APA Hotel Kanazawa Ekimae — Hotel in Kanazawa

This is not a new hotel but well maintained. APA group has hotels in all city in Japan and their price is medium. They do have special discounts and it depends on your luck. I got a three nights stay and paid only ¥14.000 which was really cheap for the best location hotel which was just beside the west entrance of Kanazawa Station. The lobby is small and smell cigarette as the restaurant allows smokers inside. The hotel has three lifts and you need to tap your keycard in order to operate which was good for safety purpose. After you reach your floor, you need to tap to open the general door before you reach the corridor. Room is Japanese standard, bathroom is even smaller. As this is not a new hotel, the toilet seat is not heated. All toilet amenities are provided including body wash towel. Free coffee and tea with kettle inside room and they provide a bottle of free drinking water every day. Wifi is strong and free. Just beside the hotel entrance is a 24 hour minimarket and you can get everything including hot snack and simple food. A few steps from the hotel is Kanazawa station with plenty restaurants and shops. Very convenience location and reasonable price. Kenrokuen garden and Kanazawa Castle is in walking distance, 25 minutes easy walk. The famous Omicho market is 15 minutes walk. Kanazawa famous attractions are all in walking distance including Shigashi Cahya Geisha village. Highly recommended and will...

Unbelievably terrible place and service. The bath tub was wet when we checked in. There was no bath towel (required for public bath on the 2nd Fl) and we called front desk a few times as instructed, but no one answered the phone, and there was no housekeeping help line, so we had to go downstairs to front desk, waited in the queue at their busy hour to ask for a towel. The mug in the room was not clean. That was it for day 1.

Day 2: When we returned from our day trip, there was a one-third-full rubbish bag left on the table in the room. The air-con was dripping. The tub was still not dried properly. We asked to talk to the manager, but with their limited English, the communication with the staff was rather broken and had to be aided by Google translation, considered unsuccessful.

Day 3: After talking to the manager last night and was promised improvement, we returned from the day trip and found the opened sachet for tea bag was still there, and the bath tub was still not dry and this time with hair in it.

Other minuses: For a hotel of this size, there's only one washer and dryer for women in the public bath area. The wifi in guestrooms is quite unstable and mostly useless.

I would not recommend this...

The single bed room is quite small compared to business hotels I've stayed in previously, but traveling isn't about staying in one's room for the whole trip. (But perhaps a single bed room would be uncomfortable for a larger or heavy-set person or someone with a lot of luggage). The bed was comfortable and the pillow was very fluffy. There didn't appear to be a setting for making the room warmer on the air conditioning, but perhaps it changes by season. The lobby is elegant, and there are restaurants and spas within the hotel building, as well as a Seattle's Best Coffee near the lobby. There's also a cool security feature where you need to tap your room key on a panel in the elevator to access the guest room floors, and the same for accessing your room. If you stay more than one night and don't request to have your sheets changed you'll receive a free bottle of water in your room each day, which is a nice touch as well. It's also 1-2 minutes walking distance from the west entrance to the station, which is incredibly convenient, and there's also a taxi pool on your right-hand side as you come out...