Station Hotel Kokura — Hotel in Kitakyushu

Ideal location unless you hate shopping: it is basically inside and on top of a mall, itself on top of a train station, facing a massive late night department store (on the ground floor of which you can find a whole section of loo covers and such featuring Totoro and other studio Ghibli characters) a maze of shopping arcades leading to another massive two tiered department store. The hotel itself is bright and sparkly at the reception level, the restaurant actually very good, the grill bar served much better food than in the previous JR hotel I stayed at. What does let it down though is the rooms are a bit dated (the view onto the monorail is stunning though) and the check in experience was not quite as expected: basically I was ignored for 10 minutes by one guy (who proceeded to check in two guys who came in after me) until I was finally noticed and served by someone else. Not sure if it is because I was a lone female (might have assumed I was a companion to the males present) or whether he wished to avoid checking in someone who might not speak Japanese. Either way, something to sort out given that the rugby World Cup is about to turn up in Kokura as the Welsh flags adorning the station infer and I assume some women might turn up. The rest of the staff turned out to be of the usual helpful and charming kind you find in Japan. Note to rugby supporters: Kokura is a ‘clean’ town and you basically cannot smoke in the streets or be drunk and disorderly. The hotel does however offer smoking bedrooms, so book those if you are a smoker, or you will have to cram yourself in the tiny smoking booth on...

This was the first time my wife and i were staying in a JR chain hotel from 3/5/2023-5/5/2023. We arrived from Kumamoto as part of our Kyushu Trip. There was some initial frustration as google maps led us to the old hotel premises which was stated closed and caused us much panic. We tried to call the hotel to describe our location( back of thenJR station) but there was some language barriers. So we based on our own finding to reach the front station where the hotel was. I hope the hotel can do something about this as this causes unnecessary stress and frustration to incoming guests. Either inform google to completely remove the old location pin or provide more clearer instructions for arriving guests. Overall being a JR hotel we were satisfied location wise. You can travel to many parts of kitakyushu or even fukuoka being station linked. There is also 2 or 3 malls linked to station with restaurants and shopping abound. For basic amenities like toothbrush, razors, shower gels sachets these can be self picked up at the corner of the main lobby. The bed was also comfortable though slightly on the firmer side. Although the room and beds were generally clean, the carpets were stained and aged. However we were both satisfied with the experience and would make this a prime choice in future...

The 1st room allocated to us had a bad stench which smelled like sewage, so we immediately went back down to the reception desk and inform about the stench and requested for a room change which the staff quickly obliged. The 2nd room was okay without any noticeable stench. The manager also promptly went to the 1st room to check on the stench we reported.Compared to the other hotels we stayed in, this particular hotel had an odd smell, somewhat like stale air mixed in with old carpet smell and old heating system smell which was noticeable along the hallway leading to the rooms. The not so fresh air could be due to poor ventilation system or age of the building. The hotel is very huge with lots of rooms so requires one to walk quite a fair bit especially if your rooms are not located near the lift lobby. Coin laundromat was not easy to locate for the 1st time as it was located very far down the corridor from the lift lobby and had only a tiny black signage which was hard to see in the dimly lit corridor.Hotel location was superb as it was within the JR station compound with plenty of...