APA Hotel Asakusa Kuramae Kita — Hotel in Tokyo

After a 4-day trip to Asakusa, I found that this APA Hotel has the major advantage of being close to Senso-ji Temple. However, there are a few things to consider when making a reservation. Potential guests should keep the following points in mind.

Reservation and Check-In

The standard room photos on the booking site showcase a view that allows for plenty of natural light. However, after reading previous reviews mentioning blocked views, I requested a higher floor. I thought that would help avoid any issues.

Despite my request, I was assigned to the 3rd floor, which was quite surprising. This hotel has rooms from the 2nd to the 19th floor. After making a request again at check-in, I was able to move to the 7th floor. However, even with a wall view, I was informed that "refunds are not possible," so I had no choice but to pay for my 3 nights and stay.

Cleaning

The official cleaning schedule is limited to once every three days. However, an elderly cleaning crew member asked me to place a sticker on my door if I wanted cleaning. Fortunately, the cleaning crew provided daily cleaning and towel changes.

Others

While this is an APA hotel, there is no large public bath. Instead, they recommend a sauna facility just two blocks away. The hotel corridors have several areas without flooring, so caution is needed when traveling with children. The laundry machine usage time has been changed from 9 PM to 3 PM. Cups are provided as wash cups and disposable drinking cups, and there are no cups in the common ice machine. It's a good idea to bring your own...

I had an extremely bad experience in this hotel. Me and my companion/fiancé booked a room here in 11/29. My fiancé applied for a US visa at 11/28, and the passport was collected by US embassy, to issue a visa. It usually takes a week to get the passport back. When checking in, we explained very clearly why my fiancé didn’t have the original passport at hand right now, and we showed the front desk the scanned passport, the expired passport and even US driver license. But the front desk still refuse checking in for him. It has been 9:30 pm already, with three large luggages and after a long day walk. After this terrible experience we did worry about our following itinerary in Japan. But all the three following hotels in Kyoto accepted his scanned passport. Almost one week passed, now looking back that night, I sensed the discrimination of the staffs of this APA hotel against us as we are Chinese. So I do want to post this review and express our frustration and anger.

Update: interesting, the official reply also mentioned that the law requires the copy of the passport, not original passport. We provided the scanned passport, but still got refused. (I don’t know how to reply to the official reply by APA, so I...

Very Disappointed – Would Not Recommend This Hotel

We just checked last evening after a long day of traveling, and the experience has been extremely disappointing. Our whole family, including two tired children, was hoping to get some rest. However, upon entering our room, we were shocked to find that the cleanliness was far below acceptable standards (please refer to the attached photos) and there were even mosquitoes in the room. When we reported this, the front desk was unhelpful and told us that there was no option to change rooms. If we weren’t satisfied, we could check out.

It was already past 8 PM, and this was our first time traveling to Japan. We had chosen this hotel assuming we could relax as soon as we arrived — instead, we had to waste time dealing with a situation caused entirely by the hotel’s poor housekeeping and lack of responsibility.

No compensation or meaningful apology was offered. This hotel failed in both cleanliness and basic hospitality. Not recommended, especially...