Unfortunately, this hotel was a huge disappointment. I come to Chatan Okinawa 3 times a year. I usually stay at the Hilton. However, the Vessel hotel is very close and recently finished an expansion. I decided to give it a try. Wow, it was a huge mistake.

I guess I’ll start with the pros. The location is great, but so are both of the Hilton hotels. Price was great. Room was new and modern. However, the cons outweigh the pros by a LARGE amount.

Where do I start? lol. Well, first of all, they CHARGE you EXTRA to use the pool! How crazy is that!? Unfortunately, I can’t type the amount because my review gets blocked. But it’s a decent fee PER person and PER use. Absolutely insane! They claim it’s because “the pool is only for hotel guests”…..ugh, well that’s why you have a keycard scanner at the door like the other hotels. I’ve stayed at hotels in 21 countries and I’ve never paid to use a pool. The worst part is that it’s on the 12th floor of the new building and the lobby is on the first floor of the building next to it. So you have to travel down, over, wait in line and then pay CASH ONLY to use the pool and then go back over and up to 12 to swim. Extremely inconvenient. Also, this hotel as NO ROOM CHARGES. You must pay UP FRONT in CASH for everything. This is truly one of the worst hotels I’ve been at.

The pillows. OMG. The pillows. Who came up with these? They are huge pillows that fold in half. One half is hard as a rock and one side is soft. But, it just doesn’t work. It’s huge, uncomfortable, and difficult to move. The wifi is painfully slow and the thick concrete of the building blocks out your cell signal. I was on 3G most of the time and it was faster than their wifi. It wouldn’t even load facebook.

There is a Lawsons convenience store on the first floor. But I guess they are use to tourists only. I live in Japan and these are the most unfriendly and most unhelpful konbini workers I’ve ever met. They don’t ask if you want a bag, they don’t ask for your points card, they don’t ask if you want your food heated up, they basically say no words. Also, the ATM was out of cash for 2 days straight.

One last thing. I have tattoos and so does my Japanese girlfriend. We've been using the Hilton hotel for years with no problems, ever. We checked the Vessels hotels English page and Japanese page. Nothing was mentioned about tattoos under pool rules. However, when we arrive, the pool has a huge sign that says people with tattoos are not even allowed in the hotel! lol. The pool lifeguard said my girlfriend must cover up or leave the pool, but I was ok because I was foreign. There were even Chinese and Koreans in the pool with tattoos when we were there, but because my girlfriend was Japanese, she had to cover up. Absolutely ridiculous.

The front desk staff was also very unhelpful, unfriendly and offered no solutions to any of the problems we had. The entire hotel seems to be an expensive budget hotel. Service was terrible. I’ll be going back to the Hilton hotel next month. Even if it costs double. It’s worth it.