 RMB incl. two breakfast.
What is the catch in it? It is the location. It is absolutely horrible. It is really far, far away from any shops or city center. If you want to leave the hotel you have to order a taxi from Haikou for which you wait 50 minutes. After we was in the city we had to ask 5 taxi drivers and it costs us one hour until we found somebody who is willing to bring us so far away to this hotel.
In overall if you want to have nice lonely holidays with your lover or you are on honeymoon, it might be a good choice for you. But if your not the type who want always stay in the hotel area, please choose another hotel.

In the end, this hotel would be a nice 4 star rated hotel in Europe or USA. Anyway, there are 3 major problems:
1. It is very isolated located (about 15km away from sights, other hotels and Haikou).
2. Hardly anyone speaks - or at least understands - English.
3. Additional fees are charged for anything (like the extremely slow wired Internet access).

This hotel is located about 15km in the west of Haikou on an peninsula directly at the beach. Hence, it is a good starting point for tours to the orginal towns and villages and countryside of Hainan or just for a beach vacation. I think that Haikou, by the way, has meanwhile a minimum of 2 million citizens with respect to the mass of sky scrapers and construction sites. It looks like they started a hotel belt from Haikou to the end of this peninsula on the shore but after about 5km from Haikou there either were built no new hotels or already built hotels are abandoned. So you will find a lot of abandoned hotel ruins which are inhabited by Chinese now.

It is a nice hotel with a beautiful but small resort. The rooms are spacious, clean and air-conditioned. But the corridors, lounge and both restaurants are not and although the large windows/doors/walls are opened all-day and there is usually always a breeze it is still very warm in the hotel. The resort is nice but quite small. It is well maintained but don't be suprised if you could see the water pipes of the shower a bit or something like this. The hot water of the wash basins is from the local hot spring, that's why it stinks and it is not intended to be drinking water. Drinks costs as much as in Germany, but food costs only half as much. The beach is pretty good, despite the water is very sandy and, hence, the visual range is only about 50cm. There are several sun shades which are usually enough for the few hotel guests (even in the main season only about 20 guests). There are two pools close to the beach: the hot spring pool and the also very warm (not cooled) regular pool. The staff is very friendly but neither understands nor speaks any English. It seemed like only one guy at the reciption and the Guest Services Manager have spoken English.

If you would like to go by taxi, you could ask the hotel staff about prices but don't count on that. They might be right but the taxi driver has the final say. And don't trust the tariff time switch! It counts different in each taxi. Therefor you should always deal the price with the taxi drivers always before you get in. A turn from the airport (HAK) to the hotel should cost 150-180RMB (even for tourists). A turn from the Haikou city to the hotel only 60-80 RMB.

Around the hotel are very few sights (except Haikou itself), but the bigger problem is to find those sights as most of them are only reachable on off-roads. Anyway, the most interesting sights are the small original villages with there markets and temples (which are usually the best maintained buildings of those villages).

I just returned from Haikou and thought a stay in this hotel will be good to try. The location is absolutely horrible and there is nothing around for miles. I cannot think why anybody built a hotel here.

Anyway the hotel has spacious rooms with Chinese antique furniture which makes it on the other hand nice. The Seaview rooms are absolutely great; really great view. The beach is not bad at all; on a quiet/ no wind day the sea is actually blue. The restaurant is nicely located with views of the sea.

The fitness facility is outdated and there are little or no guest. Also little or no staff, and hardly anyone that speaks English.
I was told that Sofitel will no longer run this hotel and the owner will do it by themselves.

Overall okay, but not great.

We booked this hotel due to the Sofitel name and pictures online. Its a nice hotel, and very luxurious, compared to other hotels I would rate it higher, but compared to 4 star beach resorts it is simply average. Some things that might help (since the sofitel and accor sight don't have much information)

1.) its just about 20 KM west of Haikou, not really on the "west coast"

2.) It takes about 45 minutes from the Haikou airport, it should cost you about 150Y to get there via Taxi, be careful our first quoted price was 300Y.

3.) They are renovating another part of the hotel, you wont hear this in most of the hotel, restaurants, or your room, but it is quite loud if you are in the pool. Difficult to relax with all the hammering and pounding.

4.) The staff speaks very little English for a four star hotel, but then again I think this hotel is mainly targeted towards Chinese tourists.

5.) There is a very un-advertised free shuttle to Haikou, ask until you get someone who is aware of its existence.

Other than that the hotel grounds are beautiful, the staff friendly (talk to Nester, 1/2 of the "surfers band from Phillipines" who play nightly, tell him Mr. Richard says hello, he is a really nice guy. We paid $60 for a deluxe room, so its hard to complain.