sequence KYOTO GOJO — Hotel in Kyoto

My husband and I booked the medium queen room during early April 2023. It was a peak season thus the price is on the high side. Hotel room is very comfortably-sized, big enough for us to open our two big luggage without compromising on walking space! Love it!

Shower and toilet is separate, a bit disappointing in size. But big bottle of shampoo, conditioner and body wash available in the shower room. Not enough hooks for us to hang towels. Only one towel railing rack.

Location is great, one stop to Kyoto station. However do take note the nearest exit 2 to Gojo station is only via stairs, not ideal when travelling with luggage. There is another exit 6 with elevator but further away. During our check out day it was raining heavily so we had to take a taxi to Kyoto station instead of the subway.

Other reviews complained about the weird 5pm check in and 2pm check out timing. Which is why they have a big luggage storage room for guests to leave their luggage there and lock with number combination. A note for other guests, pls be more considerate and lift your small luggage or backpacks to be placed on the shelves and leave the bottom area for people with big and heavy luggage please. We were unable to fit the big luggage on the shelf and had to ask the hotel staff to keep for us in their private area. But the hotel staff were all very friendly and professional in their service 👍

Hotel design, cleanliness and advanced technology is impressive! Face recognition for one guest to the room and to enter the hotel lobby after-hours. There is a tablet in the room to control the air-conditioning and lightings. However, not so ideal when charging points are just one USB port per bedside. In this day and age, we need to charge so many devices and it is not enough.

Hotel is of modern design, stylish dark theme. I love it however my husband thinks the sink area is too dark. Which I agree. I prefer to open the blinds in the morning and sit on the bed to do my skincare and make up. I also love it that the housekeeping “Make up room/Do not disturb” card is not the typical hanging at the door type, but a magnet type, will not keep falling off when we open/close the door!

There are also simple hotel amenities available for guests any time of the day at the lobby. Combs, razors, cotton buds.

Love the bathhouse so much! Relaxing music and the dim theme really winds me down for a good sleep after a hectic day of sightseeing. The alternating men/women days to use the bathhouse/sauna was a little disappointing, as I do not enjoy sauna as much as the bathhouse. However the sauna has two cubicles with aroma shower water and it is what I look forward for! Refreshing and relaxing! Wish it is not auto off so fast though. It would also be better if the hotel has instructions to educate the foreigners who did not bother to google the etiquette of bathhouse in Japan. I was flabbergasted when I saw a westerner with a head full of shampoo inside the onsen! Now I even wonder did they shower before entering 🤢

A lovely stay generally, very clean, enjoyable stay! I will stay here again and recommend to...

This hotel is from the future! Facial recognition to get in the elevators and the rooms, tablets to control the environment in the room itself…pretty modern!

The rooms were a great size for Japan, able to accommodate both our full size luggage no problem. Having the onsen was a great treat, with a channel on the tv telling you how busy it was. Amazing feature! Close to downtown with metro stations all over. The breakfast is decent as well, with the choice of 1 of 3 items with a buffet table of some additional items, salad, buns etc.

For me, this hotel fell a little bit short of 5 stars with the service. Although everyone was extremely polite, respectful and nice, there were several small points of frustration.

check in starts at 5pm, which is a few hours later than the norm. No big deal but they had rooms available for us to when we arrived at 1pm and asked about getting the room early, they showed us this charge schedule based on how many hours early you wanted the room. Each hour was 1000JPY. I can’t recall any hotel that charged for something like this. Either the hotel gives you the room you’re already getting early, or they don’t have one ready yet. They were very accommodating in storing our luggage for us free of charge which was great! We explored the city and came back at 4, yet they still wouldn’t give us an early check in without charging us.

the check out/in process is done on tablets. There are very polite staff ready and willing to help you check in, but they usher you over to a tablet and have you fumble your way through. Even checking out, where you usually announce that you’re simply leaving and hand them a keycard, I was ushered over to a tablet by two people otherwise unoccupied. Personally I like a human touch on check in/out, so this was a bit of a letdown for me.

They provide drink tickets you can use for use at the bar during select hours. The drinks you can get are also limited however you cannot ‘bank’ these cards so my girlfriend and I forgot on the first night to use them, and they were lost forever.

They have a restaurant in the lobby, however you cannot get anything ‘to go’ to take up to your room.

I guess the ‘service’ aspect for me was other hotels in this calibre would have that ‘human’ factor and accommodate their guests. Or maybe I have high expectations! Either way,...

Ok, this is a nice one and I can recommend it though I would not maybe name it the best hotel I’ve stayed at in Kyoto. I liked the DJ music even! And the nightwear is nice (I even wanted to buy the top but they don’t sell those separately). The sauna felt rather lukewarm and therefore pretty useless (even the aromatic warm shower that is available in the sauna area is better). The onsen area is nice! The service is good and there’s a separate luggage storage room which looks more secure than simply leaving your luggage sitting in the lobby with a number attached to it. :) The laundry has only two washer-drier machines (for all those rooms!). The elevators behave strangely, they sometimes stop at almost every floor to “collect” more people. Sometimes going from the 8th floor to the basement (spa & laundry) caused about five stops on the way. Now the arrangement when the bathroom sink is in the room and is adjacent to the working table is super-weird, given that there’s actually more space in the bathroom. To add insult to the injury, the sink is completely flat, so things stay in it and you need to exert extra effort to wash them down. To me the weird sink location is the biggest downside of the hotel. I haven’t used the face key so I got a physical card but there was no usual slot to insert it inside the room so that was inconsistent with other hotels and therefore confusing. 😀 The room was quiet and the view was actually OK. The room size is nice! There are “total blackout” blinds/curtains in the room. The light controls are a bit fiddly but are in general OK. The mattress is somewhat stiff just like in all the other places. :) The TV seems sleek and large (though I haven’t used it). There was some dust around (for example near the door stop) which was lowering the grade of the experience to me a bit. Once again, upon checking in the hotel felt quite fancy for what I paid so only the aforementioned gotchas made the experience a bit more...