Kyoto Shijo Takakura hotel grandereverie — Hotel in Kyoto

This 1st picture is me locked out of my hotel for half an hour after I'd returned from late night walk. They take your key from you, it's literally a metal key on a Keychain, and give it back to you when you come in. They give you a little card when you check in and explain it to you like they aren't treating you like a child. There will be somebody here to let you in all night they tell you.

I'd come in earlier to deposit some trash and could not get in at that time either. However, there was someone sitting in the lobby at that time and I was able to get his attention. He in turn was able to summon the lady watching the place at these hours. She tells me I needed to enter the code in a pin pad outside to get in. I was not given this magic code and had tried entering my room number as it was the only number given to me when I'd checked in. So she gives me this little card with the door pin on it and apologizes for not noticing me trying to get into the building. At least I thought she'd given me this card...

When I'd returned later the lobby was empty. I looked through my pockets and through all of my wallet and could not find the little password card. Calling the listed number with any combination of the country code added would not go through. I tried knocking with increasing force over the course of the next half hour or so to no avail. I eventually got sick of politely knocking and started tapping on the window with a wooden closed sign that was sitting out front and entering random numbers on the pin pad in the hopes that it would trigger some kind of security alarm. It was a very humid night and I'd just walked many miles around Kyoto late into the morning. This is the best time to see the city as most of the tourists are not out at this hour. Eventually the woman watching the place at night hurries out of a back room in the process of getting dressed and let's me in. She tells me she gave me the card earlier (thus she had no responsibility for this, right?) and I tell her I thought I had the card but I don't know what happened to it. She again tells me she gave me that card.

Beyond this whole fiasco the rooms don't have any windows. Wait, there is a window to your bathroom for some reason because you know, if you wanna watch your wife take a shower or something... but the actual windows are grayed out so you can't see anything out of them. I tried to open one to see the weather outside earlier and it opened about 4 inches. That's as much of the outside world as you can see.

And I'm fairly sure they are tainting the rating system somehow by catering to specific groups of people or offering something for a positive reviews 🤔 something smells fishy here and it's not the delicious unagi served in the 7th floor of the nearby Daimaru.

Oh, and there's someone else's old pair of slippers, bottle caps, and a thick layer of dust under my bed. Some of this stuff may be normal here but my other hotels...

Japan Reviews||My adult son and I spent 8 nights and 7 full days at this wonderful hotel in Kyoto. The rooms are a great size and well appointed especially compared to Tokyo room sizes. It’s a small hotel with a huge heart because the staff are simply awesome at customer care and support, without exception. |Spacious bedrooms rooms with excellent controllable air-conditioning. The separate toilet and walk-in bathrooms are extremely comfortable and spacious||The location is outstanding for shopping, sightseeing and travel across the city and further travel. 10 mins from Kyoto station on the Karasuma line and as a fan of Uber, its central to anything you need to get to within 5-20 mins. |Walking distance to Teramachi street and Nishiki food markets. The Samurai Experience and the Shijo-Dori downtown shopping district.||Meals are delivered to the rooms as there is no dining facility, but this is not a downside if you are a budding travel/adventurer. Meals can also be brought in from any Family Mart or 7-Eleven, which becomes the norm in Japan.|Additionally, there are 15+ restaurants within a two minute walk, many of which are on the same quiet street. I absolutely loved this small characterful street this hotel was located on. ||I wanted to make a special note of the support this hotel team provided before we arrived. As a motorsport fan my son was keen to explore Suzuka race circuit. The hotel contacted the circuit directly and found out there was an all day practice session for different classes of cars on Saturday. The hotel also helped us find a car hire place, Toyota right next to Kyoto station. Picking the car up the night before I drove to Suzuka circuit, which all resulted in an another amazing day. Post event the hotel team then contacted the circuit and was able to get a list of all the driver and their cars after the event. |This hotel goes above and beyond and all you need to do is ask them!!|One of the best Hotel customer experiences I have ever had the...

I rate this place high on here only because the staff is super friendly. The room looked very clean and bathroom was great too. Unfortunately we did have a cockroach in our room and were moved to another room, but it didn't help the anxiety we felt after that. The location is good if you don't mind not having sidewalks and narrow streets so cars driving through can be dangerous if you have little ones or even yourself. Also they don't mention on Expedia the extra cost of almost $250 USD per person that they charge at the hotel so keep that in mind. It was added to our bill and they said it's a consumption tax, even though Expedia says taxes included in price, it's not. I also think that this hotel is situated in a place where you can go to various little stores and one huge mall that has high end clothing, so if you're a big spender and I mean, designer brand shopper, you'll like it. If not don't bother in this area. Go more towards the Sannenzaka, the traditional area there with the stairs and shops is beautiful, clean, organized and great. Plus lots of great food, which you definitely will not find in the area where this hotel is located, my daughter and I are very healthy athletic types and struggled daily to find things to eat, we ended up buying things at the 7-11 that we could eat and even that was hard at times. Plus you can't beat the sunset at kiyomizu-dera which is also in Sannenzaka. The other downside here is the hustle and bustle of it all and the language barrier is no joke here, the signs are not in English here like you'll see in other places, so if you don't speak the language, you will definitely struggle . A vacation for me is less busy and less stressful so I will not...