OsakaWino

We stayed 2 nights this past Sun and Mon. Had a very aggravating experience checking in, but I’ll leave the rant for a later post. Here is a summary of my general impressions.

First, the property is truly beautiful. The materials used are of exceptional quality, IMO easily exceeding either PH Tokyo or PH Vendome. Both the materials and design are quite similar to the Kyoto Geihinkan, the state guesthouse that is used to welcome foreign dignitaries. The gardens are also gorgeous.

The location has its plusses and minuses. Kiyomizu-dera, Yasaka-jinga, Yasaka-no-to, and Chion-in are all a short walk, and of course Kodai-ji is across the street. There are lots of other temples and shrines within walking distance. But on Sun afternoon Ninenzaka, the road in front of the hotel, was packed with people. On Tue afternoon there were mostly only Asian tourists, but still a relatively large amount of foot traffic that seemed likely due to the ample tour bus parking space at Kodai-ji.

There are some areas that do not seem that well designed. The lobby/Living Room arrangement seems strange. The lobby is too small, and everyone has to walk right through the middle of the living room to go between the lobby/entrance and the rooms. There are 2 small counters in the lobby, but I have no idea how they are differentiated, when we were there for check-in the staff at both counters were mostly helping guests with sending packages back home. Re the Afternoon Tea, we were in the lobby 1-2:30 pm on Sun and only about 20% of the tables in the Living Room were occupied, not impacting the lobby area at all. The same at 5 pm. At 4 pm on Tue the Living Room was about 50% occupied, but the lobby was quite full with guests waiting to check in. From what I saw, the Afternoon Tea did not impact the lobby area, and the long wait for check-in is primarily due to their inefficient check-in process.

The open-air passageways to get to floors 5-7 and to go to the Yasaka restaurant and the bar may seem nicely brisk right now, but I wonder how guests will like making the trip without a coat when the temperature is near freezing next month, or in the occasional snow flurries, or in windblown rain.

The Bath House is pretty much useless. There are robes and slippers in the lockers, but there is nowhere to go in them; maybe they think you can put them on and seat in the locker area. The 2 saunas are only large enough to hold 2 persons of average size, and even that would be a squeeze. I went into the steam sauna, but the temperature was so low it actually felt cold. The bath is not too bad, but the 2 washing stations are claustrophobically narrow and difficult to use. Each station has a body shower just on one wall, making it kind of a quarter-body shower.

As mentioned by others, the 5th floor Tea Room is a nice space, but there is no “tea”, just room-temp bottled water, so not sure what the name is supposed to mean. Also, it is not serviced well and there is no place for guests to place used bottles/glasses, so throughout the day most of the tables have half-empty bottles and a glass or 2 sitting on them.

We ended up with a Deluxe King room. The room is well appointed, again the finest-quality materials throughout. At 68 m2 there is certainly a lot of space, but it is not all that well utilized. The bed is very firm, which is sure to make some guests unhappy. The easy chairs at the table are fairly comfortable to sit in, but not that great for dining and probably even worse to try to work in. They refer to the sofa-like piece as a daybed but it would be much too short for an adult, and it is as hard as a tatami mat floor, with a very thin pad on it, so it feels more like a bench than anything else, and it really crowds up the space.

The bathroom is fairly nice, once again exceptional quality materials and a Dyson hair dryer. The bathtub is deep enough to soak in, but incredibly uncomfortable. Very spacious shower area, but absolutely no place to sit. Water pressure is exceptionally good. The bath amenities are one area where I think the PH Kyoto falls short vs PH Tokyo and PH Vendome. Just generic made-in-Malaysia Le Labo. I understand they also have a special Japanese brand in the suites. With all the emphasis on Japanese styling, I would think they should have Japan-made signature bath amenities in all the rooms.

There was an amenity of some Japanese snacks on the table in the room, but no card, not even a generic “With our compliments”, so we did not know what it was and had to call and ask.

We had 4 meals through room service. The service was impeccable, certainly as good as the PH Tokyo; laying out everything very nicely. Japanese breakfast on both mornings. I wanted to see if Kyoyamato was enough on the ball to vary it slightly for guests having it on consecutive days, but unfortunately it was exactly the same; this is going to disappoint some Japanese guests. The quality of Japanese breakfast was good, but I’m not so sure that it is actually better than that at PH Tokyo, except for the rice, which was exceptionally good, cooked in its own individual pot and kept warm. Dinner was from the casual Bistro menu; generous portions, very tasty, and very reasonably priced, but we wish they had something a bit more sophisticated, a bento from Kyoyamato would be nice.

Housekeeping and mini-bar service were so-so. Room was clean of course, but they forgot to refill the humidifier. We called down for some bath salts and when they brought them up they also handed me a bottle of Evian and asked me to put in the mini-bar. In the evening we called to get some extra hand towels, but they never came; 2 hours later evening housekeeping came by and we got the towels from them. Evening housekeeping is very strange; 2 staff go around the room lugging a giant bag of towels and a bunch of other things. They’re so loaded down they might as well give up and use a cart.