HOTEL ELCIENT KYŌTO — Hotel in Kyoto

We arrived at the hotel around 14h00 and were met at reception by a very friendly and helpful lady. She indicated that check-in was as of 15h00 and that our room was not ready but they could keep our luggage in a safe area should we wish to explore the surrounds before getting our room. We opted to wait in a seated area in the lobby as it was extremely hot and we were not really dressed for exploring the streets in such hot weather. ||After waiting approximately 30 minutes the same lady came over to us and told us that our room was now ready and that we were free to check in which we did. |Our room was of average size by Japanese hotel standards and comprised of an open closet as you walk in followed by a small passage to the right containing a large basin and then right after that was the door to the smallest ‘modular type’ bathroom I have yet encountered.||This ‘modular bathroom’ consisted of a small short but wider than normal bath with a shower over the bath configuration. Immediately next to the shower was a tiny built-in basin and right next to that was a normal Japanese electronic toilet with the controls mounted on the wall in front of you. Legroom between the toilet and the wall was tight and I as a 1,94 m tall person only just fitted on the toilet without any room to manoeuvre. Body wash, shampoo and conditioner of very high quality were available next to the bath. ||The bedroom contained two firm three-quarter beds each with two hard pillows. The firm bed was comfortable enough but the pillows were unfortunately just a little too hard for me. Apart from the beds, the room consisted of a chair, a stool and a desk / table and a long headboard incorporating a long light. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the wall at the foot of the beds.||Coffee bags (strangely only one bag per person) and tea bags are placed next to the kettle in the room and face cloths and some other personal toiletries are laid out in the draw underneath the larger basin in the small passage to the bathroom with additional items available at no cost in the hotel lobby.|The hotel has two laundry rooms located on the 4th and the 8th floors and beverage vending machines with free ice machines are located in the same rooms. This hotel also has smoking and non-smoking floors so be sure to specify what you require when booking.||An oddity was that there is not a single international news channel available on the television so if you want to stay abreast with international events you have to stream it on one of your electronic devices. The hotel WIFI was good and I managed to stream whatever I wanted without issue.||The location of this hotel is excellent, that being about 100 metres from the main Kyoto train and bus station. The surrounding area is mainly residential with a couple of large departmental and convenience stores close by, in fact, just next to the hotel entrance is a very handy and well stocked 7/11 convenience store should you wish to purchase your food and eat it in the hotel.||We found the hotel to be very well located for our purpose which was sightseeing and we like to walk which suited us well. ||We did not include breakfast at this hotel so I am unable to comment on the breakfast offering.||We enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Elcient Kyoto especially from a location perspective so it was a pity about the lack of international news channels available and the tiny bathroom which were the only drawbacks (but not deal breakers) to an otherwise wonderful...

