Hotel Nature Nagoya Sakae

The room was old, but fine for one night, and the WiFi was strong. It’s not far from the subway and is near donkihote. The hotel front desk is on the fifth floor, while the rooms are on upper floors.

A cheap, small room of the usual kind for one person at a Japanese hotel, but it wasn’t too bad.

It’s an old place, though the facilities are well maintained.

The hotel is a little cheaper than nearby places in Sakae, and the location is pretty good. You come out of Exit 1 at Sakae Station and walk a bit, though it’s not literally ten seconds. Since you don’t enter Nishiki, touts seem less likely to approach you, but it can still happen. The rooms are somewhat larger than average business hotels, but only slightly, so don’t expect much space. Service was average and didn’t cause any particular inconvenience. A foreign staff member helped me at the front desk. Towels and face towels are kept beside reception, and guests carry them to their rooms. One thing I wondered about was the key policy. Guests usually leave their key at the desk when going out, but reception is closed from 1:00 AM to 6:30 AM. I was told that if you leave after 1:00 AM, you can take the key with you, so I’m not sure why you’d leave it at the desk in the first place. There are luggage storage fees to keep in mind. Before check-in, one bag is free, while each additional piece costs 500 yen. After check-out, it’s 500 yen per bag. Depending on how much luggage you have, that could eat into the savings over a neighboring hotel. The room was fairly average, with dated facilities. Heating and cooling are centrally controlled, and you can only adjust the strength with an LMH switch. The light switches looked old, probably from the 1970s. The bathroom hot water was a bit weak, though the bathroom may have been renovated. Conversations carry clearly in the halls and other common areas. The doors don’t seem soundproof, and voices from the next room, where a man and woman were having sex, seemed to travel through their doorway into the hall and then into my room. You could hear them through the wall too, so it’s not that the walls are thick. The door itself seems to be part of the problem. It uses an old-fashioned key you insert and turn rather than an autolock. Given the noise, I probably wouldn’t recommend it for couples. Maybe that’s none of my business, but I mention it for your information. With the hotel’s age and the luggage fees, I think paying 1,000 yen more to stay elsewhere may be a better deal. Still, it was an interesting experience, and it could suit someone looking for that kind of place.