Apa Hotel Ueno Eki Minami — Hotel in Tokyo

When coming to Japan as a westerner, you must understand that the room sizes will be significantly smaller here - this is to keep energy and space efficient for all guests, that’s Japan! Me and my partner booked the single room with double bed, the space is utilised well and location was great for us as we only stayed one night so we could take the ueno skyliner straight to Narita airport to go home and it was perfect walking distance. The bed is very comfortable and a good size, the amenities have everything you need. Other reviews are correct about the room being quiet warm due to central heating / cooling, we stayed end of winter / start of spring and as it was still cold outside so the room was quiet warm without any heating / cooling on. We slept with the window open and that made it a nice temperature for us as the bedding is very warm and cosy too! We just wore ear plugs so the outside sound wouldn’t disturb us. There is ample storage for luggage, we had the biggest sizes of suitcase that you can take on international flights and they fit well underneath the bed and our carry on was fine in the room entrance, lots of hanging space aswell for clothing / jackets. If you are staying more than a few days this may not be the best room to use if you need to continually open up large baggage and spread out your things - remember you get exactly what you pay for! Budget hotels in Japan will all be this size if not smaller - for majority of our trip we used airbnbs to have that space so I recommend that for longer stays and they can still be within a decent budget. They had breakfast included in our price however it gets quite busy in the morning after 8:30am which we are informed by in the information guide. The lobby does get quite packed and busy during check in times (3pm) however it was an easy process you just have to have patience, they also store luggage which made it a lot easier for us and didn’t include any extra charges like a luggage locker at stations have however there are options for that close by aswell and only cost a few 100 yen. Overall for a budget hotel it was clean, tidy, well organised and worked for our last stop on our long trip! Service was...

Absolute trash hotel experience and I would avoid it at all costs! Here’s why:

You do not control the AC or the heat. It’s one or the other and so the majority of the time it was super hot in our room (even when it’s cold outside, it was November). I had a terrible time sleeping and was exhausted half our trip because it was so hot in our room and the only option was to turn the heat on.

We booked online and set our arrival time (it asks you for that). Got there 30 min later than I had put down due to a short flight delay. We check in and right as we are heading to our room another worker comes up with his phone on google translate telling us that they gave our room to someone else because we were 30 min late and didn’t let them know. Turns out it was slight translation error and they were “in the process of possibly giving our room to someone else” but either was it was quite insane to be harassed like that at 11:30pm for being 30 minutes late on a soft arrival time? And I say harassed because the guy was not nice about it.

Cleaners either stole our money or threw it away. I got a bunch of coins because there are a lot of cash things here and so I was keeping them in one of the coffee cups on our table. They cleaned our room and the cup was gone when we got home that night - possibly they threw it away but more likely it was stolen (around $15 USD)

The force you to clean the room. We sometimes prefer cleaners to not come but they did anyway and not only did they come but they came at 10:30am. We were asleep after a really late night and they came in the room and literally woke us up so they could clean. Like we were asleep in bed and they came in (I assume their knock was really quiet and didn’t wake us up) but since the knock did not wake us up they decided they should just do it themselves. Absolute insanity that a hotel would do this (never happened to me in my entire life of visiting 27 different countries).

I really really really recommend that you do...

I recently stayed at this hotel, drawn in by its “Japan Pride” branding, but my experience was far from what I expected.

The room was extremely dusty. No matter how often I wiped the surfaces, a layer of white dust would reappear shortly after. Even turning off the air conditioning didn’t fix the issue.

Housekeeping started their duties at 9 AM, and since my room was near to the storage area, I was constantly disturbed by loud noises that made it impossible to rest.

I placed a “Please Clean” sign magnet on my door at noon 11.30 am, but upon returning in the evening, I found that the room hadn’t been serviced.

They don’t refill their essential items like hand soap, shampoo, or conditioner unless you specifically request it at the receptionist. I ended up purchasing my own toiletries to avoid my feelings that may upset when ask any help from receptionist.

It seemed that the hand soap was filled with much water, making it feel unclean.

I found some junior male receptionists had difficulty understanding English and even blamed me for the miscommunication, he said that my English was poor. This was surprising, considering I regularly work with international employees. He is unprofessional and rude. It was only after speaking with a more senior staff that the situation was somewhat resolved.

• One good thing I found during stay here is...