Spent a couple nights here. First stay at this hotel since 2016 or so. Overall, a good stay. Went in expecting a tiny room as usual, but received an upgrade to one of the deluxe rooms on B1F. Noticeably larger than the standard rooms, pleasant view of the gardens.

At breakfast, you have to choose either Japanese (in which case a set will be brought to the table) or Western (in which case you can choose from the buffet and pick one hot item like waffles or eggs benedict). Selection was ok, quality fine, but nothing outstanding. Pastries underwhelming.

There was no mention of a Globalist welcome drink (didn't ask, though), but an invitation to the maiko performance. It was quite terrible. 50-80 people standing in the lower lobby, fighting over glasses of barely drinkable sparkling wine, and worst of all, a bunch of elderly Brits talking loudly throughout the performance. Very disrespectful, but I guess emblematic of today's Kyoto.

For inexplicable reasons, our mid-March nights were available as "low season" redemption. Peak cherry blossom season is still a couple weeks off, but I'm inclined to say the "low season" designation was erroneous, or maybe the're just throwing a bone by designating a few nights of the year as low season. Obviously, 17k points is rather good value vs. cash rates of 60k yen and it's hard to find fault with the hotel. That said, we will revert to our pre-Covid policy of staying in Osaka and doing occasional day trips to Kyoto, and indeed our sadly limited time in Japan will increasingly be spent in more off-the-beaten-path locations.