I stayed here for one night during the first week of the hotel’s opening (week of Nov. 1).

Hotel exterior

Check-in
The hotel lobby and front desk are on the second floor, as are all three restaurants and the bar. My first impression was how clean and attractive the lobby space was. Although the front desk agent was friendly, he did not recognize my Hilton Diamond status and explained nothing to me about the hotel or asked if I had any questions. I activated my digital key and used it in the elevator to access my floor and to enter my room.

Check-in counters


Pastry shop and cafe in the lobby


Wooden stairway in lobby

Room
The rooms are all located on floors 6 to 11. I reserved a Premium room of 38 sqm (one grade above a standard room of 31 sqm) but was not upgraded since this was the hotel’s opening week and it was extremely busy, but I did get a room with a better view. The room was nicely appointed with a 55-inch 4K TV, an open washroom with sliding doors that could enclose the space for privacy, a bath and shower room, a separate bathroom (toilet), a self-described mini-bar comprising an empty fridge and a drawer with glasses, cups, tea, and coffee, and a plastic hot water heating pitcher. No drinks or snack foods were available in the room for purchase. There were two chairs and a table as well as a small bar counter with chair and pleasant window view. Since the hotel was recently built, everything was in clean and pristine condition.

The TV provided comprehensive information about the hotel, dining, executive lounge, gym, hot bath, and an in-room dining menu. There was even a function that showed “Congestion Status,” in other words, how congested the hot bath, the gym, and the breakfast buffet were at that time of day. I used it successfully to avoid a crowded hot bath.


Premium room



Sliding doors enclose bathing and washing area for privacy

View of Nagasaki Station from room

Dining
The main all-day dining restaurant, De Vaert (a name that reflects Nagasaki’s Dutch influence) is off the second-floor lobby. I ate dinner there after having appetizers and drinks in the Executive Lounge. I ordered a pork loin dish with vegetables that while tasty, was a bit expensive and sparse for the 3,000-yen price. This is the same restaurant where the buffet breakfast is served. Window seats provide a nice view of the canal and Mt. Inasa.

The buffet breakfast (free for Diamond and Gold members) provided a wide selection of dishes such as eggs, bacon, sausage, shumai, potatoes, broiled fish, breads including your standard breakfast salad buffet, curry rice, miso soup, and o-kayu (rice porridge) along with sara udon (a traditional Nagasaki dish of chop suey over crisp noodles), basically everything you’d expect in a Japanese buffet breakfast with a few local favorites thrown in.

There are two other restaurants which I did not visit but are also on the second floor. One is Fukukairo, a Nagasaki-influenced Chinese restaurant, and the other is Taratsurumi, where you can eat teppanyaki, tempura, or sushi seated at counters. I believe that Fukukairo also has an outdoor terrace.
De Vaert restaurant at breakfast time
Breakfast buffet in the executive lounge

Breakfast in De Vaert restaurant

Executive Lounge
The lounge is on the 11th floor, the top floor of the hotel. I tried to use my digital key to access this floor but was denied with a recording that this was a restricted floor. Fortunately, others with access were also going there so I could enter the lounge. I explained my predicament to one of the staff and she provided me with a card key that gave me access to all floors. However, the lounge was crowded, and I couldn’t enter, so I asked them to call my mobile phone when space was available and went to the lobby bar for a drink. About half an hour later I received a call and was told I could enter the lounge. Though not terribly large, the lounge is a bright space with many windows and provides a nice view of Nagasaki. The food and beverage space is a little cramped but the food offering was significantly better than that at Conrad Tokyo’s executive lounge. Several cold white and rose wines along with sake were available in a large ice bucket while non-alcoholic cold beverages were stored in a small fridge. I drank two varieties of Chardonnay that were very good. Three cooked dishes comprising beef and rice, chicken and rice, and chili shrimp along with some cold cuts were on the food counter. There was also a selection of nuts. While good, you probably wouldn’t want to make a meal of it, especially if you’re also drinking alcohol, as there was simply not enough. The lounge is open most of the day, but cocktail time is from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.


