Kobe Luminous Hotel Hyogoekimae

There were a few useful things about the hotel: it has a laundry machine, the staff spoke and understood English better than at many hotels I’ve visited in Japan, including ones in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo, and they held our luggage both before check-in and for a few hours after checkout. Those are why I rated the service three stars rather than one. But I wouldn’t recommend staying here. For what we paid, it was a bit far from the train station, and the hotel and our room were very dirty and poorly maintained. The elevator carpet had stains. In the room, especially the bathroom, there was black mold on the walls and in the corners and ceiling, hair everywhere, and dried toilet paper stuck to the bathroom door and floor corners. It looked like those areas hadn’t been cleaned or cleared away. The hotel needs to be much cleaner for this price, which is close to what I pay in Osaka. The breakfast was average, even though hotel breakfast buffets in Japan, in both big cities and small towns, have usually been great or exceptional in my experience. Service could improve too. The staff understood English, which is a plus, but didn’t seem very welcoming or friendly. We paid through booking.com for a bigger room and didn’t get one. We didn’t make a fuss, but we noticed and won’t forget it. I absolutely wouldn’t recommend this hotel to travelers.

There’s another hotel in the CBD that’s nicer, and I thought that was the one I’d booked, so check carefully when making a reservation. This one is close to a railway station and a convenience store, but there isn’t much else interesting nearby. It felt dated, and the facilities were basic.

The rooms are extremely cramped, and the furniture is really old. With a suitcase in the corridor, you can’t even get to the bathroom. It’s possible to come here just to sleep, but anything beyond that seems impossible. For the high price, I’d choose another proper hotel. The internet was awful and kept cutting out. If you need to get work done, bring mobile internet and assume the hotel connection won’t be usable. The TV menu is only in Japanese, and if you don’t know Japanese, the TV is basically useless.

The outside and lobby look nice, and it’s cheap and convenient for two stations. But the rest of the hotel feels old, especially compared with more modern places. It should honestly cost less, and it needs renovations soon. I couldn’t get Wi-Fi in my part of the hotel, though my friends and family had it in their rooms. When I told the front desk, they said there was nothing they could do, so I had to use the lobby for Wi-Fi. I wouldn’t stay again.