Hotel Shiosai

The breakfast, served around 8-9 I think, was a real surprise. Everyone gets the same dish, and I usually skip hotel breakfast in Japan, but this one was shockingly good. It wasn’t very expensive, and the stay was really nice. All the rooms face the beach and Enoshima island, so you can watch surfers and see the lighthouse at night. The room was nice too, with a good bed and a fairly updated bathroom. My only gripe was the air conditioner, which made a really unpleasant loud noise while running. I was fine leaving it off at night since the room stayed cool, but it wasn’t ideal.

The location is good, but I don’t understand why this place is rated so highly. I paid extra to book here and didn’t have a good experience. I was given a room without a sea view and wasn’t notified beforehand. When booking, I expected to have a sea-view room. The front desk also asked me to collect my stored luggage at 4pm, an awkward point in the middle of a day travelling around Kamakura. I had to pick it up and find somewhere else to store it, which disrupted my plans. This was the first place where I couldn’t leave my luggage until 4pm. At midnight, traffic noise came through clearly and made it hard for me to sleep. 2/5. If I’d known there would be no sea view and I couldn’t store my luggage until sunset, I wouldn’t have booked this hotel.

The room was clean, and the view was nice. The windows block sound well as long as you close them properly. Check-in is at 4pm, a bit later than at a normal hotel.

We had a fantastic view of the sea right outside our window, and the location was hard to beat: just a few minutes on foot from the JR station, with lots of restaurants nearby. The Saturday price was very reasonable too. The trouble came at bedtime. The walls are paper-thin, so we could hear the TV and conversations from the next room. Worse, traffic kept going late below our window. Anyone who knows Enoshima/Zushi knows there’s only one road along the seafront. After the families left, people with souped-up mopeds and cars drove back and forth for ages. It was a nightmare. You'll have to choose between the sea view and a good night's sleep.