After my stay at the Westin Tokyo I headed to Kyoto for a few days. I first decided to stay at the Westin Miyako Kyoto.

Great location, off-putting approach

I arrived at Kyoto station by the Shinkansen. After waiting for a long time in the “tourist friendly cab” line, I finally found a cab to take me to the hotel (yes, most of the drivers don’t speak English and they prefer to segment from the start). An anecdote that has nothing to do with the hotel, but you should know about it because it has an impact on your transfer if you are in a hurry.

The hotel is not strictly speaking in the city center but a bit out of the way. Nothing serious, it’s only a 20/30 minutes walk and it allows to have a unique view on the city that it overlooks, as shown in this picture.

On the other hand at first sight one is not particularly reassured when one approaches the building without style, without charm, massive, old, at the limit of the decrepit.

You are quickly reassured while returning in the lobby. It’s got a different look.

At the time of my arrival the hotel is full of people, due to the joint arrival of several groups. I go to the line reserved for “Elite” customers and a staff member comes to get me and take me to a small office to save me time without waiting in line.

The check-in goes as smoothly as possible even if the agent in charge of my registration is hesitant about his English. My superior room will become a deluxe executive, a 4-level upgrade. But since junior suites were available that day, the trend identified in Tokyo is confirmed: don’t expect the loyalty program to be applied to perfection in Japan.

Deluxe Executive Room: Replastering does not mean renovation

I was escorted to my room. It is comfortable and spacious. Its large bay window makes it very bright. At first glance, the agent who accompanied me there confirms that the rooms have been renovated recently.

The bed is large and comfortable, the bedding recent and I appreciate the sofa and the work space of comfortable size.

As for the bathroom, it is already much less new. Let’s say it looks worn. If the room has been renovated, this is not the case for the sanitary facilities, especially the bathtub. The walls don’t look as fresh as those in the room.

I quickly went to admire the view from my terrace, the hotel overlooking the city.

On the other hand, when we look at the terrace itself, the least we can say is that it looks old.

Did you say worn out?

The fact is that the so-called renovation was limited to a paint job and a change of furniture. The rest, by its condition and design dates from another era. The potential is there, the hotel must have had its hour of glory but today it dates and everything makes me say at this stage thatit deserves a major renovation. A real one.

I’ll add the most complicated Wifi connection procedure I’ve seen since the late 90s when it wasn’t nearly as widespread.

The Executive Club ? A big joke

This upgrade gives me access to the Executive Club, so I go there for an aperitif.

To my great surprise it is not a lounge as such, closed. At most, it’s a corridor with a nice view at the entrance of which a skirted officer gibbering a few words of English checks that you have access to the place.

Exiguous and limited capacity.

When I take my seat, however, I am pleased to see that a plate of appetizers is brought to me right away.

Once these are devoured in two spoonfuls, I go to see what the buffet looks like.

And then…

Cheese, peanuts, olives and pretzels.

When it comes to the supply of alcohol…

Totally inadequate for the promise and standing of the hotel, surely the worst hotel lounge I’ve seen in recent years, both in terms of setting and service. It really looks like something cobbled together in a hurry.

Good restaurants grafted in on a ghost ship

So I’ll go to the restaurant. During my stay I will have the opportunity to try 3 of them as well as the breakfast out of the 7 options offered by the hotel.

On my Tokyo momentum I start with the Teppanyaki. Good but nothing to do with the one in Tokyo especially since they are out of stock of abalone. A quickly finished dinner, a restaurant with no personality and a staff that, for lack of speaking English well enough, sticks to the strict basics of customer relationship.

The second evening another Japanese restaurant specialized in “hot pots” (I don’t remember the precise name of the dish I took). Again, I appreciate the experience of seeing the dish prepared at my table on a hot plate but the setting remains impersonal and the staff’s level of English prevents any culinary discussion. Again, the basics of customer relationship with the minimum of interaction for fear of making a mistake. A good meal spoiled by the context.

I will finish with a more “international” restaurant with a very French color. There is nothing to complain about either the dishes, the setting or the staff. It is obviously the flagship of the property.

What impressed me the most was not so much the food as the restaurants themselves. You can expect to find them prominently displayed around the hotel lobby. Not at all!

You can find them in the wings of the hotel, vaguely indicated by a sign in front of an entrance which, most of the time, you can’t guess that it hosts a restaurant. Same impression as the lounge: as if they were not planned and that they were installed in a hurry.

