Hostel Murasaki — Hotel in Takayama

Sharing our experience for other customers to avoid dealing with the issues the Murasaki hostel caused us during our trip. We were looking for an accommodation which offered luggage storage and the Murasaki hostel advertises itself as such on Booking. We asked the Murasaki hostel where we could leave the luggage after the check-out to take them back later on the same day. We followed their instructions and when we later came back to the property, our luggage was gone. When mentioning it to the Murasaki staff, one of them even laughed in front of us. They said they had no camera recordings of the luggage area, which is questionable and which anyway highlights the quality of such accommodation. They reached out to the customers who did the check-out on that day and they found out that these customers took our luggage. It is still not clear if the customers took our luggage by mistake or if the Murasaki staff wrongly put our luggage into the other customers’ vehicle. The customers in question, after 2 days, sent us back the luggage with a broken weel and this was even mentioned on the carrier’s invoice, saying that the carrier received the luggage already broken. We asked for a refund of such damage to the Murasaki staff, which rejected our request, saying that it is not their responsibility. So, all in all, we had to spend more than 100 euro to survive without anything while not having our luggage for 2 days and 100 euro for a new luggage, since we had a long multi-city trip. We are still in contact with the Booking customer service for what happened, asking them to intervene and providing them with the proof of the abovementioned situation. If you ever choose this hostel as your accommodation, which I would never recommend it to you, I advise you to avoid leaving your luggage in their property to avoid facing the...

This place is great, clean, staff is super nice, helpful and speaks English, they welcome you with a proper tour of the place and you have explanation in English for everything like heater/aircon, lights etc. The common room is big with several tables, the kitchen is a professional kitchen with everything you need, several people can cook at the same time and they provide salt, oil, soy sauce etc as well as coffee and tea. You can use washing machine for free is you stay over two nights (no dryer though). The beds are confortables even in dormitory, for now I'm alone most of the time in the room (I would just note that there is no curtains on the bed which is a bit annoying considering it's a mixed dormitory). You can walk to basically everywhere in Takayama pretty easily, bus stop is at 15min by walk. The women bathroom can be used by two people at the same time, which can be a problem if you're not okay with that but didn't occur yet are there isn't so many guests at the moment. There is a bathtub, the place is quiet at night, even though it's cold as it's a traditional kind of house there is heaters in the common room and bedrooms and heated blankets which feel amazing at night. Very good and cheap place in a...

(+) The bed sheets and the mens shower were really clean. It is an old house and the facade is quite pleasing. They had good wifi. The personnel was very helpful and kind. The availability of the kitchen is for some really good news. There was a traditional indoor grilling area.

(-) Be aware, that this is NOT a ryokan, the name is a bit misleading. This is a hostel, nothing more. The house is very old and I would not call it renovation, if it was simply made liveable a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, the layout of the rooms and the house is very uncomfortable, the strong smell of the rooms are quite disgusting (in spite of the fact that tatami was placed in the room, according to my previous ryokan experiences, the rooms still should not smell like this). The mattress was very old and und comfortable. The kitchen was okay, the old plastic glasses were not tasteful. The smoking area was approximately under my window. The toilets were not very clean, as most of the younger tourists do not seem to know how to clean after themselves. I do not recommend the hotel to families, couples or solo travellers who need privacy and comfort, because you...