VESSEL HOTEL CAMPANA OKINAWA — Hotel in Chatan

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....

Genuinely confused how this hotel is a 4-star hotel. The 2 pros are the location and room size. You are walking distance from a beach, right on the water, & you’re also right next to the American village so you have easy access to a lot of food spots especially if you don’t have a car. The room itself was very spacious as well.

Now the cons - upon check in, I walked into my room and saw 2 cockroaches. I killed them both & notified the front desk - they thankfully moved me to a different room in the main building free of charge. When I got into that room, there were initially no bugs but no towels and the room had clearly not been cleaned properly - dust in the bathroom, hair in the bathroom near the toilet as well as on the sink counter, & a significant amount of green mold building up on the sink drain/along the sides of the sink. I notified the hotel front desk, who came into the room and took pictures & told me someone cannot come clean till tomorrow. I agreed since there was nothing else to do and at least the bedsheets were clean.

The next several days, I noticed that the issues I brought up were never addressed. When I asked for room cleaning, they did give me fresh towels/make the bed (standard procedure) but never cleaned the sink or addressed the hair. I also noticed small bugs in my room - I saw about 2-3 over the course of 5 days. They weren’t roaches but not sure what they were.

I was so uncomfortable with the situation that I made sure I didn’t fully unpack my belongings and kept my suitcase zipped closed with all my clothes inside at all times. This was a very disappointing 5 night stay.

To top it all off, I have an early 7:30 am flight back home. I asked the airport staff what time they advise me to leave for the airport - they said to give an hour time to drive there and we agreed that leaving by 4:30 am would be good. I arrived within 30 mins and the airport staff would not let me inside and told me I have to wait outside until 6 am (for 1 hour) until the airport opens. My taxi driver had not yet driven off and I used google translate to see if this was common, and he said it is common knowledge on the island and that he told the hotel staff when he arrived that the airport wouldn’t be open and they said it would be fine.

All in all, Okinawa is a beautiful island with very kind people. My vacation was wonderful, but this stay for the price I paid was not. If you’re a 4 star hotel, I shouldn’t be seeing roaches and other bugs in an improperly cleaned room for days and not being given accurate information regarding my airport arrival time. I personally would...

After spending 3 nights at Motobu, we drove south and spent one night at this hotel. We booked a room with 4 beds at Annex Building with sea beach view. We chose the hotels due to her rave reviews and the location is close to America Village. The hotel car park lots are easily taken up so it would be advisable to secure one first before you visit America Village. Parking is free. ||||The check in process was smooth. The receptionist provided useful info on the breakfast location, wifi password, public bath opening hours and meal options nearby. They provide welcome drinks, coffee, tea and ice cream. There is a section near the reception where you can take bathrobes, towels, toiletries, creams etc. I must commend that the toothbrush is the most comfort to use among all the hotels I stayed over these few years. ||||The room is clean and spacious for 4 persons. It is located next to Sunset beach and there were many tourists who made their way to take sunset photos. There is Lawson (open 24 hr) on the first level opposite the lifts at the Annex block. ||||We enjoyed the one night stay as there are plenty of shops in American Village for you to spend the evening. We did not go to any of the recommended restaurant as we already have planned to have our dinner at an Indian restaurant which was located 10 min walk outside the village. ||||Would recommend this hotel as the staff are professional and some are conversant in English and Mandarin. The hotel breakfast is good with good range of choice. It maybe pricey but the location, service and room comfort are...