Bespoke Hotel Shinsaibashi — Hotel in Osaka

I spent around 4 days in this hotel as a solo female traveller. Overall it’s a decent hotel, and I would be back if I find a good rate. However, there are definitely some areas for improvement.

Location: the location is quite central, although you will have to walk 10/15 minutes to get to the city centre (Namba / Dotonbori). The hotel is about 5 minutes’ walk from a shopping street with various shopping malls, and very close to restaurants and bars. It’s a good spot to access the nightlife and safely walk back to the hotel at night. Please note that the metro station is about 7 minutes walk from the hotel, which can feel very long if there is a thunder storm..! There are two metro stations that can bring you directly to the main tourist spots.

Room: I stayed in a double room. the room is newly refurbished, however it is extremely small (10 Sqm). Even as a solo traveller, I had no space to fully open my luggage either on the sofa or the floor. I cannot imagine 2 people staying in the room (unless it’s just a weekend trip with no luggage). The room was clean, and I took a bath every night! However, there are a couple of very significant shortcomings: the ventilation system in the bathroom is extremely dusty (there’s literally dust hanging from the ventilator) , I very strongly suggest to the management team to have it clean up as it seems to be a recurrent issues in many rooms. Also the bath curtain had some mould, I didn’t dare to touch it. It’s a shame because the rest of the room is pretty much immaculate. Another big issue is the wifi; the connection was very patchy in the room.

My room was overviewing a wall (which I definitely preferred to other windows) and it was very quiet at night.

The amenities in the room are fine. The body soap was very nice with a lavender scent. There is also nice dripping coffee available. I don’t understand why there are no tea bags..? Very curious for Japan. This is also something that could be addressed by management.

Service: the staff at the reception when I arrived was very welcoming and accommodating and let me checkin early. I had a couple of other interactions with the staff at the reception, and they didn’t seem all equally competent. There are many young people working in the hotel, I would suggest a bit of further training in hospitality for some of them. The cleaning staff was very nice.

Breakfast: the breakfast was offered for free (pastries and coffee), which I really appreciated. The quality is decent for a free breakfast. However, as all things free, it brought out the worst of humanity: I saw many customers taking full advantage of the breakfast and literally overflowing their trays with food for three days. I think the management could rethink a little bit the breakfast distribution, maybe giving vouchers to customers for a fix amount so that everyone can get the same variety / portions without having to fight for their lives very early in the morning (if you go late there’s almost nothing left).

In conclusion, I would stay at this hotel again, however only if the rate is advantageous. I tried to rebook it for my last leg of the trip and the price was double (around 150 euros). I think it would definitely not be...

Hotel Outlook: The hotel's exterior is classy, giving off a boutique hotel vibe.

Hotel Management/Service: Upon check-in, I understood the policy of a 3 PM check-in time. However, I had friends who had checked in the day before and already had their rooms. When I arrived, I asked if I could store my luggage in my friends' room temporarily, but the staff insisted that I could only leave my luggage in the lobby since my room wasn't ready yet. After some discussion, they allowed my friends to come down and take my luggage to their room, but they did not permit me to accompany them, which seemed a bit unreasonable. They showed me a policy stating that only hotel guests/residents are allowed in the rooms, even though I had already paid for a booking that wasn't ready. I wasn't trying to stay in my friends' room "illegally"; especially considering how they can effectively prevent guests from sneaking their friends into their rooms. I had already paid for my booking and just couldn't check in early. Additionally, we asked for extra hangers due to the dryer not working properly, but they only provided one hanger and refused to give more.

Rooms: The room was much smaller than what was shown in the pictures. While I understand that pictures are for illustration purposes, the room was too small to even open my luggage comfortably. Additionally, the hotel charged a city tax despite the tax being included in the booking payment. The toilet had a strong urine smell, and there were dust balls everywhere. We appreciate the classy outlook, but the bathroom in the room has a high curb to enter. While this might be a unique design choice, it's impractical for guests with children (who could easily fall and hurt themselves) or older people with knee problems. There was also a lot of rubbish and slippers under the bed, indicating the room was not properly cleaned before check-in.

Laundry Area: I don't even know where to begin with this. The dryer was basically useless. I think if we hung our clothes outside under the sun or in the room, they would dry faster than in the dryer. We set the dryer to run for 3 hours, but after 3 hours, the clothes were still soaking wet. (Before you judge, we only put less than 10 pieces of clothing in to dry.) While we were in the laundry area, we had a conversation with other guests who were doing laundry, and they told us not to bother—the clothes will not dry!

Conclusion: If you are traveling solo with no big preferences on how big the rooms are (because they are really small) or are not fussy, this could be a good hotel. However, for families or long trips, it is not...

Booked for 4 nights originally but only stayed for 1 nights as there were some confusion over the booking rates. For what ever reason for the week we were staying, we selected to pay at the Hotel while booking through Expedia. The rate end up to be somehow around $250 a night for a single room thus we had to change it after one night as for $250 a night in Osaka, there are many options. Anyhow, asides from the rate confusion, the hotel is very clean, albeit with basic amenities, the breakfast spread was great had alot of options. If you can afford it it is worth it especially if you have family with kids who wakes up early enough to have some breakfast. The rooms are very small though, almost claustrophobic (which was another reason why I decided to change after 1 night). Another reason is contrary to what some of the other travelers may say, this hotel is not really centrally located from the business district, you need to still walk for about a good 15 to 20 minutes to get to food, metro and other active businesses in Shinsaibashi, if you have kids and elders and staying for 4 to 5 days doing it everyday is not very feasible as for most of us after a long day of sight seeing we just really want to get to the hotel quickly. Also the hotel is located in more of a alleyway (not main street), not a major issue but reminds me of some small hotel in a ghetto area or something :-). Anyhow, after one night we decided to change and move to Candeo Hotels Osaka Namba, although is was a tad pricey than Bespoke (if booked at regular rate), we had a rate of about $150 usd a night (keeping in mind this is booking on the same day). The Candeo Hotels Osaka Namba in Shinsaibashi was great, the rooms are much larger and comfortable for a city hotel, centrally located in Shinsaibashi, walking distance to metro, food and all the businesses. You walk two blocks to left or right you are near everything (I had even went for ramen at like 11pm, it was lively, safe and great experience). One thing I want folks to know is the rooms are good size and the sofa in all rooms can even be a sofa bed (no need to book a room calling out with a sofa bed incl for a higher rate). The 23rd flood sky spa was awesome view of the city at night is amazing. Anyhow, I wanted to share my experience on this recently trip on this with everyone is really to just say if you can afford to pay a tad more, one should book Candeo Hotels Osaka Namba instead of Bespoke (or any other hotel that is close to Candeo Namba), it is well worth it especially if you have family and want to be close...