KOKO HOTEL Himeji — Hotel in Himeji

Location is everything, and this hotel near Himeji Castle certainly has that going for it. A late checkout time (12) meant we could do an early visit to the castle and leave our car parked there in the morning, and believe me, parking anywhere near the castle is fraught. ||The breakfast was pretty good as well, and I'd have to recommend the almond butter toast, a specialty of Himeji. ||The terrace has a view on a view of the castle, but you can get a better one at street level a few blocks away, as a building blocks the lower parts of the castle. It would be, however, a good place to sit and have a beer on a summer evening. ||All that having been said, there was a few things. The hotel is old enough that the plumbing, I think, needs to be replaced. We stayed in several rooms as a family - the bathrooms had a funny smell in all of them. One of the rooms was a smoking room, because they no longer had any non-smoking ones available. ||There is only one elevator, and only emergency stairs. Most hotels of this size I have seen have two. Which was at times a bother as our rooms were on separate floors. ||Parking is not easy - there is a small lot next to the hotel, and several others that the hotel will allow you discount parking at (700 yen) in the nearby area. But being a tourist spot meant that these lots were inevitably full. We got lucky, but I felt sorry for the driver of the car I saw circling the block several times. ||The room card keys all look the same, no room number on them. They are NOT disposable, you must return them, so do not write the room number on lest you have to pay a fee. ||If you are travelling without a car, I'd certainly recommend this place - it's hard to beat the price for...

This hotel is placed in a great location at an affordable price. They have a great view of Himeji Castle on the 7th floor for all guests to see. The staff are nice and respectful as well as doing their best to communicate in English with foreigners.

About a 10 minutes walk from Himeji castle and a couple minutes away from cool enclosed shopping streets to visit in the area, the location is just ideal. The rooms themselves are great, it would’ve been a 5 star review but unfortunately I had to give it a 4 stars due to the Air Conditioning. I was staying there in October and at some point the temperature in the room reached 28 degrees Celsius after showering. That’s when I realized that the AC was not working as the Cooling option was turned off. Asking the reception, they told me that when the temperature outside dips below 10 degrees, they forcibly turn off the ACs in all rooms and instruct guests to open the window instead. This is something to take into consideration for light sleepers as it can get potentially a bit noisy and there’s no insect screen on the window stopping bugs from flying in.

In general it was a great experience, the reception has amenities such as toothbrushes and razors to take for guests. Along with restaurant to eat at on the first floor and a laundry room for any washing. I personally wouldn’t stay there again however mainly due to the AC issue as I do not like hotels to dictate my usage of the room services when I paid for said...

Reasonably nice lobby area and clean fixtures and furniture in room. Very limited parking -- they give you a voucher to park in one of a couple of surface lots on the street behind the hotel, but in the dark, I noticed the larger and better lit lot smelled like urine and had a lot of shattered glass on the ground, and in the daylight, there were animal (cat?) feces everywhere, making it nearly impossible not to walk through some when loading and unloading the car. Breakfast was available but not free, so we did not try it. Wi-Fi was a bit dicey, taking over half an hour to stabilize the connection after logging in before it became usable (but it remained usable, so maybe there was a temporary problem with their network). A bonus was that the WiFi was supposed to only be free in the lobby, but worked fine also on the third floor. The room rug was gross -- turning black from dirt so much so that we used the free slippers to avoid having our feet turn black from the dirt. Unlike many Japanese hotels, there was no threshold in the entryway of the room to suggest removing one's shoes, so it may be that many people wear their street shoes throughout the room. Other than the rug, the room was very clean. Finally, the best part about this hotel is its proximity to Himeji Castle - only 3 blocks away, and you can pay to park in one of their 15 or so spaces...