NOHGA HOTEL UENO TOKYO — Hotel in Tokyo

On arriving, this hotel is situated and walkable distance from Ueno train station. It is well presented, modern and clean. The staff are welcoming and friendly. They understand English well and are helpful and polite. ||On checking in, the concierge immediately tried to up sell us by recommending two larger rooms for us to consider, for more money, of course. We decided to stay with our original choice, a deluxe double room, which already had a larger footprint than anywhere else we had stayed during our stay in Japan. We were not disappointed. This room was plenty big enough for two of us and our huge luggage. The rooms are nice and spacious with good storage. ||The first thing that hit us was the bed and this hit us hard! It is literally the hardest bed I have ever slept on (or tried to sleep on)! I genuinely think the floor might be more comfortable. ||I think the most disappointing thing about this is that on looking at the reviews, it appears that this has been a long-standing problem! Many people have complained and the response has always been that it is an air weave mattress which is designed specifically this way in order to benefit the patron. ||The hotel, despite multiple complaints still has no alternative solutions to help you sleep on these mattresses, for example a mattress topper. ||There was no surprise from the front desk staff on hearing our complaint of not being able to sleep the night before and they simply offered us a blanket to put under our sheet. What we actually received was two SINGLE blankets for our “large double” bed (only because we specifically asked for more than one). ||We requested a further 4 blankets and 6 pillows. They had no double blankets in the hotel! This all gave us some relief but the bed remained the most uncomfortable bed I have ever had the misfortune to slept in! ||The sting really came when we came across air weave mattresses in a shop and discovered that the hotel has chosen the hardest one available. The other two comfort levels of this mattress type would have been a thousand times more acceptable! ||We had arranged for our luggage to be transported from our previous hotel in Kyoto, direct to our new hotel. The staff were expecting the luggage to arrive having told us on checkin in when it was due to arrive. ||On day two, we arrived to the hotel after a long day in the heat and made our way to our room, only to discover a note under the door saying that a parcel had arrived for us at the front desk. ||It was our 2 large suitcases which the hotel had not bothered to arrange a porter to take to our room. I had to cart it into the lift and down the corridor by myself; disappointing when every other hotels we had stayed in had put the bags in our rooms for us. The particularly irritating part about this at the Nohga Hotel is that they had come all the way to our room to put the note through the door, but not made the effort to bring up our luggage. ||We used the laundry during our stay. It is conveniently located on the second floor. The machines only take coins but there is not any change machine in the laundry. There is a large drink vending machine, but it was half empty and not giving appropriate change usable in the laundry machines. ||Luckily front desk can provide appropriate change but it is inconveniently on a different floor. ||The two washing machines are both small as are the driers and when I was there, there were four different people trying to wash clothing at the same time, all making it a much slower process than it need be, only made worse by a lack of seating or laundry baskets in the room. I advise skipping the hotel laundry and going to a launderette instead. ||Breakfast was fine, but comparatively expensive. One of the most expensive meals we had during our stay in Japan. ||The hotel says breakfast finishes at 10am. We sat and ordered approximately 9:50am and they cleared up everything from the buffet table at 10 sharp. This means unless you are expedient in your breakfast choices it will be packed up before you get a proper chance to sample everything on offer. Probably not worth the money unless you arrived before 9:30am. ||Overall, the bathrooms were nice. The bidet and automatic seat lift were amusing and well appreciated. The shower stream was powerful and the air conditioning a welcome relief from the intense summer heat. ||Check out was painless and they looked after our bags for our last day and they gave us extra water on our return. The staff were enthusiastic, polite and accommodating for the most part and we had a pleasant stay. ||All in all, it is a lovely hotel, but failing to provide a comfortable bed in which to sleep (a basic necessity for any hotel) we would not recommend it or would we return to stay again unless a suitable solution...

Nohga Ueno hotel is beautiful, with compact and efficient design. Love the design of the shower and toilet in the room. A small changing room outside shower is much appreciated. The bed is great. It’s more towards the hard side but for us it’s very good. The communication with the hotel was smooth prior to the stay.

However, the service was a big letdown, it was enough to spoil the entire experience of the stay, no matter how beautiful or comfortable the room is.

Far before the check in date, I requested for assistance / information regarding sending luggage to the airport and how many days ahead we should do it in advance.

I was assured to do so at least 2 days before departure, and was also told to lug our luggages to the nearest 7-11 saying that the delivery service only accepts cash(apparently the hotel doesnt?). In any case, we were prepared to do. Which by the way, all other hotels in our previous stays in Japan assisted us greatly with sending the luggages, including filling up forms in Japanese etc.

Upon arrival at the hotel, which is 3 days before departure, we checked with the staff again and was assured that the luggage will be delivered on time if we send it by 2pm the next day. We were told to approach the staff on duty then and they will assist us in filling up the forms.

The next day at 7am, we lugged our luggages down, approached the counter staff and requested for the initiation of the delivery process. A male staff who was attending to us looked a little confused and went to get senior staff. This senior female staff came out exclaiming, “The weather is very bad! There is heavy snow and cold weather and your delivery won’t make it on time!” And refused to assist us whatsoever. My husband have to even nicely ask her for alternatives and which we didn’t get a reply. It was very rude.

So we made this arrangement weeks in advance because we know the high costs of taking a taxi to an airport miles away. We confirmed with the staff during check in and we were prepared to even lug our bags to 7-11. And got rejected on the day we were supposed to send because of “bad weather.”

The weather in fact, is bright and sunny. For the entire week. See picture. So is the bad weather the case or is this the case of lazy rude staff?

In the end, since it was last minute we had no choice but to fork out 30,000 for a big taxi to airport.

Because of the service, it left us with bad impression and will...

Had an extremely disappointing experience with this hotel that left a very bad taste in my mouth. My husband and I had had the most wonderful 2.5 week vacation in Tokyo and were excited to stay at this highly rated hotel on our last night before flying back home. We reserved the hotel via agoda and when we were checking in, the receptionist took an unusually long time trying to find the reservation. As we had dinner plans for our last night, we couldn't wait around the hotel and they let us leave our bags, promising to clear up the matter for when we came back. Great!

Cut to a few hours later, we check back in and are told by a hotel receptionist that there was an 'error' with the original booking and they can no longer accept the original booking but have kept the room for us. I thought that was a lovely gesture. Except that they are now charging us extra. As this was now just before midnight and we had a flight the very next morning, I felt like there was nothing to do but pay this extra fee. It wasn't until I got my credit card bill, that I saw we were charged almost $100 more than we had originally booked the room for!

What's worse is that I checked the agoda app that night and the same room was still available for even less than we had originally paid. In addition, I checked the agoda app recently and it looks as though my reservation was 'cancelled' AFTER we had stayed there, which would mean that we did in fact have a reservation but the hotel cancelled it... Such an awful way to be taken advantage of, especially in a country like Japan known for their excellent customer service and wonderful hospitality. This was not it. I was so upset, I had the worst sleep of my life (not only because the bed is hard as rocks) which made for a pretty awful 14 hour flight back home.

Furthermore, the room we stayed in had already signs of wear and tear and definitely not a place we would ever pay the amount of money for that we were forced to....