Spent two nights here. Despite some mild hiccups, I'm inclined to rank it as top Sheraton in Japan.
We flew into Kagoshima Airport (which has only 1-2 international flights a day) and took the Bus to Kagoshima-Chuo station. Wanted to grab a cab, but saw a Sheraton shuttle bus pull in. It's rather convenient and runs every 30 minutes during the day (at :00 and :30 from the hotel and :15 and :45 from the station). There's a tram stop outside the hotel, which is fine for getting to the shopping area and Sakurajima ferry, but I wouldn't use it for travel to/from the station -- platforms are very narrow, a nightmare with luggage, and you'd have to transfer from line 2 to line 1. The shuttle bus ride only takes a few minutes, and I assume a taxi would be in the 1000yen range.
Arrived at the hotel around 2:30pm and were told that our room wasn't ready. They handed me some sort of "waiting for room" card and invited us to the lounge. The lounge is on the 18th floor and has a great view, and offers a small selection of cakes/fruit/cookies in the afternoon. We expected that someone would come up with our keys soon, as is customary in Japan. Nope. At 3:15pm, I inquired, and it turned out that they had forgotten all about us. Hectic typing ensued, and I was told, "your room isn't ready." This is an annoyance I've run in at a number of Bonvoys in recent years. What it means is that the computer has pre-assigned a specific room number, and that room isn't ready. I told them I don't care about that specific room, just find me any room. More typing, and they somehow came up with a Sakurajima-view room on the 11th floor (my pre-assigned room would have been on the 6th floor, which I assume would be a rather obstructed view). The room is fine for a Sheraton, modern style and Ikea-ish furniture, with a very open bathroom concept (which can be somewhat alleviated with sliding doors).
Didn't receive a welcome letter, so went up to the club lounge around 6:15pm. Well, tried going up to the club lounge, but our key wasn't coded for it. Went to the front desk to get that fixed and learned that they don't code your key for the lounge, but rather give you a separate key for the club floor. We did receive that when we waited for our room, but I handed it over to the club agent when she gave me my room keys. So do make sure you have two sets of keys. No other faffing around with vouchers here, though (breakfast, onsen, whatever).
We sat down and poured a drink from the ample alcohol selection. Wines are barely drinkable, but there is a good selection of sake. At 6:45pm, a staff member approached our table and told us that the food offerings were about to be taken away. Turns out lounge hours are 4:30-7pm here. Alcohol remains available until 8:30pm. We quickly grabbed some food, which was ok for Japanese lounge standards. The next day, we came back from a Sakurajima trip at 4:15pm and found housekeeping servicing our room. We thus went to the club lounge and I took some pictures of the offerings. The setup is ready around 4:20pm, but there are signs that food and drink start at 4:30pm. The lounge fills up (with practically only Japanese people during our stay), and at 4:29:30, staff members remove these signs and there's a mad dash to the buffet.
Breakfast is offered at the lounge on Sat-Sun-Mon, so if you're staying on those days, you have to pick restaurant breakfast as an amenity. We never checked out the lounge offerings, but breakfast at the restaurant is excellent (by Japanese Sheraton standards). Great selection of local dishes, decent Western stuff, tasty baked goods, ice cream, etc. Signs everywhere warn of crowding during peak times, but we went during the dark red times and it wan't a problem.
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Lounge:
