Hotel Okura Fukuoka — Hotel in Fukuoka

Hotel Okura is located in Nakasu Kawabata and you can take the escalator down and walk to the subway within 5 minutes to be able to go to Hakata, Tenjin or other popular spots. Besides that, taxis are always waiting outside the hotel's front door if you need one.||||The staff are very friendly but their English ability is limited in most cases.||||I received breakfast for each night of my stay. The buffet is no longer an option due to "the corona virus pandemic" which I find unusual because the salad and meat bar which came with the meal is still available through self-serve, people in line. I don't understand why mr ordered breakfast is buffet style||even though the normal breakfast buffet isn't available yet.||||As far as the breakfast, the food is good but basically its the same types of main courses to choose from day to day.||||I also paid for the swimming pool and sauna combination. For the amount of money you pay for the room per night, you would think that the room would include the swimming pool and sauna for guest of the hotel but it isn't. I can understand charing those who are not guests but why charge the guests?||||The swimming pool itself is a lap style pool and you must reserve it ahead of time in order to use it. It also includes a jacuzzi. It's use is limited to one hour though.||||The sauna you do not need to reserve once you pay but is also limited to one hour for some reason.||||I can understand why the swimming pool needs to be reserved as there are only 3 lanes but why the sauna? Maybe because it is too small? Im not sure the reasoning behing it.||||The sauna is nice though. It has both a dry sauna and a mist sauna. It also included a bath/sento in Japanese. At least Im pretty sure its not onsen/hot spring water due to the smell of the water. They have both a hot water and cold water bath.||||A one hour time limit for the sauna is too short in my opinion, It should be at least two hours. I live in Japan and normally when you go to a sauna or super sento there are no time limits. My usual routine is to spend 20 minutes in the sauna then take a 10 minute break then 15 minutes in the sauna then a 10 minute break then a final 10 minutes in the sauna before I wash myself and take a bath. That is 55 minutes in the sauna alone (in my case) right there. Obviously I couldnt do that here at this sauna but it is nice.||||The room itself is relatively small compared to most 5 star hotels but adequate if you are a single person coming alone on a business trip or perhaps as a couple.||||The only other real complaint I have is that I had ran out of complimentary water and drip coffee in the room. The room provides 2 bottles of complimentary coffee and 2 packs of drip coffee only (There there are things such as tea which I dont drink). I called the front desk and I asked for "a couple of compimentary waters and drip coffees" as it was early morning and I love my coffee. They brought me one each. Maybe they do not understand that "a couple" means two in English but the front actually transffered me to someone whom I thought understood English because she could not so I thought they understood what I wanted but apparently not. Also the coffee they brought me was DECAF. I called the front desk and asked if they had REGULAR caffeinated coffee and they informed me that they did not. I find this surprising considering every room in the hotel is offered complimentary coffee each day, including mine. Perhaps they only stock for each room? I dont quite understand. I ended up going to Lawson's down the street and buying a pack of coffee sticks instead.||||Overall though it is a very good hotel in my opinion for the ambience, friendliness and...