So after wandering for a long time along a hallway without personality you find this :

Or that :

It’s like saying “we need restaurants, let’s condemn a couple of lounges and put a kitchen in there”. Zero charm, zero personality.

As for the breakfast, I didn’t take the risk to try the lounge so I tested the normal buffet and a typical Japanese breakfast served at the table in one of the restaurants.

For my first attempt at the buffet I was redirected to a lounge in which a buffet had been hastily set up, the main room being obviously saturated.

A vague impression of improvisation and approximation.

If the buffet is rich the choice was not and the final impression is very ordinary.

Enough to fill your stomach but the experience and pleasure are not there.

The next day there will be room for the “real” buffet and it will be much better. Same dishes but better staged. Nothing to get excited about either.

I will finish with the “real” Japanese breakfast that my platinum status gave me the right to have in the restaurant without extra charge.

Here is something much more accomplished in terms of taste, presentation, with a real service. It was about time.

Westin Miyako Kyoto : is it a resort?

The Westin Kyoto being a resort, the only one in the city, I prepared myself to enjoy the facilities before and after a long day of sightseeing.

Let’s start with the fitness club…open 24 hours a day if you call the reception at certain times.

The room is small and the equipment old. Not unpleasant though as long as less than 4 people are there at the same time!

Don’t look for, there’s not more to see.

The room overlooks the pools, both indoor and outdoor.

Especially since…. access is not free!

At Travel Guys we hate the practice of the “Resort Fee” which imposes to pay an obligatory supplement for the access to the facilities of the hotel. Here we discover the “as you go” Resort Fee, a practice that is just as detestable, if not more so, because we only discover it when it’s almost too late.

In practice my platinum status was supposed to give me free access to the pool and spa but since the place is poorly appealing and given the overall experience I gave away. Usually in a resort a living space is built around the pool, here it is a gloomy and isolated place.

Conclusion: a terrible hotel, cobbling on all levels, no personality or warmth

Before concluding I will share with you some pictures taken in the (long) corridors of the hotel.

A sign to direct traffic at the breakfast entrance.

To indicate the fitness room:

Empty and impersonal spaces:

Not a single sign on the walls, easels put up in a rush, restaurants as if installed in a hurry, worn out installations on which one has put misery covers.

This hotel is presented in the guidebooks as “venerable” or some similar word. Way of saying that it had its hour of glory but is no longer at the level of its declared standing.

Built to manage groups as one manages poultry flocks in breeding, it certainly had a light facelift without the necessary infrastructure work. So they replaster, they put up signs in the middle of the corridors. It is inconsistent, impersonal and often of questionable quality. No, this hotel does not deserve 5 stars, especially in a country that has made service and refinement its trademark. We thought we had seen the worse with the Westin Honolulu in terms of degraded experience, here it is the product itself that is rotten to the bone. I am still amazed that it continues to get 4/5 on most rating sites.

A ghost ship, cold, not very pleasant, which one wonders if it did not discover until recently that it had to receive customers. It makes me wonder if the original purpose of the hotel was to be a hotel at all. It reminds me of a hotel a few years ago in Vietnam. Legacy of the communist era, cold, hardly comfortable and quickly adapted to mass tourism. Except that Japan has never been under the yoke of the Soviet Union.

At this stage, rather than a thorough renovation and upgrading of the service, the only viable solution seems to be to start from scratch after the bulldozers have passed through.

To be avoided absolutely. There is an Ibis next to the station that can’t do worse and is half the price. Otherwise in the 5 star category you can’t find worse either.

Ratings:

Room: spacious and comfortable, refreshed rather than renovated. Sanitary and terrace are worn. 6

Restaurant/bar:not bad, but most restaurants don’t offer the right setting or staff good enough in English to sustain a real conversation beyond the basic sentences. The lounge is a shame. 6.

Check-in/out. Fluid. At least one area of satisfaction. 10

Application of the loyalty program: limited upgrade despite program rules. 7

Facilities: ridiculously small fitness room, fee-based swimming pools with a rather uninviting appearance, especially for a resort where this is supposed to be the main business. 2

Experience for money.At 200 euros a night this is clearly not good. When the experience tends towards 0, no matter what the price, you can’t expect miracles. 2

Service and attention: we will never reproach the staff for their lack of attention here as elsewhere in Japan. But when one struggles in English, this limits interactions to the bare minimum with, especially in restaurants, waiters and waitresses who seem to shun the customer. 5.

Hotel: a beautiful view. Otherwise worn out, decrepit, without personality, and ugly on the outside. 20

All the pictures are available here.