Yuen Shinjuku

We stayed at a 25㎡ double room with city view for five nights. Despite paying a premium price, the room was dirty, too warm, and smaller than we had anticipated. The high price seems to be primarily for access to the rooftop onsen.

The location was okay, situated in a quieter part of Shinjuku and about a 6 minute walk to the nearest subway station. There’s a decent-sized 7/11 right in front of the hotel.

Check-in was via computer, even though staff were present, and I received no information about the hotel. I didn’t realize I needed to tap my room card at the elevator, so I stood there quite a while, wondering why no elevator was coming. The hotel has only 2 elevators, no stair case, during busy hours you could easily wait 5 minutes until one arrives.

The living area space of the room was almost comfortable, with just enough space to walk around with two open suitcases. The washbasin area was incredibly small—I kept bumping into the wall or door frame, even though I'm quite small myself. The entry area was also very small, making it impossible to fully open the door without rearranging our shoes. The bed was comfortable and very large, but the pillow was uncomfortable, very thin with hard beads on one side. A second pillow would have been nice for added comfort.

The room definitely needs a deep clean. When I peeked behind the mirror, I was shocked by the amount of dust and dirt. The washbasin had numerous dirty spots. Vents were also was full of dust. We ended up buying cleaning wipes from 7/11 to clean the room ourselves.

The hair dryer was almost useless, which was disappointing considering its an onsen hotel. The hot option provided minimal airflow, and the fast option was only slightly warm. If you have thick or long hair, drying it will take a while.

The refrigerator was equally disappointing, fitting only three items and barely cooling them. Our drinks were almost room temperature, and it emitted a lot of hot air into the room.

No single-use slippers, not even for the toilet. At a hotel, communal toilet slippers, that had been used by countless other guests, seems unhygienic to me.

The room was consistently too warm. The thermostat only allowed for adjusting the fan speed, which was too loud when turned on. We had to leave the door open briefly to let in some cooler air from the corridor. Woke up multiple times during nights because it was too warm. In contrast, the corridors and washer rooms were so cold that I kept getting chills.

The lighting at the mirror was very disappointing, applying makeup or shaving was not possible. The room lights could only be controlled from the bed, which meant crawling over it due to the limited space around the bed. Additionally, one side of the bed missed buttons to adjust the lighting.