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Old Jan 2, 2023 | 4:58 pm
  #297  
AStarr
5 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Portugal
Programs: *G, VS Silver, HH Diamond
Posts: 631
Conrad Osaka Christmas 2022

Some background: I had some difficulty as mentioned above with trying to get arrangements for airport pickup, restaurants, and the spa through the concierge ahead of time and reached out to Hilton Customer Service directly. The Director of Operations herself ultimately booked everything for me and she's marvelous in terms of I didn't want to lift a finger and therefore didn't. I haven't travelled in a couple of years, so I really did not want to do anything except spa, Japanese food, and maybe aimless wandering. They were happy to oblige. Also, it was my birthday, of which I have had several years of terrible birthdays, so this trip was well overdue

Pardon the quality of the photos. I had not initially intended to post here

I booked on points as a Diamond member. Upgrades were limited or scarce as I was upgraded to the King Premium View room. No corner. However, this room is bigger than my current apartment and it's pretty nice. The bathtub is the size of a tiny pool, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It fills pretty fast, too. Conveniently in the same room as the shower. The shower has great water pressure for long hair washing and rinsing on both the ceiling and from the wall attachment. There's not much in the way of safety gadgets if you get stuck in the bathtub though.

Room temperature was great. It nearly froze while I was there, but the room was never too hot or cold, and I never adjusted the temperature.

Fabulous water pressure

Bed was quite cosy. Not overly hard nor too soft. None of that "two beds squished together" nonsense. Johann says more pillows. There are only four. Pillows were great.

There is some road noise from this side but mainly from emergency vehicles. It's not overly loud though. I believe the sake amenity is standard for Diamond members? Or room standard for all bookings?

All of the usual suspects and some extras: cotton buds, emory board, razor, shave gel, toothpaste, tooth brush, folded brush, fluffy bath mat, flossers, and more. A very nice size toothpaste

Some of the amenities in the room are standard and some were personalised. Then there were turndown service specific amenities. It was a little difficult to differentiate what was what but I think I sorted through everything. The sake pictured above is some kind of standard, as it's referenced a lot here. I'm not sure about the sweets with the macaron and the meringue. The chocolates pictured below came with turndown service. The champagne I think was for me, but arrived during my turndown service request.

Everything presented here was delicious.

The hearts were tart. I think the plain square was my favourite.

If you get this and don't drink it in the bathtub, well, you're missing out.

Last up: food. I went to Kura, had breakfast in Atmos, tried out the tea service in the lounge, one night at the bar, and had plenty of room service. Most of the photos will be in the album out of order but should be labelled. The food was all good. I think the room service Japanese breakfast did a great job representing breakfast that was served in Atmos. However, the daily egg special in Atmos was... lukewarm both times I had it. Great concepts and delicious, just not hot to temperature. On the other hand, I had hot chocolate with room service one morning, and that stayed hot and then warm for 12 hours because I just held onto being incredibly lazy. I want one of those thermoses A warning for Kura: if you don't like seeing your food while it is alive, you may want to avoid the teppanyaki. You will watch your lobster go from it's living state to it's cooked state. It is quite tasty though. For Sky40, the hours were pretty strictly kept sitting in the lounge area. The food for Sky40 is very Western-leaning.

Japanese breakfast room service

Atmos breakfast, okonomiyaki benedict - this would have been amazing if hot

Kura, Lobster with "American" sauce

Kura, The best steak I've had in my life

For the turndown service specifically turning down the bed (of course) and laying slippers as well as the gigantic Conrad pyjama shirts. They also put two glasses and bottles of water on the bedside tables. Then they arranged the kettle and another bottle of water near the socket by the desk. There is a tea amenity with chamomile tea with a cute note next to the regular tea and coffee set up by the television. Of course more photos in albums.

Night time tea amenity

The cleaning in the room the one day was just a little under par than I had expected, it was the first day and I can't even recall exactly what it was. It was fairly minor though. I can commend their laundry and ironing service. They have a good turnaround for the express service. I know I didn't do closet photos or a hairdryer review this time. The shampoo/conditioner was reasonable, nothing overly liquidy. Not a horrific overpowering scent either (looking at you, Molton Brown). The bar soaps are a little drying. The little body towels for the bath are fantastic. Not sure what those are made of, but I would like a life time supply of those instead of wash cloths or sponges or loofahs. The bottled water brand is perfectly fine and neutral tasting.

In terms of ironing out all of the other arrangements: the spa is great. I booked a 3 hour treatment that was essentially decided on the day. Body scrub, 90 minute mssage, and facial. The idea was to land, have a late snack (Kitsune udon room service), sleep, spa, and relax before doing anything at all. I'm overworked these days. It was great. The treatment rooms have a view of Osaka or you can have the curtains lowered. They have nice showers and everything you'll need. Then I booked another 60 minute massage at the end of the week before departure. Same therapist. She remembered the aromatherapy I liked.

I went to the executive lounge during tea time. It was fine. Just some basic sweets and snacks. Not much to write home about in those terms. I didn't get around for the cocktail hour. Lounge breakfast I think was unavaible while I was there, but Atmos breakfast was pretty extensive. However, I think room service breakfast was better in some ways. Although, room service breakfast is not included and no discounts. But, all the room service prices you see are exactly what you'll pay.

As for restaurant reservations, Kura has both teppanyaki and sushi. I was originally booked for teppanyaki, then tried to change to sushi. I guess this got lost somewhere and I ended up having teppanyaki instead. They are still very much in pandemic mode, so the seating arrangements have barriers between them and bookings are made at intervals so that parties do not interact that much with each other. The 25% discount is in effect for Diamond members (yay). Out of hotel restaurant reservations: I tried to secure a last minute reservation and the hotel was able to do so for me. Ultiamtely, I wasn't able to make it and they were able to get a last minute same-night reservation elsewhere. This was due solely to logistics of not being able to be in two places at once and having had teppanyaki the night before. It was a case of "we might be able to book in for tomorrow or the next night, but probably the next night" and it ended up being the "tomorrow" which was a surprise for which I was not prepared. But the other place worked out well. That's all very confusing, but needless to say, they handled a confusing last minute reservation situation very well for me.

One final touch on the stay: they arranged my airport pickups and drop offs. I narrowly missed my HND-ITM flight despite pre-registering all of my customs, immigration, and covid information. ANA rebooked me to KIX and fortunately they arranged a pickup there instead. It was only an hour difference in arrival, but the travel time is significantly different of course. On my departure, I had an early flight to connect in Tokyo to catch the flight to Heathrow, significantly earlier than breakfast. So, they made a to-go breakfast for me with another of those croissants. And yogurt, fruit, some more pastries, a juice in a to-go cup, and a bottle of water. Unfortunately, the airport check-in hall did not open until 5:30am and we got there about 5:12am. It was fine though. I had snacks.
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