Smart Place Inn Kyoto Shijo Omiya East

Kyoto is a lovely city and the hotel is just as good, even though is a little far from the station, is close from Subway station and a bunch of bus line, which is the main way to get around the city. The staff is great and really helpful, the room is not small and fits great. Would definitely stay there again.

It's a pleasant stay in this hotel. The quality of toiletries was good. Staff are friendly but don't speak very well English. Free laundry, local and international calls are very useful. No keys to room as it's quite high tech to use codes to get in and out of the hotel and your room. The M's Information Centre is great. Free pick up and excursions available. Do need to book them in advance. Staff at the Information Centre are brilliant, very helpful. I shall use this chain hotel again. The Chinese domestic lady was extremely helpful. Location of the hotel is good but you need to research how to find it as it is at the back street but you can see it on the main road. You do need to have your mobile phone available to pick up the access code on the day of your check in. The Information Centre has a demo of check in and check out - it is quite easy. I have experienced staff manning the reception at different hours, which was useful.

Amazing! Very friendly and polite staff there. Our stay was so good we booked a couple extra days there. Everything inside was newly updated so it is a very clean place. Best bang for your Yen in Kyoto!

Clean, good service. Very well equipped and modern.

Helped us with copies of our passport photos due to damage. Room was very comfortable and had a good shower. Would have been nice if they provided a safety deposit box

Hotel close to the Hankyu line (Omiya Station). No daily housekeeping, only every 3 days. WiFi didn't work, even after mentioning it at the staff at the 'reception'. Overall, you get what you pay for. In this case, not too much.

There’s only room service every three days. Hotel is adopting smart technology so expect less staff & more interfaces to interact with. Might not be suitable for people who are not tech savvy. The room feels weird as we kept waking up in the middle of the night

No complaints

Property was clean and well presented and close enough to required amenities and transport

The hotel is very nice place, quite and convenience. From hotel i can go various place around Kyoto. However, i hope hotel can provide breakfast too.

Didnt like the format of the hotel ie no staff around,no receptionist, room not done the following day, the codes to get in the hotel, the pin to get in the room, the late check in Communication was difficult to say the least First time i make a poor comment about my booking. The above shoukd have been highlighted by expedia on their website . Disappointed !!

Very comfortable room. Spacious and quiet. The pin-code check in was easy. Location is good, and we cycled to all the main Kyoto sights, and it was about 10-15min walk to great restaurants/bars.

All good reviews are from people who paid very small introductory priced when they just opened. They misrepresented a whole list of things. * We personally witnessed how a mother and daughter could not enter the room late at night as they never received a code through email as was promised. * There was no shuttle as was promised. * The room was not ready by 4PM. * TV did not work at all in our room for all 10 nights. * We could not cancel one night 2 weeks in advance without losing money as their rates went up. *They never cleaned our room in all 10 days. Just changed towels once. * They took a bag of our dirty clothes prepared for laundry from the floor and threw out one of two bags. How stupid! Another was put at so called front desk. In 10 days we never saw anybody there. * Their bathroom is extremely tiny with no shelves at all, so things fall, sometimes into the toilet. Maybe one person can manage using it, not two. We had to spend time and money to replace them to continue our trip. Instead of enjoying dinner we had to correspond back and forth with a person assigned to fix multiple problems. They were polite but never fixed a single problem. They ignored our request to partially reimburse money. Stay there only if they give you a super-special price of $30-40 a night. Paying $1.400 was absolutely not worth it. You can try if we want a non-stop "adventures".

Stayed for 4 nights in Grand Japaning Hotel Omiya. Pros: 1) About 5-7 mins walk from Omiya and Shijo Station; 2) Quiet neighbourhood; 3) Nearby eateries and convenient stores; 4) Keyless entry/ exit for hotel and room; 5) Smart phone & 6) Washing machine & dryer on level 5 and 6 but without instructions. Cons:1) Key pad for hotel lobby entry place too low ie got to stoop or squat; 2) Display hard to read; 3) No phone at lobby desk if you need assistance to check-in; 4) Smart phone unable to reach local (Japan) numbers; 5) Housekeeping did not top up hand cleanser and face tissue paper – got to send email to request; 6) Housekeeper left room ajar after accessing room; 7) No room cleaning on 3rd day even though email correspondence from hotel stated that and no response when I wrote to enquire on third night till check out.

The 4 of us booked 2 rooms in this place for 5 nights. Unfortunately, I trusted Expedia when searching for a place in Kyoto. The good thing is its location. Isolated in a residential area with min walk to everything we needed, it was quite easy to tour Kyoto from it. Other then location, it is all going south... The rooms are tiny and 2 adults can hardly stand in it at the same time. The bathroom is so small you can barely dry yourself while inside. But the worst thing is there is no one to talk with and they are not honouring what they promise. We asked to replace our towels (should be Ok to do it on a daily basis) and clean the room (should be Ok after 3 nights stay) and nothing... they simply ignored my emails and with no other way to contact them, we had to suck it up. And in case you wonder, the value for money is not there. Now that I know this place, I would not pay more than $50/night for it (and we paid more than x4 times more)

It's overall clean and tidy, managed lean and thin. If you like it and are technology savvy, you will find the right fit. Otherwise you will feel like you are going through a CIA job interview, with every door entrance with secret code and wait for email to send you another code for the room and room number before you enter the elevator, but if you don't receive email you will just have to wait in the lobby for their remote staff to get back with you, hopefully soon! Very disappointed the first night after being told to run to different rooms to get handy phone when it was supposed to be in my room in the first place. Even so I had never got one! After I emailed them about the situation they just replied "Very, very sorry, handy phone is no longer available at this moment." They need to fix the issue or remove the offering from their amenities list.

The check in was smooth, however guests need to have WiFi or check in early in order to get access to the property as it is a self check in hotel. The room is spacious, comfortable however I found out the the bathroom was leaking after I take a shower, the floor was flooded up to the carpet floor. I call the emergency phone and they pass me another phone contact as there are a few Grand Japaning location. I managed to speak to a person however because it was late at night, she could not resolve it. I could not change room as it was fully booked according to the person in charge. She says she will speak to her boss however when we get back after our day out on the next day, no one attended to the problem. I had to call again.however phone was engaged many times. I send email to complain again. The next day, I still didn't get a reply from the hotel. On the third and last day, I checked out and send a second email, they reply that it is regret however it is too late. I should be compensated for the inconvenience caused as I could not use the bathroom. Hope the management do better in problem resolution.

They reply really fast and were so extremely helpful and friendly. They have luggage storage service on your check in and also check out day. Since the luggage storage office isn't exactly the hotel, they arrange shuttle bus as well. Check in and check out was so easy. Everything done on a tablet. Room was spacious. Phone provided. Washing machine and dryer can be found on two floors and they're both free. Not coin operated unlike other hotels. Location wise is really good. Close to a subway station as well as plenty of bus stops. There were many eateries around as well.

Good location, reasonable price, clean. Have everything you need. I only would add the body washing towel.

Close to Ginza, short bus ride to Kyoto station, nice simple room and plenty of eateries around. Only issue is the aircon which is situated right above your head and can get a bit uncomfortable at night, and cleaning is only every 3rd day. Overall, pleasant stay.