Executive lounge





Executive lounge food during cocktail time

Seven Seas Bar
The bar is located directly opposite the check-in counters. Here you can sit at the bar or at tables and also partake of afternoon tea. While waiting for space to open in the executive lounge, I came here and drank a Yebisu beer on tap. The bar has an extensive drink menu with numerous cocktails listed. After dinner, I came here again and ordered a Blue Hawaii, which turned out to be green and not blue. I expect that someone reading this will point out that blue in Japanese can also mean green but that’s only when the Japanese word is used. In this case, “blue” when spelled out in English in the name of the drink cannot mean green. Anyway, it was my first time to drink a Blue Hawaii (though I know from photos that it is indeed blue), so I had nothing to compare it to, but I probably won’t order it again. The bartender and staff were friendly and attentive, and the bar is a pleasant space for pre- or after-dinner drinks.

Hot Bath and Sauna
On the sixth floor is a small hot bath (including a cold-water bath) with a dry sauna, like a Japanese sento. Several smaller Japanese hotel chains, such as Dormy Inn, have on-site sento but this one is much far more attractive and higher-class version. To access the baths, you must walk down a long wooden corridor and check-in at a counter on the sixth floor where you are assigned a locker that you can reset with your own combination password. The sento contains four seated washing stalls and one standing shower stall in front of a large rectangular hot bath, next to which is a much smaller cold-water bath. In front of the bath is a dry sauna that seats about six to eight people. When I arrived, only one person was there, and I had the bath to myself for most of the time. The interior is all black stone and there’s a clouded window with a view of the canal and Mt. Inasa behind the hotel. This is a nice amenity to have and one that I would almost always use.


Corridor leading to the hot bath


Entries to men's and women's baths

Locker room outside bath

Bath lockers

Gym
The gym is in a room next to the men’s and women’s baths. It is compact but is equipped with just about everything you’d need including three treadmills, a stationary bicycle, two elliptical machines, free weights, and a resistance machine. It too has a nice view and is open 24/7.



Service
Service was uniformly friendly and professionally polished in a Hilton kind of way. Although I had no need to use English, I was surprised by the excellent English skill I heard from two staff in the Executive Lounge. Nagasaki attracts many foreign tourists, so I expect Hilton will be well-staffed to serve them in English and perhaps Dutch and Chinese too. Service at check-in could have been better with the recognition of customer status and greater explanation about the hotel but given that it was the first week of opening, I’d say that service overall was better than I expected.

Location
The hotel is conveniently located across the street from Nagasaki Station within the Dejima Messe Nagasaki complex which includes a convention center, exhibition hall, and event hall. You probably couldn’t find a hotel any closer to the station, though a new hotel (a Marriott) that is just as close is under construction on the opposite side of the station. There are no shops or restaurants immediately surrounding the hotel (though there is a Family Mart directly across the street in the train station), so you must walk through the station to the other side if you want to shop and have a wider selection of restaurants.

View of canal and Nagasaki Bay from hotel


View of Mt. Inasa

Overall
Given that the hotel is part of a convention center complex, I see it primarily as a higher-class business hotel. Like many business hotels, its external design is box-like, simple, and unimpressive, but that betrays a far more attractive interior, which in its current pristine condition is impressive and a few rungs above any other business hotel in this city. The interior spaces in many areas seem to emphasize a Dutch design motif in keeping with Nagasaki’s multicultural history. Being next to Nagasaki Station, it’s bound to also attract many tourists who prefer more modern and Western-style comfort and accommodation at a higher price point. Still, there are other hotels more conveniently located for sightseeing

The design of all public spaces is highly attractive, and the rooms are clean, smart, and sufficiently spacious for people who will spend significant time outside the hotel on business or sightseeing. The executive lounge along with the hot bath and gym are tastefully done and are excellent amenities not provided in that combination in most if not any Nagasaki hotel. Although it's not a luxury hotel, it is probably one of the nicest two or three hotels in the city, and I would not hesitate to stay here again.