Ebisu Ryokan

The staff are really friendly, and there’s a 7 eleven very close by. There’s no breakfast, but the room has plenty of space for four people.

A relaxing place to stay in Kyoto, close to Kyoto Station, bus stops, and the subway. There’s also a laundromat, convenience store, and food stall nearby.

The owner is friendly, speaks English well, and is a foreigner, probably German. Service gets 4.6 from me. Location gets a 5.0: the place is about 500 metres from the train station and near a big, beautiful garden. The rooms are sort of medium, maybe a little small, and you need to keep quiet so other people can’t hear you. They have a safe, TV, fridge, air purifier, A/C, shower, and smart toilet. It’s basically an average, traditionally made hotel. I’d rate the rooms a solid 3.0. Would I recommend it? Yes, if you want to stay in a traditional ryokan while exploring Kyoto. My rating for the place is 4.1.

Our experience last week was pleasant, though we stayed only one night out of our ten in Japan. We had a room on the second floor, and the toilet was larger than in some other hotels. The aircon worked fine. The host speaks English, and Jacob was helpful with travel itinerary information. Self checkout made it easy to leave whenever we wanted, like at most Japanese hotels. It could certainly have been cleaner, but we were okay with it because it’s hard to find a decent hotel at our budget. We got a rate 25% lower than the nearby APA, so we set our expectations accordingly and wanted to try a Kyoto ryokan. Maybe it helped that we spent all day walking around Kyoto and only came back to sleep. It seems guests have quite different experiences here.