Henn na Hotel Kyoto Hachijoguchi Ekimae — Hotel in Kyoto

Location is good, rooms are great (clean, quite big according to Japanese standards, amenities are very convenient and well-chosen), however the check-in process completely overshadowed our experience. We arrived around 4pm. We could not check in as the automated system did not work (reading the other reviews it seems to be a recurring problem). An employee came to 'help us' and tried to do the same thing we had done before with no success. Then she disappeared with our passeports, came back, tried again, tried to reboot the system tried again etc. Finally she offered us two drinks which was a nice gesture, but at that point all that we wanted was to check in since we had woken up very early that day to take the train from Tokyo and as it was 35 degrees in Kyoto we were desperate to freshen up. After a good 30 to 40 minutes we were finally able to check in.

Note for the management of this hotel: your system clearly does not work with foreign passports. Ask the provider to fix it and in the meantime go back to the good old-fashionned paper+copy (or scan) check in for the sake of the poor travelers staying...

You can't check in before 3pm at all, so there was a group of people waiting in the lobby and a scramble to get in first to check in. It's done by two awkward clunky robot dinosaurs with one human to assist everyone, who I felt really sorry for. It wasn't an entirely straight forward process with inserting your passport, trying to align it properly and then doing your companions, while trying to be as quick as possible for the line of people behind you. There's also very, very minimal supplies in the room. No spoons, just 2 tea bags, no milk or creamer. Nice bathroom products but no lotion. There's a bunch of stuff in the foyer you can take, but no coffee or tea etc, just robes, hair brushes etc. The aircon was confusing to operate and didn't show the temperature you set it to Outside of check-in staff, the dinosaurs and cleaners we didn't see any other staff, not sure if anyone is around to help you if needed. No one answered when we knocked on the staff door. Cleaners were sweet and lovely. It just felt like they were doing everything possible to cut overheads, which wasn't a...

The Hotel really close to Kyoto Station with easy walking distance. When we checked in, we were greeted by dinosaur robot and had to use a self check-in machine. Sounds cool, but unfortunately it didn’t work well for us. I had trouble scanning my passport and had to call the staff. The staff seemed rushed—explained quickly and left, even though I hadn’t finished the process. I ended up calling them three times because the machine kept failing and in the end they had to do a manual check-in. Definitely one of the more tiring check-in experiences I’ve had. I noticed other guests were also struggling with the machine.

That said, the room itself was actually quite spacious and clean, especially compared to the usual standard Japanese hotel rooms. One nice bonus: they provided a foot massager in the room—such a treat after a long day of walking around Japan. The bathroom is also separated, which I personally really liked.

So overall, the stay was decent, but the check-in experience needs...