Smile Hotel Kyoto Shijo — Hotel in Kyoto

Great location, small rooms that could benefit from having a smaller table and no chair (nobody uses the chair and it’s just in the way of everything else), the pillows feel like you’re sleeping on a rock, and they should also provide two duvets per bed if there are two people checked in for one room. They left my fiancée and I to fight for one duvet like it’s the hunger games. I didn’t have one single good night of sleep here and woke up with a headache for most of them. The bedsheets on the bed also don’t stay in the place? Like, they have one job?

For some reason, they don’t have the bath scrubs available on the lobby, it’s only upon request, which to me is wild that every time I need one I need to request it when every other single hotel I stayed at I could just get one from the reception.

They also provide tea at the lobby but I have to request the sugar. I just stopped drinking my morning tea because it’s a pita having to ask for sugar every time I want to drink my tea.

They could also benefit from a table with more microwaves and honestly, even a toaster and a toaster oven on the second floor. The sole purpose of the second floors existence is their overpriced morning coffee. Once the morning coffee time ends, the second floors remain unused and a complete waste of space. If they at least had a table with more microwaves (instead of only one dinky 650w microwave that they should be ashamed to even say they have one) people wouldn’t have to wait to use the microwave, which is also awkwardly placed in front of reception, so they see everything we are eating.

They also a mandatory cleaning service which I don’t need and don’t want. I just want to leave my stuff all over the room and do my thing. I don’t want to have to pack my stuff so nobody rummages through it, just to have to unpack again. This is ridiculous.

I would not stay at another Smile hotel again, as a matter of fact, my stay in Osaka was at a Smile hotel, which I cancelled and booked it somewhere else because god forbid me from sleeping on a terrible bed with a crappy...

The location of the hotel is very good, about 5 mins walk to Karuma station where we can take the Hankyu line directly to Osaka. There are plenty of shopping in the area, and lotsa supermarts and convenience marts - a 24 hours Life supermart where we can get cheap bento, food and fruits; and another 24 hours Fresco mart a few units away from Life; Family mart etc. The price of room in this hotel is also comparatively cheaper compared to the other hotels in the area. Do not expect much facilities like public bath etc. There is a washing machine which I did not use, so unable to comment on that. The front desk staff and the breakfast staff are very nice and polite. Received nothing but good service from them. As for the room,

1. small but clean
2. aircon cannot be adjusted
3. pillow abit too low
4. Fridge is small but cold. I am able to freeze my ice pack in e tiny narrow space for freezing. Note that the narrow freezer space is only about the height 10cm(rough estimation)
5. corridor is too dim
6. breakfast - limited spread but not expecting much for the price which I paid for breakfast anyway Will consider...

Compared to other hotels I've stayed at in a similar price range Smile hotel falls short in many aspects.

The bed is very very small even for Japanese standards. My partner and I are both very small and the bed was still way too small for us. Really felt like a king single for 2 people.

No cool setting on the AC unit during autumn/winter so if you're normally a warmer than usual person you're gonna have a bad time.

Bring earplugs the walls are paper thin, thinnest walls of any hotel I've ever stayed at in Japan. I could hear the girls conversation next door very clearly and they were speaking at a normal indoor volume. You can hear street noise and cars revving even though the room is not facing the street.

The mini fridge is stupidly loud and the hotel knows it as they give you an option to turn it off from the front. So if you want silence while you sleep make sure you don't buy any refrigerated goods.

It wasn't too terrible overall but probabaly the worst hotel I've stayed at in this price range out of all the hotels I've stayed at while...