Introduction For this Japan trip to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary, we stayed 2 nights here at the Ritz-Carlton Kyoto, following a previous 5 nights across town at the Suiran Kyoto (Luxury Collection) in the Arashiyama area. Before Kyoto, we started with 3 nights at the Prince Gallery Tokyo Kioicho (Luxury Collection), and we ended our trip with 3 nights at the St Regis Osaka. While I was trying to maximize my SPG Ambassador status fior this trip, I also had heard this particular Ritz-Carlton property was very good--and the Marriott/Starwood merger's 3:1 Marriott/SPG ratio made the 2 night award stay cost only 56.7K points. I expected that the chance to spend a full week on both sides of Kyoto would be a good thing for us--and it was. As it turns out, in March I happened to notice on marriott.com that our entry level award room had been upgraded to one of the hotel's three Suites Kamogawa--the third best suite type in the hotel. I was pretty stunned, actually! I chalk up the upgrade to the hotel trying to celebrate our wedding anniversary AND as a service recovery for its rough start in how poorly its concierge team originally handled us. (See below under service.)The Ritz-Carlton Kyoto is a beautiful and modern Western luxury hotel offering the more traditional luxury hotel experience. With 134 total rooms, the property is only a few years old, having opened in 2014. It is located centrally in Kyoto's historic eastern district, very close to the city's famous Gion district and very close to many of the most famous and most touristed temples and shrines in the city.RC Kyoto is located right on the Kamogawa river.Not the prettiest hotel exterior we'd ever seen, but it's a reasonably modern attempt to recreate a low Japanese style ryokan building, I guess.There's a lovely walking trail right below the hotel along the river:Entering the hotel, you find the entry lobby and concierge desk (which we never visited, during our stay, oddly enough):That opens into the main lobby and lounge of the hotel:The lobby was split by a dramatic descending staircase to the basement level, where the Mizuki restaurant was located:Across from the lobby lounge side of the staircase was the Pierre Herme Paris Boutique that reviews rave about but which we never visited. It did look yummy, though.Past the boutique was reception and a reception seating area:The elevator area:At the end of the hotel halls, pas the elevator bay, was La Locanda Italitan restaurant and bar, where breakfast is also served:Private dining areasownstairs was the Mizuki restaurant (with separate seating areas for Tempura, Sushi, Kaiseki, and Teppanyaki):The Tempura counter where we dined our first night:The lower basement level also had banquet function spaces and a very cool but what seemed to be an under-utilized bar:I actually had to change clothes in the spa to get ready for our lunch at Gion Sasaki on our arrival day--but I was too rushed to take any photos. Sorry!The elevator bay on the 4th floor:Overall, the RC Kyoto is a beautiful hotel with a pretty dramatic aesthetic yet intimate sense of scale. There really weren't any overly grand or cavernous spaces or venues that made you think you were in a huge hotel--and that made the design more successful and much more luxuruous and comfortable, in my opinion. (That is especially true in contrast with our visit at the Four Seasons Kyoto, but not as true as at the far more intimate Suiran.) Check In Check in was a bit nutty--as we actually arrived twice! We first arrived from Suiran across town around 11:15 am and quickly dropped off our luggage while I changed in the spa for our 12 pm lunch at Gion Sasaki. They couldn't have been more gracious and helpful, with one reception agent escorting us to and from the spa and making sure our bags were handled as we went off to lunch. We returned to the hotel around 2:00 pm, and our check in was almost immediate. They asked us to wait in the seating area, where almost immediately the head concierge and guest relations manager introduced themselves and apologized again for our initial problems with the concierge (again, see service below). They sort of suggested again that our upgrade to the Suite Kamogawa was an attempt to recover from that poor experience. It was a very nice and gracious welcome.The front desk agent then took us to our suite and finished check in there. She also made sure we knew all the details for the suite. We were finished with check in and settled in our suite by 2:30 pm. Not bad for a hotel with a 3 pm official check in time! Room Our 4th floor Suite Kamogawa was beautiful and is one of the nicest upgrades we've ever received--and we've had some upgrades! As a means of service recovery for our rough concierge start, though, this ranks right up there as one of the best upgrades we've ever had. It's still amazing that we got this on points.Our suite was on the 4th floor, the highest for the Suite Kamogawa category. That's our suite, jutting out on the corner of the 4th floor:The beautiful door opened to lovely artwork:The entry corridor ended to the right of the entryway at the powder bath with the visible closed door, with an open door onn the left side into the master bedroom.The spacious powder bath:The Toto toilets were wonderful but didn't have the motion sensor functions that we'd enjoyed at the Prince Gallery in Tokyo.Walking into the suite living room on the other side of the entryway, you see how spacious, beautfully modern, and