Review Mercure Tokyu stay Osaka Namba

This is a new hotel (they opened during Q1-2023), with a great location in Namba district, on Mido-Suji, the Champs Elysées of Osaka, 5 min walking from the famous Dotonbori area The hotel has 2 entrances, one on this avenue cited above and the other one (the main one) in the side street. As you can imagine, everything looks very new and this hotel has a very special dark/black theme everywhere. For the common parts, it is quite nice and stylish IMO, but, in the rooms, they should have done differently as the rooms have little daylight, so the feel really very dark. All the plants you see in the common parts are in plastic. The look is great now that everything is new, but I wonder how it will looks like in a couple of years when there will be dust everywhere.

Check-in was done by a trainee. Polite but not very trained to ALL loyalty. Hotel was fully booked. I booked Superior room/Queen size bed with salon, and got Family Privilege room which is the larger room available. 

The room was on the 3rd floor, so very dark even if it was a corner room (facing buildings are very close / narrow streets). The room has a dark theme, like all the hotel, but what is really bad is that the lights are very low. Some parts of the room were so dark that I needed to use the light of my phone to see something (no joke here). It can also get noisy at night as there are a lot of people in the small street late at night. The little sofa was uncomfortable. 

Despite a relatively large room size, there was virtually no place for unpacking (you can only suspend some items but there is no drawer or shelf anywhere). I had the biggest surprise, when I opened the cabinet on the right of the picture below, to discover in…a washing machine !!!). First time I see this in an hotel room. Really useless IMHO, as you have nowhere to place your clothes to dry. 

On this picture, what you see is a mini-kitchen (there are plates, glasses, a few kitchen equipments). Below the sink are…the bathroom towels (bathroom is behind the door you see on the left of the picture). Very inconvenient as you need to think to take towels before doing anything in the bathroom. 

There was a Nespresso machine. Welcome amenity was 2 chocolate cookies. 

2 bottles of water were provided with a note saying this is it and no replenishment, but they placed new bottles every day. 

The bathroom was ridiculously composed of 3 very small rooms, so you were feeling very cramped everywhere. Knowing that this hotel is new, along with the building they are in, I don’t understand why they did not arrange the room differently to have a slightly larger bathroom and some place for your clothes. 

Housekeeping : specific rules apply. On the back of your room door, you have 3 big magnets about your housekeeping wishes : full, limited or none. You have to place your choice on your door before 11 am otherwise no housekeeping will be provided. 

The restaurant is on the 2nd floor, breakfast buffet was OK, significantly better than at Mercure Ginza. There is a part with sofas and armchair that are used as a bar. This part is open only in the evening. To redeem the drink voucher, it is either at the little café on 1st floor before 18:00 or at this « bar » from 18:00. Menu at the restaurant is not very inspiring (almost only western options). 

Overall, it’s certainly not a bad hotel, but the very dark rooms and strange design do not lead to any WOW effect. I could certainly return, but the nearby Swisshotel is maybe a better option (no personal experience) ?

Points posted correctly and quickly.