Stayed in May 2023.

Booking: Used 85k certificate from Brilliant. Cash rates were around 170k JPY / $1200 USD at that time for the cheapest room. Currently they are about 200k JPY / $1450 USD.
Asked concierge for a restaurant reservation which was handled quickly and easily. Titanium at time of stay.

Location: It is very centrally located which makes it easy to get around. Lots of restaurants within walking distance. About 10 min taxi ride from Kyoto Station.

Lobby & check-in: I arrived via taxi and then was escorted directly to the room for in-suite check in on the 5th (top) floor. I booked the lowest category with the certificate and was upgraded 6 times to the Garden Terrace Suite.

Room:
In short this room is awesome. I don't know of any other city hotel (please enlighten me!) that has a huge private zen garden. It really feels like you are living in a remote area but then you walk outside and have all the comforts of a city. They recently changed the website to the Marriott format so it's harder to directly compare room types.
Their website has changed, but here is the video from the old site: https://s7d2.scene7.com//is/content/...race-Suite_DMR
I didn't have any problem with the AC but it also wasn't hot during the stay.

The interior of the room is classic RC style. One annoyance is that the TVs do not have some sort of automatic swinging mechanism, you need to operate it manually. But who needs to watch TV when you can hang out outside in the garden?

This is the previous site so you can compare room types more easily: https://web.archive.org/web/20220701...mpareRoomTypes. I have mirrored it in this chart below:



As you can see there are not many suites so if you want a specific one I would just book it and not gamble on getting it. From looking at the floor plans:

• Garden Suite is just looking at the garden through glass
• There are 4 Garden Terrace Suites which are the best rooms in the property. Garden Terrace Tatami is the same thing with tatami beds, but there is only 1 of them.
• The larger suites offer more living space or dining space, but that was quite unnecessary for 2 people. None of the others have private gardens.
• Suite TSUKIMI has an open air pavilion/terrace next to the river but does not have the same garden aesthetic.

The normal rooms in the property and other suites are not special to me, I would only return in this room category.

I was able to get a 4pm late checkout. The normal welcome amenities and note were there.

Food/Beverage: The Japanese breakfast was pretty good, though not exceptional. It was included. They have a Pierre Herme boutique where you can buy macarons which was also good.

Pool: I really liked the pool and there was no one else there. They have a separate dry and wet sauna.

Service: I had no problems with the service or interns as mentioned above.

Conclusion: Awesome stay. Don't know if I am coming back to Kyoto anytime soon but this would be a good choice. Maybe I should requalify for Titanium...