warmly inviting it is: Welcome note wishing us a happy anniversary, along with some champagne:We often closed the manual blinds to the left of the TV since it was possible for someone in a room down the wing to see into the suite. No such isse with the other window:The view of the Kamogawa River outside, for which the Suite is named:The bedroom was incredibly spacious, more like a junior suite to itself:The TV built into the wall was cleverly designed to rotate as needed, so you could watch it from the sitting area or the bed:You can see the one doorway into the living room:The other doorway to the entry hall, also showing the closed door to the powder bath:That led to the master bath:The weakest element in the whole suite was the surprisingly small and disappointing closet area--there just wasn't that much space at all.We had to spread out a little, with me even using a suitcase rack in the bedroom:We don't understand why this wasn't better designed originally. The closet could have been extended easily over the luggage above with more drawers and a longer hanging bar at very least. The GM and Assistant GM, whom we both met ast check-out, indicated they were aware of the problem and planned to fix it in a coming refurbishment. It sounded like that might be coming sooner than later.The air con worked like magic. We kept the living room warmer for my husband:While I kept the bedroom more to my liking:The only real drawbacks were the storage of our luggage/clothes, and the rainfall shower area feeling a little claustrophobic with its wooden platform not feeling terribly comfortable on which to stand. It often felt like it might pop up and wasn't totally fastened in place, though we very much liked the warmth the wood brought to the aesthetic.We really enjoyed and were pretty comfortable overall with the Suite Kamogawa. We highly recommend it--especially after they fix the closet issue! Service Service overall was excellent--and this was the first hotel where we largely avoided English language issues. There were a few tricky moments on the phone with the operator/guest relations staff, but we barely had language challenges at this hotel. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the concierge--and the major problems I had at the outset. The concierge originally was non-responsive, not helpful, not encouraging, and fairly dismissive of our requests for restaurant bookings and special requests. The concierge didn't even have the correct signature properly identifying the position. The concierge on several occasions sent us a formulaic list of options in response to my very specific queries--not impressive at all. The concierge didn't respond at all on multiple occasions, requiring me tio follow up after a few weeks of no answers. The contrast with the incredible Suiran concierge and that of the RC Kyoto concierge was appalling and shocking. That made me wonder if we should even stay at the RC Kyoto. So in Dec 2017, I emailed the GM and Director of Rooms to voice my complaint and concerns. I got their attention. Immediately, I heard back from both and had the Director of Rooms on tiop of things. But from that point forward, the concierge team was FAR better. At the time, I had wanted to book 3* Nakamura for our 2nd dinner and 2* Gion Sasaki for our 1st lunch (on our arrival day),. Suiran had offered to book Gion Sasaki for us after I had concerns about the RC Kyoto concierge. But the RC concierge actually managed to book us for Nakamura in Jan--well before the 2 months window normally required to make that booking. I know the hotel had to have pulled in a favor and used its connections in order to recocver from the original failures. I was quite impressed with that.I decided to let the RC Kyoto take the shot at Gion Sasakim, known as one of the toughest gets in town. They got it done, and that lunch was possibly the most fun meal (as well as delicious) of our entire stay in Japan. So the concierge team DID come through. Big time. I really felt they became very responsive, thorough, and genuinely helpful after my intiial complaint. I didn't even know until March that the hotel had pre-upgraded us to the Kamogawa Suite as another sign of service recovery. And once we were close to arrival and wanted to switch things around (and actually cancel Nakamura in the end!), the team couldn't have been more accommodating and easy to work with, They canceled Nakamura and told us not to worry. They made sure to get Gion Sasaki to have its air con turned on for me. They booked us into their hotel's 1* Tempura Mizuki for dinner our first night. They allowed us to stick with our tour guide from Suiran for our tour already booked through them.So the concierge service started rough,...but ended up being fantastic. We ended up getting everything we wanted for our stay. Major kudos to the hotek for hearing my complaint and taking very effective and very generous action.The only other issue we had involved the sommelier at their La Locanda restaurant--we felt he was very nice but surprisingly unhelpful in assisting us in selecting our wine for dinner on our final night.Otherwise, service at the hotel was pretty much perfect. Restarant service was impeccable at both breakfasts and dinners. Bellmen and valets were great, and usually know our names! Housekeeping was excellent and went above board for us whenever we needed something extra. We started out a bit rough, but the RC Kyoto came through in spades. It was an excellent service experience