APA HOTEL Kyōto Eki-kita — Hotel in Kyoto

First of all, hotel staff are nice and location is great. Overall it’s fairly clean. Nothing else is good.

I don’t understand how this hotel has 4 star reviews. I have never done this before but I was meant to stay 5 nights and after 3 I changed hotels.

As a side note there was weird right wing /alt right propaganda in Japanese in my room so I googled it. You may want to look up what APA hotels and owner stand for before you book your stay.

Many other issues: rooms are so small I cannot unpack anything from my suitcase. When I open it up it takes all floor space so if I wanted to use the mini fridge I couldn’t. I know I booked a small room but it’s not quite budgeted as poor as it is. most uncomfortable pillows and bed I have ever had in a hotel. I slept on the train better than on the bed. Three nights of poor sleep while travelling and it’s not worth it my room STINKS of curry (?) from restaurant below. I have to have the window open as it’s very hot but aircon is centralised so I can’t switch it on

Some smaller issues; you have to specifically request a clean because environmental reasons. This is bull because they leave bags of tat outside your room (toiletries and cups wrapped in plastic more towels) every day. It’s staff savings, does nothing for the environment. breakfast was not nice. I’ve stayed in many hotels in Japan and never had an issue with breakfast. Wish I had not paid extra for it when booking. I had it first day but then not. Breakfast waiting staff were rude, first poor service I’ve experienced in Japan. guests can’t use stairs. I’m on level 2 (so one flight of stairs from ground floor) and the hotel has 8 floors, just one lift. Frustrating wait. minibar smells but I just don’t use it so it’s fine. There’s nothing in there anyway, so it’s really...

My partner and I stayed at the APA HOTEL Kyōto Eki-kita for five (5) nights in late March of 2025.

The location is great - it's really close to Kyoto station and on the side with all the bigger shops. The bed was comfortable and the water pressure in the shower was great.

But we ran into multiple issues/ compromises that would have influenced us to stay elsewhere if we had known:

The room was really small - if you are staying by yourself, I think it's just enough space to be comfortable, but if you are with another person and you both medium or large suitcases, it's a bit annoying to navigate around the room.

The HVAC is centralized, meaning that the hotel controls wether or not the air blowing into your room is heated or cooled - so if it's cold outside, but your room feels a bit warm, you cannot have cool air conditioning.

We had our WiFi go down and casting from our phones, so it felt like their technology setup is a bit finicky. We were able to go down to the lobby and had the staff restart things, which fixed the issue, but I have never experienced that at a hotel before.

The washers and dryers were not horrible, but they are on the first floor, so you have to walk by the front counter and everything else to get to them, which is kinda awkward.

Overall if you need the hotel to be close to Kyoto station, are okay with a small space, don't need full control of the room's temperature, and don't plan to use the TV, i definitely recommend it. Otherwise, it might be worth...

I had been warned before travelling to Japan that Japanese hotel rooms can be small, nonetheless this one was a shock with an incredibly small room. Thankfully we were travelling relatively light, had we arrived with full size suitcases I’m not sure how we would have fitted them in the room.||||The room was so small, one side of the double bed was against the wall, meaning if the person on that side of the bed needed to get up in the night, their partner would be disturbed as well.||||The pillows were typical Japanese, very thin and filled with buckwheat. ||||After a sleepless first night I went to reception to ask if they had any western style pillows. After being asked how may I wanted and replying two, I was feeling optimistic, only to have my hopes dashed when she returned with two more Japanese style pillows. ||||The one plus point of the hotel is it is centrally located and a short 10 minute walk from the main railway station.||||One other thing to watch out for is the hotel is located near the main hospital so expect to hear sirens 24...