porphyra

Actually from all the reviews, including the one above, there is no beach at this hotel. Probably a little bit of a let down. That said, most reviews also state that the beach down the road, 10 min. walk, is probably one of the nicest on the island. So that's that. Been wanting to do quick trip down but cannot justify the cash rates or even the non-peak points.

joakgarp

Hm I wonder what the beach is called near Iraph. Back in 2015 we drove around the area but it was really nothing to see on this part of Miyakojima. The bridge was fun to drive over though.

Best beach in whole Miyakojima is Sunayama beach imo. We went there a couple of times from Tokyu Hotel and it's a 25 min ride. Very nice and clean beach. Little bit different to Yonaha beach at Tokyu resort with bigger waves and more beautiful surroundings.
Can't wait to take my kid to Miyakojima in a couple of years :-)

Edit: I think I found the beach you mentioned on Google maps
渡口の浜
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2BwaWSEArk9Bc88Q9
Looks pretty nice yeah.

CPH-Flyer

I just completed a 5 night award stay at Iraph SUI.

The property is really nice, and well kept. We had indicated our arrival to be early afternoon, and arrived around 13:30 and everything was ready for check in when we drove up.

The app had shown an upgrade to the Iraph Coral Suite. It has a huge deck on the roof of the restaurant. Which was a pleasant surprise. As ambassador the content of the minibar fridge was complimentary, and restocked daily. As my welcome gift I selected breakfast, which was excellent.

The suite had a huge dining table, a lounge area and bedroom, and as mentioned an outdoor terrace stretching the roof of the restaurant. A very nice bathroom with a huge tub and shower. Unfortunately no private pool, but there was a jacuzzi. The only slightly odd was that the TV was not really visible in the bedroom.

The dinner at the restaurant was a bit odd, as they only had quite elaborate menus, no a la carte. There was a la carte for lunch, and the quality was excellent. So was the in room dining. As there was a state of emergency, they could not serve the sunset delights aka champagne free flow in the public area. Solution was to bring a selection to the elevator hall, and people could go get supplies. For ambassador status they brought a cooler and a full sized bottle for 2 people. Started with Veuve, but from June 1st they had a new champagne partner, Bilecart Salmon.

The pool area is really nice. As mentioned there is no beach directly at the hotel, but less than 1km down the road is one of the more famous beaches. And there is a great lunch place and beach bar, Blue Turtle.

As we had the direct JAL flight at 19:45 back to Tokyo, they gave us a 5pm check out.

All in all, an excellent stay at an excellent property. Would definitely want to go back. Main tip, make sure to have a rental car. You'll need to move around to enjoy Miyakojima, and even just Irabu Island that the hotel is on.

Nagasaki Joe

I find that this property, even though it is a category 8, often goes for 65K points per night, but right now it's at 80K per night. What point rate did you get for your stay (obviously you got the 5th night free)?

CPH-Flyer

296K for the full stay. I can't remember the exact split of the days between peak/standard/off peak. There was some level of discount from Marriott running when I booked. Forgot the details of that as well....

shonanroger

Stayed here recently for one night on points. Made use of the reduced 65K point rate.
All the perks which CPH-Flyer described, free minibar and sundowner bottle of champagne, are also given to Titanium.
Booked basic room, used SNA for an upgrade to Garden Junior Suite, and was further upgraded to Garden Corner Suite. The highlight of the suite was the quite substantial plunge pool. The sea views were limited (you had to walk to the front of the garden to see the sea), but the plunge pool more than made up for it.
It’s also worth noting that the hotel provides complimentary private transport from and to one of the airports if you don’t arrive by rental car.

outgoing

We have a trip to Okinawa booked for early March 2022 and I was considering this hotel (if we are allowed in that is which is not obvious given the current state of affairs) but is the 120K Yen a normal going rate there or they just did not load any "promo" rates? If so is it worth 80K points and more so is it worth flying to Miyako-jima from Okinawa (seems that they have plenty of flights between Naha and Miyako). We will only be there for 6 nights in total. I was otherwise thinking about booking Ritz Carlton but it seems that they didn't even load any rates there for March 2022. It ends in January 2022 but with much lower prices at about 50K Yen. This will be our first time to Okinawa but we were multiple times in Japan before (mostly Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka corridor). When would it be best to book the hotels/ Thanks for any insights.

