http://www.dgolds.com/Japan/The%20Trip%20Over.htm

(Bottom picture - that's the whole room. No closet.)

I stayed in the Paramount a few years back, in a tiny room booked through a UK wholesaler. I didn't care. It was clean, safe, great lobby and bar, VCR in the room, video library....who goes to NYC to sit in a hotel room anyway !!

The last time i was there, between Thanksgiving and Xmas, couldn't get a room at a brand hotel, so dossed down at the WshingtonJefferson - what a classic. My room was five foot wide, and two feet longer than the bed. Could just squeeze in the door. But then.. back to my point above. Get out and enjoy where you are !

Cheerio
GK

As for other experiences, well the Century Hong Kong was poky, could reach all four walls from my bed with ease.

FYI, hotels with those tiny tiny rooms in Japan are called 'capsule hotels'...

A tie... between teh Nathan Road guest house (more like a flop house...) and the Motel Sex (oops SIX) hotel in Del Rio, Texas.

Nathan Road had two cots and a shower curtain and toilent and that's it. Everything was so compact I had to make sure when I got up in the middle of the night NOT to fall on my buddy RICK (who snored through the whole experience.) It was so croweded the cat crawled in my bed for room.

And the MOTEL SIX!!! I kept falling either on the bed or the desk and chair thing or the
dining table thing. The shower was totally chastrophoic.

I have closets in my apartment bigger than these hotel rooms!

Holly's room at the W is about 900 square feet. You can move around nicely in it. It has a view of the Waldorf Astoria. The bathroom is even a bit bigger than others I've stayed in at other parts of the hotel.

She must have gotten upgraded because I bookd the reservation and they must have taken my PLATNIUM STATUS and upgraded her.

Also got a bottle of IRish spring water and some nuts and fruits mix box. I guess this is the Platnium amendity box that members get.

In the US, the smallest room I've had was at the Hilton Embassy Row in Wash DC. There was a double bed and about two feet left on either side to walk around. I had a roll-away brought in for my son, which meant we had to move the double against one wall and squeeze the roll-away against the other side of the bed and the wall. Nothing like wall-to-wall beds.

In Europe, I just stayed at a Westin in Paris, where the room, although lovely, was about 10x10'. At $375 a night, this made it $3.75 a square foot.

Doc: I stayed at the New Kankyu in Kyoto a couple of weeks ago. I had a standard room there and it was quite spacious - maybe 16'x12' - about the same size as the room I had at the Century Hyatt in Tokyo.

[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 01-24-2000).]

Yes letoile. There must be considerable variability in room sizes. I could literally almost reach everything but the bathroom (which I think was just had shower stall with no tub) from my bed, which was soooo small. One of my colleagues noted at breakfast that he had a larger room as well.

I may have had the worst room in the hotel and it was just called as I recall a "single twin". I'd come in to the meeting a day late due to a previous committment in AZ. The hotel was filled to capacity. Also got in very late after being delayed on an ANA flight from NRT. At least the rate was prtty good and a good breakfast was included.

Yep, those Japanese "capsule hotels," as they are known in that country, are rather amazing. They are indeed popular among office workers who missed the last trains home, as the "capsuls" may be had for something like $35 - 40 for the night, whereas the taxi fare can go into the range of hundreds of dollars for a typical commuting distance for residents of large Metropolitan areas like Tokyo.

I've stayed in one of those, and I'm telling you, if you have any trace of claustrophobia in your system, it will surely be one of the worst nightmares imaginable. OTOH, if you don't, these capsules are very clean, reasonably spacious for human closets, and usually come with a full-size sauna/bath facility somewhere in the building.

For $300 a night, Ms. McLaughlin and a friend were given a 236-square-foot chamber -- only slightly bigger than a parking spot. Just to squeeze past the two small beds and each other, the friends had to walk sideways. Ms. McLaughlin kept her makeup in her purse, her toiletries in the closet and her clothes in a suitcase under the bed because there was no dresser and only a few shelves in the bathroom.
http://travel.wsj.com/n/SB948469385130026455-main.html

The smallest for me was at the Centraza Hotel in Yokosuka, Japan, the room was 5'x8' not counting the tiny bathroom.
The capsule rooms in Tokyo reminded me of a bee hive.

Jay

The thing with these Japanese rooms is you know what you're getting in advance, unlike in other places where you are expecting at least a few sq. feet to walk in. My 2 smallest were in the Radisson Vanderbilt (london) where the room door didn't open all the way - it hit the furniture, the "closet" wouldn't hold my luggage (a standard sized carry-on rollerboard), and lying it flat on the floor took up all the usable floor space.

My other smallest was in a charming place in Paris, where I didn't mind at all - travelling alone, very good rate, everything was new and worked, and so on.

You can find some very small rooms in old/older hotels in France. My room in Strassbourg, next to the cathedral was very, very small. We had a problem to find a place for our baggage.

Does this count - this would beat even the "box-hotels" in Japan: In Europe you can book a Coach/Bus-Tour. The coach has a trailer with a "sleeping-box" for each passenger. No hotel needed, at night you sleep in one of this boxes. I have seen such a rolling hotel on the street in Southern Germany, but not from inside. From outside they look like this trucks to transport doves to the starting place for a dove "race".

The Hotel Germaine Des Pres in Quebec city is so small you can reach the window sill and mini fridge from one side of the bed and the bathroom door from the other! The bath doesn't have a bath tub - only a shower stall.. if you have your suitcase open at the bottom of the bed, you can't walk by it, you have to step over it! Very nice people... but by far the smallest rooms I've ever been in!

My single room at Hotel Prisma in BCN would definetely come in high on this list.
One European single bed on one side of the room, and not enough space for my suitcase on the other side. Tiny closet and TV up against the wall. BUT: The bathroom was as big as the rest of the room (Don't give them ideas, they'll try to sell it as a suite..)!

are those sleeping capsules in japan enclosed? Don't you suffocate? I don't get claustrophobic, in fact there's a feeling of security to me.. (mom must have locked me in a closet as a young child!).. but i wonder about air circulation?