overall. Dining Dining here was phenomenal. Considering we had a total of 21 Michelin stars over our entire Japan trip, the facxt that we were sio pleased here should really say something!We were warned at check in that breakfast can be crowded so we were advised to majke a reservation. The agent went ahead and booked us for 8 am both mornings, and we were glad she did. It was definitely crowded both Thurs and Fri mornings.The breakfast buffet was laid out in an awkward fashion in my opinion, but the spread was very impressive and the food was outstanding.The breakfast buffet was laid out partly on the bar, and partly in the corridor between dining rooms.In the hallway between rooms:The narrow hallway for the buffet was a bit awkward. In my opinion, they should move the hallway buffet to the main dining room near the bar somehow to keep it more convenient, or at least move the hallway area to the second dining room for better space.My husband said the spread looked more impressive at the Prince Gallery Tokyo but that this food was a bit better overall.The cooked food was also delicious:That French toast was particularly outstanding. So we order it again the next morning--me without raisins since I'm allergic, and my husband's with the normally offered raisin bread.But as good as breakfast was, dinners were even more impressive.The hotels' Mizuki restaurant has offerings for Tempura, Siushi, Kaiseki, and Teppanyaki. But the Tempura Mizuki is a 1* Michelin restaurant. So we decided to try Japanese Tempura here. And my, was it amazing.Our Tempura chef was friendly, engagingm, and spoke some English:We decided we'd had enough tasting menus thus far and instead would go a la carte. We ended up spending WAY more money because it was so good and we kept ordering more! Dinner was about $650--but worth every penny. It was SO good.That's top grade Kobe beef. We had it three times. Color us impressed. If you go to the RC, don't miss the Tempura! And we don't even like fried foods!The next night for dinner, we originally had planned for 3* Nakamura--but just couldn't bear to do any more kaiseki after already having done 3* Kitcho, 3* Wayamamura, and 2* Gion!So we instead ate Italian at the hotel's La Laconda. It was fabulous!Well, the Ritz-Carlton Kyoto deserves high praise for its food/beverage and dining options. The food was insanely good at every restaurant we tried. Even if you don't stay here, it would be totally worthwhile to dine here! If we had been here longer, we most certainly also would have tried the teppanyaki and sushi.Thumbs up, big time! Excursion to mountain temples and shrines We weren't as excited by the crowds at all of the "must see" temples that were closer to the RC. We had visited the Ginkaku-ji "Silver" Temple only 2 days before while still staying at Suiran, and we despised the crowds at all of the temples on this side of town. It just wasn't relaxinfg nor offering the serenity that we craved--and which was the whole point of such temples, shrines, and gardens in the first place!Since we still had the services of our tour guide from Suiran, who by this time had already toured with us over many days and knew what we preferred and wanted, we decided to go a bit further afield into the mountains on this side of Kyoto, hoping to escape the crowds--and the day's excessive heat, our hottest day in Japan at almost 32 C.We highly recommend going outside Kyoto to these more remote temples and shrines--both on the eastern/northern side closer to the RC and on the western side by Arashiyama.The highlights of our day included below, hopefully illustrating why going out of the city and to less touristed sites is worthwhile: Location For those who want to be closest to the Gion and most of the historical center of eastern Kyoto, along with many of the "must see" temples and shrines on tourist lists, the Ritz-Carlton is a perfect choice. It is walking distance to the Gion and even some of the major temples. It is much better located to me than the Four Seasons, which is another 15 min taxi ride to the south.Of course, we found the more urban location less enticing, less relaxing, and less than the Arashayima area on the western side of town, where we'd just stayed for 5 nights at Suiran. It's about a 30 min drive or 20 min train ride to Arashiyama. Overall We really loved the Ritz-Carlton Kyoto. While we certainly preferred the Arashiyama area on the other side of town, the RC offers beautiful and luxuriuous accommodation with some of the best dining of any hotel in the world. The service, while maybe not perfect, is still excellent overall--and the hotel obviously takes that good service record seriously. Its recovery from a poor service encounter was one of the best we've yet experienced.We also took the time to visit the Four Seasons Kyoto to get a sense of the differences between the properties. The FS is also a beautiful property, offering a reconstructed garden and lake onto whch many rooms and suites look--a peaceful view indeed. Howver, the FS is located well south and not as conveniently as the RC, and the FS restaurants do not have nearly the same acclaim. We liked the FS a lot, but we would rather pay for the RC location and dining if we had to choose between them. (Of course, we preferred Suiran over all of them!)You will not go wrong with the Ritz-Carlton Kyoto. We now understand why so many people consider it to be among the best RC properties--and among the best luxury hotels--in the world. We definitely agree!