CPH-Flyer

I'd say a normal rate should be around 70K to 80K yen for a base room. 120K, seems on the high end. March does not really have any peak seasonality.

I guess it depends on what you want to do on the main island whether the Ritz is a good location. I see it mainly as a stop for golfers, it is pretty far from anything else than the golf clubs, and a bit of a trek to the beach. In most ways I'd probably prefer the Marriott resort over the RC. I have been tempted to try the Renaissance as well, though not gotten around to it. The Sheraton I have only seen from the outside, on the airport bus, but it has not inspired me to try it. When going to Okinawa main island, I recently tended to end up at the Hyatt Regency Seragaki Island (my travel partner in crime is Globalist), it is a hotel that has grown a lot on me and will probably be my first choice going forward.

Pseudo Nim

It’s a tricky one. I’m glad CPH-Flyer had a better experience than I did as far as service goes, but if you’ve never been to the Japanese islands, I don’t know if this is the best hotel to do this at. Here’s a draft flow chart for this.

1) Are you married to Marriott points? If yes then just go here. Ritz won’t do upgrades etc (unless you’re a Ritz elite), and anyway, you should try more than just Naha.
2) If the answer to 1) is No, then: are you married to chain hotels? Ishigaki has a very competent Intercontinental.
3) If the answer to 2) is No as well, then you have a whole plethora of options. Depending on how quaint / out of the way you want to go, something like Yoron would be ultra high on my list. The Precia there is “ok”, but the island vibe is special - it’s a 30 min flight from Naha, but you’re truly in another world - it’s the Japanese 80s bubble “that really wanted to be, but wasn’t”.

Which of the above is it?

Pseudo Nim

Dont do the Renaissance. It’s a terrible massive jumbo hotel with zero regard to status. I should do my write up on it.

Hyatt Seragaki is very nice. Being a new property, the service is a bit of a disaster, but they do try hard. The hard product is iffy - the rooms are already falling apart despite being barely 2 years old, but it’s a good property. The beach is sad; but that’s the case for most properties in Japan - they delimit beaches to something a 2-year-old can swim, and yell at you if you pass the buoys. Btw, at Seragaki, the way the beach is done, you have about a chest high beach at high tide and knee high at low tide. I still like it though, but the Intercontinental Manza may be a better choice.

outgoing

Thanks both, this is really helpful. We are kind of married to chains/points - if some property/island is particularly worth visiting thought we'd be happy to go there for 2 nights or something. Paying is not an issue if the rate is not too crazy (I think 70K we'd be willing to pay). I'm Titanium with Marriott and Diamond with Hilton. Funny enough my partner in crime is also Globalist. We're pretty indifferent across Hyatt, Marriott, and Hilton. We plan to have a car there on the main island and we're after sightseeing/hiking/culture/food/booze (when not driving). We're definitely not the types to enjoy cooking on the beach although a nice run/walk is always appreciated. We do like a bit of luxury feel and were blown away with Ritz Kyoto (I know Okinawa is not the same though) and hence my thought about IRAPH (although 120K is too steep for our pockets). We were thinking about Hyatt Seragaki but read some reviews about a ton of (fairly unruly) children there. This was a surprise to us b/c everytime we interacted with kids in Japan they were extremely well behaved which we attributed to the local culture.

CPH-Flyer

Noted on the Renaissance.

For Seragaki, I have been in the beach house suites for all stays except one, where it was a suite in main building. I have not found anything falling apart in any of the rooms. It has been looking really nice a new, though the first stay it was literally brand new, as it was weeks after the opened post repairing the typhoon damages. The only service mishap so far at Seragaki was when the lady greeting us at the door said we could not check in until 3pm, and we could not even be allowed to approach the front desk until 3 pm. Please sit in this corner of the lobby for the next hour and a bit. The tone changed pretty quickly though once we were greeted by other staff inside. The beach is indeed not great, and we tend to mainly for the pool area.

