Hotel Tavinos Asakusa — Hotel in Tokyo

Honestly felt like I got cat-fished getting this hotel for my group.

Had I known all the issues I was going to encounter before going there I would've steered clear of the Asakusa Hotel Tavinos.

I absolutely LOVED the KYOTO Hotel Tavinos. Went here on our first trip, and was shocked at how difficult and different the Asakusa Hotel was compared to Kyoto.

Pros: good on a budget, not far away from a station and close to a lot of neat areas, but when you're in Japan everything is kinda nearby in one way or another.

Cons: The room was small. I was expecting at least a little bit more room comparable to the Kyoto hotel, but was met with a claustrophobic nightmare.

The bathrooms were even smaller. Minimal access to the shower. You can see in the pictures that you MUST slide between the wall and the sink. There's just not nearly enough room anywhere in the hotel.

I tried to get us more space but our small bathroom and our "conjoined" rooms were just literally a door separating the hallway. Glad we got it though because the lobby is a mess.

The hotel has 10+ floors with 200+ people at a given time. We saw MULTIPLE groups of schools and groups taking their summer vacation here. Normally not much of an issue, but the lobby EASILY reached max capacity certain groups coming in the morning taking up ALL access to the elevators AND ALL room in the lobby. Since you cannot go to any floor, but the floor you're assigned you cannot get together with any other friends unless you meet outside the hotel or cram yourself into the lobby. We had to settle by sitting in our cramped rooms on video chat while in the same hotel just to talk.

The elevators are abysmal. Each of the 3 elevators has just enough space to fit 2 people with 1 luggage each and due to 200+ people trying to use them at random times you can easily spend 5 mins waiting to get to your room when it's NOT busy. That's not including what I mentioned above where groups of people just checking in flood the lobby and 1st floor and makes 5 mins for an elevator seem fast. The longest time we took to get 5 ppl up the elevator just to go to our room one night was just shy of 15 mins. Unacceptable.

The beds,mattress, and sheets were not properly fitted so they slid around all night. Not very comfy and very hard to sleep well in. The pillows have a hard side that I'm assuming is to help keep from sliding on the mattress, but it's extremely uncomfortable. Plus you must plan to leave your room every 3 days as they clean the rooms and change sheets so they require you leave. Not much of an issue, but if you're sick or exhausted you're forced down to the lobby every 3 days at a minimum.

Some rooms have better spacing than others. Half of our rooms had a useless space in front of the TV at the foot of the bed that was part of the bedframe that we were forced to use for storage space while others had a slightly larger floor so they could actually store some items in the room.

The windows are frosted and or have little to no view.

The rooms have a large amount of dust. Despite cleaning every 3 days. Theres a shocking amount of dust in the vents and even in the bathroom. The dust will stick right to your lungs.

The AC despite being there was off at random times. A good 80% of the time we went to our floor we realized the entire floor had no running AC. Now usually I don't care but when it's 10 minutes for an elevator on the 8th floor and it's hot, i want that AC turned ON.

And lastly, even checking in was a struggle. Only 1 of the reservations were linked to my passport so it required staff to assist. Then it required all of us to give our passports and they even questioned one of my friends names, saying "Jose" is too short of a name and doesn't seem real. Does that even matter if it's on their passport?

That being said, the staff was friendly, I liked all the accommodations, but it's a FAR cry from how hospitable the KYOTO Hotel Tavinos is. I doubt I will ever be going back to this hotel in Asakusa. I'll stick with Kyoto but I am extremely disappointed in...

TLDR: it looks nice in online pictures, but you will feel catfished staying here. other tokyo hotels in a similar price point are in better locations, with nicer amenities and rooms.

My partner and I booked for a 4-night stay at this hotel. We slept terribly the first two nights, and found ourselves absolutely dreading returning to the hotel by the third night. We decided to cancel the remainder of our stay and book our last two nights in tokyo at another hotel.

Our main complaints were the following:

The room smelled of cigarette smoke from our first step in.

The bedding, though it looks nice in the photos, was very scratchy against the skin and felt like poor quality polyester.

The duvet cover does not button up at the bottom, so if you move around in your sleep at all you end up tangled up in it, and coming into contact with the yellow, stained duvet underneath.

On a double bed, you get two pillows (one per person,) and the pillows are thin, lumpy, and hard. It’s about as good for you as sleeping without a pillow.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find our air conditioner unit was leaking and creating a wet spot on the carpet.

We were halfway through a long trip and decided to use the laundry service in the hotel to refresh some of our clothes. They charge 400yen for a 30 minute wash cycle, and 100yen per 15 minutes of dryer cycle. After two dryer cycles, our clothes were still damp. It was late at night, so we decided to hang them in our room so they could finish drying. Except they stayed damp, and ended up being unwearable. Most other hotels provide free laundry, and you’d hope that after two of their drying cycles might be somewhat dry. This was a bit frustrating.

The hotel is largely self check-in and self check-out, but when we did interact with staff they were kind and helpful. The staff are the best part of this place.

The hotel is very nice looking in the pictures online, which is why we chose to stay here. The manga aesthetic is really cool and the atmosphere seems foreigner-friendly, but I promise any other hotel in Tokyo will be just as foreigner-friendly and will actually be comfortable to stay in, for a similar...

This review is mainly to aid tourists and is only based on my own experience, so do take it with a pinch of salt.

Pros: • Multiple charging ports, including right behind the bed. • Things like slippers, pyjamas, and toothbrushes were free of charge. • Conveniently placed light switches. • Good shower pressure and heating, it was the best part of my day when I stayed in winter. • Great housekeeping, the lady that cleaned our floor was amazing and very accommodating despite all our shopping bags in the room.

Some things to note: • Close to Tsukuba Express (that can take you to Akihabara in 5 min), but FAR from Asakusa Station (that takes you to Narita Airport) and should not be marketed as such. It's about a 25 min walk, which is not convenient if you have luggage. However, Tawaramachi Station (Ginza Line) is about 10-15 min away if you want to go sightseeing. • Room size is very small. Ideal for solo travellers but not for pairs, unless you have very minimal luggage. There is only room to open one luggage at a time. • The window in my room was very small, so there was no natural daylight. The blinds in my room were difficult to open as well (not like there was anything to see anyway). • The television is virtually useless to foreign travellers as it only has Japanese programs. There is no Netflix or any other form of entertainment. • There is no refrigerator in the room, as many others have said, but I also understand that there is simply no space to have one. • There is no counter space apart from the narrow ledge next to one side of the bed. There is a foldable table, though. • Lounge area lacked serviettes or cutlery. Since the only microwave in the hotel is there, I would think it's necessary to have those things available. • Some foreign staff were probably more comfortable speaking Japanese than English because they looked perplexed when I asked them things, but that's not a real issue. • We also weren't told about breakfast at check-in.

In conclusion: good for solo travellers and short stays and for those who don't...