You got robbed. Sorry m8.
Indeed, except for the old lady in the kimono (sp?), avoid her at all expense - I spoek with another FT'er while here (I'm still here) and he said he would report her to the GM - she makes you feel like awful for asking any question (we joked that she must have some dirt on the GM, lolz).
I didn't take up the late checkout. It was the old lady although the other younger one wasn't that much better IMHO.
I apologize, I should have mentioned that your exec lounge cert also gives you buffet breakfast privileges on the secon dfloor in Aqua Blue, which I also informed (too late) to the other FT'er here who enjoyed that on his last two mornings. Night and day difference. The mango juice yesterday was incredible, and the apple juice (they rotate out a few juices daily) was also quite good and seemed fresh-pressed.
Didn't know about that, oh well...
I concur. This could be an incredible property, but they just fall short on a few. I used extra points and additional points upon arrival to get a Luxury sweet (kids in tow) and it has a single shower head, another FT'er with a JR suite has a better bathroom setup, there are only 14 channels on the TV and only 1 subtitled in English (CNN international), and the bed is hard as a rock - I asked for some down pillows to sleep on, they would only give me regular ones. I asked for two fans yesterday for some white noise for us, I only got one (put it in the living room to keep the kids asleep - it worked! I got an hour and a half extra sleep!!) heh)..
Both of my rooms only had CNN as an English channel. The first tv (in the refurbished standard room) was really making buzzing noises, to the point that I wondered whether it would explode in my face. The second tv was smaller (18-20") but without noises.
I didn't get the PC password but I have the exec lounge wi-fi password and will post it later (along with a better review) if I can find it again..
I have the wifi password saved on my PC if anyone needs it, don't know if it is wise to post it here or not.
I can't be more angry about the shuttle. It's been full twice and they made us wait 30 minutes for the next one without so much as a real apology (IMO, they should have paid for a cab for us). We've missed the last shuttle twice by a few minutes (the last one runs at 6:30 PM from Kyoto Station, even though other hotels have shuttles running much later) and they will drop you off at two places in between the Westin and Kyoto Station but will NOT pick you back up there due to some silly Japanese law enacted as of June 1, 2008 (or something). Today, we quite literally missed the last shuttle by two minutes. $17 cab ride back or subway (that's twice now), and we didn't beat the shuttle
GVA: sorry I missed you, it would have been nice to meet you.
We used the shuttle once to go and once to come back. The lady at the front door told me the shuttle bus didn't pick up at the intermediate stations, on our way back the driver actually picked up a few people. Needless to say I wasn't that happy. The lack of storage space is also weird on a bus to and from the station. On our way back we had 3 families with their kids with a lot of luggage, fitting in 15 people on the bus was a challenge. A service every 15/20 minutes would certainly be more appropriate seeing how the hotel is out in the woods compared to downtown Kyoto.
The subway is actually a nice way to get around the city. We took it today to get to Nijojo castle then spent 45 minutes on the 12 bus to Kinkakuji temple. On our return from Ryoanji temple, we were lucky to have a JR bus just show up there and took that to Nijo station. What a difference that made, the bus took about 15 minutes and the subway was about a 10-15 minute ride and about 200yards away from the hotel.
Too bad we missed each other.