Hotel Okura is located in Nakasu Kawabata and you can take the escalator down and walk to the subway within 5 minutes to be able to go to Hakata, Tenjin or other popular spots. Besides that, taxis are always waiting outside the hotel's front door if you need one.||||The staff are very friendly but their English ability is limited in most cases.||||I received breakfast for each night of my stay. The buffet is no longer an option due to "the corona virus pandemic" which I find unusual because the salad and meat bar which came with the meal is still available through self-serve, people in line. I don't understand why mr ordered breakfast is buffet style||even though the normal breakfast buffet isn't available yet.||||As far as the breakfast, the food is good but basically its the same types of main courses to choose from day to day.||||I also paid for the swimming pool and sauna combination. For the amount of money you pay for the room per night, you would think that the room would include the swimming pool and sauna for guest of the hotel but it isn't. I can understand charing those who are not guests but why charge the guests?||||The swimming pool itself is a lap style pool and you must reserve it ahead of time in order to use it. It also includes a jacuzzi. It's use is limited to one hour though.||||The sauna you do not need to reserve once you pay but is also limited to one hour for some reason.||||I can understand why the swimming pool needs to be reserved as there are only 3 lanes but why the sauna? Maybe because it is too small? Im not sure the reasoning behing it.||||The sauna is nice though. It has both a dry sauna and a mist sauna. It also included a bath/sento in Japanese. At least Im pretty sure its not onsen/hot spring water due to the smell of the water. They have both a hot water and cold water bath.||||A one hour time limit for the sauna is too short in my opinion, It should be at least two hours. I live in Japan and normally when you go to a sauna or super sento there are no time limits. My usual routine is to spend 20 minutes in the sauna then take a 10 minute break then 15 minutes in the sauna then a 10 minute break then a final 10 minutes in the sauna before I wash myself and take a bath. That is 55 minutes in the sauna alone (in my case) right there. Obviously I couldnt do that here at this sauna but it is nice.||||The room itself is relatively small compared to most 5 star hotels but adequate if you are a single person coming alone on a business trip or perhaps as a couple.||||The only other real complaint I have is that I had ran out of complimentary water and drip coffee in the room. The room provides 2 bottles of complimentary coffee and 2 packs of drip coffee only (There there are things such as tea which I dont drink). I called the front desk and I asked for "a couple of compimentary waters and drip coffees" as it was early morning and I love my coffee. They brought me one each. Maybe they do not understand that "a couple" means two in English but the front actually transffered me to someone whom I thought understood English because she could not so I thought they understood what I wanted but apparently not. Also the coffee they brought me was DECAF. I called the front desk and asked if they had REGULAR caffeinated coffee and they informed me that they did not. I find this surprising considering every room in the hotel is offered complimentary coffee each day, including mine. Perhaps they only stock for each room? I dont quite understand. I ended up going to Lawson's down the street and buying a pack of coffee sticks instead.||||Overall though it is a very good hotel in my opinion for the ambience, friendliness and...

My family and I are very disappointed with our stay at Okura hotel. This is one of the more expensive hotel we are staying over our trip and we have high expectation as okura hotel is a famous hotel chain in Japan. However, this turned to be one of the worst experience of our Japan trip. First of All, this is a family trip, me and my wife brought a 1 year old toddler, we are surprised that we were given an smoking room. As we entered the room, the smell of cigarette smoking is very obvious and strong. I think those who don’t smoke can sympasize. It is uncomfortable enough to only stay near cigarette smoke not to say we felt like we are completely soaked in a room full of cigarette. We immediately pick up the phone and called for help, however, we cannot communicate with the staff on the other side of the phone because he does not speak English. So we went down to the front desk, thought it would be easier to speak in person, I am very surprised that as big of a hotel as okura hotel, no one at the front desk speaks English. We had to communicate through single vocabularies. So they finally understood my demand to switch to an non-smoking room. It took them more than 10 minutes and I saw like 4 to 5 staffs chattering about something. Then they had to call my guide to have him tell me they are full for the night. I don’t understand why it took them 10 minutes to tell me they are full and throughout the process, the staffs were not very friendly, not exactly the Japanese style service I’d expect. They explained they have a air freshener in the room and now the only thing they can do is to remake the room. I really don’t see how remaking the room could get rid of the smell as the smell has already soaked into the furnitures, the sheets, the mattress(how I know? Because we end up staying in the room for the night, when you sleep it felt like you are taking a cigarette bath. Not exaggerating because my wife is not used to the smell and she almost vomited when she first lay down). I’m glad my 1 yr old daughter is so innocent that she fell asleep without been bothered by the smell. I really hope I’m not risking her health because I did not want to make a scene and gave in.

To some extend perhaps we are treated as second class traveler maybe because the hotel is reserved by travel agency with a discount? I’ll never know. But okura hotel has left a stain in my heart. It is sad that this is actually our last night of the trip which leaves us a bitter taste when we go home.

Ps: the only upside is that the breakfast is what you’d expect from a 5 star...