APA Hotel Nagoya Ekimae — Hotel in Nagoya

I highly recommend this hotel. The service is friendly, fast, and efficient.

Highlights: Very clean, complete amenities, location close (10ish mins) to Nagoya Station, public bath (for hotel guests). MUST TRY the public baths.

We stayed for 3 nights and found the location to be very convenient as it is about 10 mins from Nagoya Station (perhaps more when carrying luggages or trying to find the hotel for the first time), very close to a 7/11 and a Lawson, and a few local eateries that look decent.

We got the double room which is very small for 2 people but I was very impressed by the complete amenities, including bathtub, hair dryer, and yukata. The linens are very clean and do not smell or have a lingering fragrance. This is a huge plus for someone very sensitive to fragrances.

The bed was small but for someone about 170cm tall it is still fine. Very comfy pillows and matrass. We slept very well. The lighting was also nicely adjustable.

You can request daily room cleaning (which we did) but we found that they do not seem to dust the table/surfaces. Bed and everything else were cleaned properly, though.

Every night I used the public baths, both the indoor and outdoor ones, and it really helps to wind down for the night, especially after a long day of walking. The amenities in the public baths are really complete, and there is even a free ice machine and facilities like microwave, vending machine, and coin laundry (beware though, the dryer multiple rounds to really dry your clothes!).

Another big brownie point is that the hotel accepts left luggage as we still wanted to do some sightseeing after checking out.

Paid ¥40,000 for 3 nights (one of the nights was much pricier than the other 2 nights since it was a Saturday and peak season?). Worth...

The APA hotel by Nagoya railway station is the worst hotel I’ve stayed at in Japan. I’ve been a frequent visitor for 50 years. I’ve lived in hotels whilst working in Japan. I’ve been here 5 weeks in the last 12 months.

The room is poorly designed with no proper hanging space. I don’t consider four hangers on a hook appropriate. The room is dominated by a huge desk that serves no useful purpose with just one power outlet. Two chairs prevent the space under the desk being useful. To sit on a chair is a maneuver that’s difficult and the lack of clearance between your thighs and the drawer under the desk makes it unusable.

The 35 cm gap between the beds is inadequate.

The HVAC system is off more than it’s on. On returning to the room on hot day it will take a long time to cool the room to an acceptable temperature.

The room my wife and I had was off a short air conditioned corridor, whereas most rooms were off the open air atrium. It must have been even less comfortable temperature wise in those rooms.

The bathroom was so tiny and the toilet so close to the wall that neither of us could sit normally.

The temperature control for the shower clearly showed that the hotel has a plumbing issue. The anti-scald device was working and prevented scalding but the hot and cold water pressure varied so greatly that you either had hot or freezing cold water.

In all the dozens of hotels that I stayed at in Japan over the years the checkout time is 11:00, not APA it’s 10:00.

APA...

I’ve stayed in two APA hotels thus far and could copy/paste most of the following into a review for the other one (and probably will lol): it’s a clean, inexpensive, no-frills place to stay that is conveniently located and has a good breakfast buffet located in the Irish pub downstairs. The rooms are tiny, even for Japanese standards. The staff are efficient and friendly. The communal bath (not an onsen) is nice and includes a small rotemburo. One annoying aspect of the three APA hotels this side of Nagoya station is that they are all named Ekimae (in front of the station), which is sort of but not entirely accurate: there’s Ekimae, Ekimae Minami (south), and Ekimae Kita (north), which is right next to APA Ekimae. Make sure you know which one you are staying at before leaving...