We arrived at the hotel around 14h00 and were met at reception by a very friendly and helpful lady. She indicated that check-in was as of 15h00 and that our room was not ready but they could keep our luggage in a safe area should we wish to explore the surrounds before getting our room. We opted to wait in a seated area in the lobby as it was extremely hot and we were not really dressed for exploring the streets in such hot weather. ||After waiting approximately 30 minutes the same lady came over to us and told us that our room was now ready and that we were free to check in which we did. |Our room was of average size by Japanese hotel standards and comprised of an open closet as you walk in followed by a small passage to the right containing a large basin and then right after that was the door to the smallest ‘modular type’ bathroom I have yet encountered.||This ‘modular bathroom’ consisted of a small short but wider than normal bath with a shower over the bath configuration. Immediately next to the shower was a tiny built-in basin and right next to that was a normal Japanese electronic toilet with the controls mounted on the wall in front of you. Legroom between the toilet and the wall was tight and I as a 1,94 m tall person only just fitted on the toilet without any room to manoeuvre. Body wash, shampoo and conditioner of very high quality were available next to the bath. ||The bedroom contained two firm three-quarter beds each with two hard pillows. The firm bed was comfortable enough but the pillows were unfortunately just a little too hard for me. Apart from the beds, the room consisted of a chair, a stool and a desk / table and a long headboard incorporating a long light. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the wall at the foot of the beds.||Coffee bags (strangely only one bag per person) and tea bags are placed next to the kettle in the room and face cloths and some other personal toiletries are laid out in the draw underneath the larger basin in the small passage to the bathroom with additional items available at no cost in the hotel lobby.|The hotel has two laundry rooms located on the 4th and the 8th floors and beverage vending machines with free ice machines are located in the same rooms. This hotel also has smoking and non-smoking floors so be sure to specify what you require when booking.||An oddity was that there is not a single international news channel available on the television so if you want to stay abreast with international events you have to stream it on one of your electronic devices. The hotel WIFI was good and I managed to stream whatever I wanted without issue.||The location of this hotel is excellent, that being about 100 metres from the main Kyoto train and bus station. The surrounding area is mainly residential with a couple of large departmental and convenience stores close by, in fact, just next to the hotel entrance is a very handy and well stocked 7/11 convenience store should you wish to purchase your food and eat it in the hotel.||We found the hotel to be very well located for our purpose which was sightseeing and we like to walk which suited us well. ||We did not include breakfast at this hotel so I am unable to comment on the breakfast offering.||We enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Elcient Kyoto especially from a location perspective so it was a pity about the lack of international news channels available and the tiny bathroom which were the only drawbacks (but not deal breakers) to an otherwise wonderful...

Our family of 3 stayed at Hotel Elcient Kyoto for 3 nights. I picked this for its location close to Kyoto Station. On this trip to Japan we stayed in 4 different hotels in Japan and they are all of similar (small) size at 20 sq meters (~ 200 Sq ft). For Elcient, the triple room is the same size as a double room, they just squeeze in an extra bed so it feels rather tight. The only space to put your suitcases is between the foot of the bed and the wall; once you do that, there's barely any room to actually walk. The bathroom is postage stamp size and only 1 person can fit at a time.||The room provides in-room safe (standard size!), kettle, bottled water, pajamas. It is very quiet and darkening shades work well. ||When we arrived we were asked to use the self check-in machines, even though there was plenty of staff at the desk who could help us check-in. After scanning all our passports and providing all the info using the kiosks, we then found out we cannot use the kiosk's credit card machine to pay because it requires a PIN (which I don't have). So back to lining up to be checked-in by an actual human. This was annoying because we had been traveling all day and were tired and hungry. That evening we were too tired to venture out so we ate at the hotel restaurant, which was surprisingly good.||On our first morning we went down at 7am to pay for breakfast (breakfast starts at 6:30am) but were told it was full and to return around 8am. Not wanting to wait, we went to the 7-11 next door to grab coffee and breakfast. The 2 subsequent mornings we went to breakfast closer to 8am and had no trouble getting seated. The cost is very reasonable and the spread is very nice, with plenty of Western and Japanese options.||There is laundry room and and onsen in the hotel. Both are located on the 2nd floor in the annex building (which is where our room is). When we used both facilities around 5pm, no one was using either. The ladies onsen is very clean, with a shampoo and bath bar where you can choose your own products. The laundry room was much busier when we returned later to retrieve our clothes around 7pm. ||Our room in the annex is quiet and overall a very calm and peaceful environment. During our stay I believe there were school groups staying in the annex as well but they weren't on our floor and we didn't hear any noise.||I picked this hotel for its location, proximity to the Kyoto station. It is v convenient for the Shinkansen and the Kintetsu trains, as well as subways. Note that Elcient is located on the South exit of the station; if you need to take buses (eg for Kiyomizu dera), the bus terminal is located on the North side of the station. It takes a good 10 minutes to walk over there.||I would recommend this hotel if you are in Kyoto for a short time and need a place central and convenient. However, if you plan to spend more time in Kyoto, I would recommend staying near Gion district where there is a...