Sutton Hotel Hakata City

The air conditioning barely worked, the room smelled of food, and breakfast was basic at best. This was the last two nights of my 19-day trip, and unfortunately the worst accommodation I’d had. The place is really showing its age. I wouldn’t recommend staying here.

The location is the one thing I liked. It’s close to Hakata station, so getting around Fukuoka is easy. Otherwise, I’d spend a little more for a decent hotel. The room had no air conditioning, and the windows wouldn’t open to let in the cool November air. Expect to sweat. Wi-Fi was very unreliable, and the hotel even has a sign asking guests to limit video calls. There was no laundry on site either, despite the website saying there was a coin-operated launderette. The description also promises hardwood floors and stylish tiled walls. The place felt extremely outdated instead. There aren’t key cards; you get a physical key, and if you want your room cleaned, you have to leave it at the front desk. That’s annoying. I’ve stayed in more than 11 hotels across Japan, and this one is at the bottom of my list. Don’t book it.

The price was cheap, but we could have found plenty of better places for similar money through Airbnb or smaller guesthouses. This was a hard lesson during our Kyushu trip, and we won’t be back. Around the seasonal change, the central heating was hard to deal with. In November, we had to sleep nearly naked to stay cool. The window handle had been broken off so the window couldn’t be opened from inside, leaving us no way to cool the room when it got too warm. Wi-Fi was free, but barely good enough to scroll through Instagram.

We were here in November, and the rooms were hot. You can open a window about 5 cm for air, but that’s all. The bathrooms had mold, and getting in and out of the tub and shower was slippery. The rooms smelled odd, too. This was the last hotel on our 19-day tour, and it was a real letdown from the moment we walked in. It felt old and outdated. Every other hotel on the tour had been wonderful, but I wouldn’t recommend this one to anyone.