yoin hotel kyoto gion（余韻ホテル 京都祇園） — Hotel in Kyoto

We just checked out from a 6 night stay here. The great: the location is great with lots of small spots to eat and easy access to tourist spots. Also great: the rooms are large and very clean.

The odd: the advertised lobby bar is closed indefinitely, despite the booking saying it was open and despite the bar proudly displaying all manner of whisky and wine bottles and glassware. We were told this was since COVID 2020 and there are no plans to reopen it, per the hotel owner. Which is odd considering the street the hotel is on is filled with bars that open around 22:00 and stay open until late (5:00). This latter part is worth mentioning, too: it can be quite loud on the street after 21:00. But our window faced the street and it was very quiet in the room.

The bad: Coffee. You are rationed to one Nespresso pod per person per day. When I asked if we could just get all our coffee at ounce, I was told "no," that we would have to get our ration each evening for the following morning because they didn't have much in stock. That's fine for a budget hotel but we spent over $500 USD/ night to stay here.

Also bad is the room shares air conditioning with the adjacent room. Our first night we spent sweating profusely. I politely inquired the next morning if we could make our room cooler and we were told that it's because our neighbours had their room set to warm. We endured it another day before I politely told the staff that we couldn't bear it another night and would have to move rooms or hotels if they couldn't accommodate making our room cooler (it was set to 25C). They figured it out and our room finally received cool air for sleeping.

The staff were very pleasant. Nothing to complain about. Just know there are essentially no amenities (rooms are cleaned once every 4 days), and if you value your coffee in the morning, you have a Tully's or Starbucks that each open at 8:00 about 4 minutes walk away, or the Lawson's open 24 hours is around the corner.

All that said, we defiantly enjoyed our stay...

This hotel is part of a larger management group, so there’s only a receptionist on site from 8am to 10pm, but no manager or anyone available for emergencies. It also means there’s no personal touch from the owners.

Our (comfort class) room was incredibly humid. We didn’t notice at first, but after a sleepless night, we woke up to find mould pretty much everywhere. The manager’s excuse was that they were waiting on a contractor, meaning they knowingly gave us a room that needed urgent repairs. On top of that, the AC was only in Japanese, making it hard to figure out. It kept turning on and off all night, swinging the temperature from 22°C to 30°C every hour. The panel was right by the bed, blowing cold air straight into our faces.

They did move us to another room (which they called an upgrade, but it was basically the same as before). This one had a noisy AC, but we didn’t bother complaining again. Both AC units had warnings in Japanese saying the filter needed maintenance—and you could tell, because there was mould visible.

The windows were locked with keys, so there was no way to get any fresh air.

Speaking of the bed, it was poorly made in both rooms — the bottom sheet was too small, so by the middle of the night it had moved and we ended up sleeping directly on the mattress.

To top it off, they don’t clean the rooms, citing environmental reasons. But honestly, this just makes things worse, as no one opens the windows, so the rooms stay...

We stayed at the Yoin Hotel Kyoto Gion four nights during our 10 days in Japan for autumn colors. The hotel is ideally located in the middle of the Gion. It’s located on a small street/alley with discreet front door leading into a nice modern boutique hotel creating a nice ambience. Our room had a small hallway separating the entry, bathroom and bedroom. Our room was spacious, well-appointed and quiet. Overall, we liked the room’s layout, decor and ambience of the room. We found the beds and pillows firmer than we would like. We also could not control the temperature of the room, which sometimes for sleeping is too warm or without enough airflow. The hotel does not have laundry and we ended carrying our laundry to one of their suggested laundromats 10 minutes away. Overall, I would probably stay here again, and it would be my first choice if they had softer beds and pillows along with some way to control room temperature (or lower temperature setting) or create airflow for sleeping. Given beds and lack of temperature controls I would rate hotel 4.5 instead of 5. With this in mind I would recommend others consider Yoin...