A.T. Hotel Hakata

The room has a nice layout, with two bedrooms, a full kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities. The building and suite themselves are nice, but the awful smells made the stay miserable. The elevator smelled like a sewer mixed with a locker room and a bad bus. My family and I dreaded using it, and I took the stairs up nine floors whenever I wasn’t carrying anything. Inside the suite there was a cheesy, sweaty, spoiled-food smell that seemed embedded in the walls and fabrics. We aired it out and used deodorizer every day, but it never went away, especially noticeable when we came back from going out. The owners should clean more thoroughly between tenants and tell guests to keep the place clean. Takeshita also felt too far from Hakata station to call convenient. A 35-minute walk or a crowded bus might be okay for some, but not for me. The nearby Asahi brewery has closed its biergarten too, which is disappointing since that used to be a benefit of the location.

For a big family planning to drive around in a rental car, this was a great deal. Having a washing machine and a large bath was really useful, and there’s a kitchen with a big fridge, microwave, and cooking setup, so you could even have a small Nabe party. Just make sure your flight lands during the day.

You can only check in from 3:00 to 7:30 PM, and after that the staff stop responding completely. They don’t answer the phone or online messages, so you can be left stranded. I found this out the hard way: I lost the money for four rooms and had to find somewhere else urgently. Unless you can be absolutely sure your arrival time won’t change or be delayed, I wouldn’t book here. There’s a large kitchen, but no cooking tools in the apartment, not even a knife for fruit. You can borrow utensils from the lobby, but only during that same 3:00 to 7:30 window. There’s no staff after 7:30 PM, so don’t count on getting help. The apartment has two bedrooms, but one has no air conditioning. You’d have to give up privacy and leave the doors open to get some air. It’s next to a train track, so opening the windows would be noisy. They clearly don’t care about guests and stick rigidly to their schedule. Save yourself the frustration, disappointment, and financial loss and look elsewhere. They shouldn’t call this a hotel. Hostels and Airbnbs offer better service.

The bathroom was my favorite part, with its tub and high-tech drying and heating functions. It’s a cozy, thoughtfully equipped service apartment, and I also liked having a washing machine, detergent, and laundry conditioner. I’d gladly stay there again.