The beach at IC is a draw, but the main building and the pool area probably looked tried and in more than dire need of serious maintenance already 5 years ago. Currently those two areas just look downright depressing.

The suggestion for the Intercontinental Ishigaki is good one, I have not been for some years, but it seems to have remained a quite solid choice.

Pseudo Nim

Ive always enjoyed IC Ishigaki as a Royal Ambassador as I’ve always gotten the Royal Suite, so my opinion is a little slanted. It’s a good property though. Especially the new wing.

The Seragaki was a litany of small failures that I should probably write about, but the management came around to make it right. We left happy and would definitely go back again.

Nagasaki Joe

I haven't been to Miyakojima yet, so I can't answer your first question, but I did stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Naha before it was elevated to a category 8 and wrote a review of it here: Ritz-Carlton Okinawa Review. The northern half of Naha is where most of Okinawa's major resorts are located, and there are quite a few of them so you have many options.

I also stayed at the IC Ishigaki about three years ago. It's very much a mixed bag, IMO. While the hotel itself is not bad, is right on the beach, offers many activities, and is not too far from the city, the hotel is isolated and Ishigaki itself offers little infrastructure to support resort tourism. Naha, OTOH, has the infrastructure and is more attractive, IMO. Ishigaki itself is, like many Japanese cities, not very attractive (lots of ugly concrete buildings) and many parts of the island and city have a dumpy (not quaint) 2nd-world look to them. The IC Ishigaki's beach is large but there's nothing there, and there are no hotels or resorts next to it. You can rent a chair and umbrella but there are no bars, restaurants, or food shops along the beach, so you need to bring everything you'll need with you. There are two or three other restaurants across the street from the IC, which I recommend, but I was not much impressed with the hotel's restaurant food. Also, I received no room upgrade as a Platinum, even though occupancy was low. OTOH, there is excellent snorkeling right off the beach and you can sign up (at a cost) at the hotel for a guided snorkeling tour right off the beach that is very nice. While the island does have attractive natural sites and great snorkeling, I just don't see it as a great resort location, I think Naha is much better. At the time I was there, there was extensive construction of new hotel wings going on, which is probably completed by now. Frankly, I have no desire to return, but based on what I've read, I do think Miyakojima has significantly better potential and has interesting new resort hotels (including Hilton and Rosewood) now under construction.

Pseudo Nim

FWIW, I'd like to offer a counterpoint to this. I've done Ishigaki probably a half dozen times (if not more... used to go there twice a year for some reason at one point), and I will say this: Ishigaki is definitely a "less visited" place compared to Naha, but imho, it is in many ways much nicer. The reason is: Naha is, effectively, a mini-"major city". Even if you go out to the northern parts, it's still a major destination. Lots of off base vehicles, lots of tourists, lots of restaurants, etc - it's a very "happening" place. I agree with Nagasaki Joe that Ishigaki is much more "tame" - the restaurants are far fewer (although I'm happy to make some recommendations that will rival the mainland); but some people will actually prefer this. I do not like Naha at all; when I travel to the southern islands, I seek abandon, I am looking for the equivalent of "the middle of nowhere", which is very hard to come by in Japan. Amusingly, no place is ever truly "middle of nowhere" - you will always have 4G/LTE mobile internet, organised public transport (more or less), and clean, safe neighbourhoods regardless if you're in Naha, Ishigaki, Yoron or 24 hours off by boat in Ogasawara. It's the allure of Japan. That said, I simply find Naha too busy - renting a car is always a busy busy busy activity, roads are busy, God forbid you forgot your electronic toll card and have to wait in line at the 2 toll booths on the single highway going up north, and so on. If anything, I'd say Naha is something like Honolulu / Maui, whereas Ishigaki, Yoron and the like are more like ... the Cook Islands, sans the decrepit infrastructure. If this makes any sense at all.

So don't write off the smaller islands just because they are somewhat backwards. They have their own charm. Also, there are plenty of snorkeling / beach places all over them (though you MUST rent a car, and do not forget your international driver's license as they will not rent you a car without it).