The Kyoto hotel we opted for in the first segment of our 15 day trip was Almont Hotel Kyoto. Like the other hotels we booked for our 2019 family trip in Japan, we had three requirements: that it could fit four of us, that it was within walking distance from the train station, and price. Almont Hotel met two of those requirements very well – but the walking distance was iffy. More on that later.
Our notes for our 7D6N stay:
We paid SGD570 for six nights and using Agoda: i.e. a pretty good rate.
The walking distance from Kyoto Station to hotel was just within tolerance: it’s an approximately 6 minute walk and also involving crossing two major traffic junctions. But keep in mind that walking 6 minutes in winter isn’t like walking that same duration in warmer weather. And each evening when when we’d finished the itinerary, we were so doggoned tired that I wished I’d booked a hotel that was directly opposite Kyoto Station. Reasons of the availability of a family room and costs of course, but still.
Note: Almont Hotel sits besides a main road and we could hear traffic and the occasional bus going by most times. But from late night onward, it gets a lot quieter as there’s less traffic on that road. Or perhaps we just slept like the dead each night!
The hotel has its own restaurant that offers morning breakfast buffets. Applying a lesson we learned during our 2019 trip, we didn’t opt for the hotel breakfast for this first stay: specifically because we’d get tired of the ‘complimentary’ breakfast buffet extremely fast. If we were staying for just a night or two, that’d be a different matter though.
The hotel was happy to hold onto our luggage after we arrived at lunch time on Day 01, so no issues there.
Our room was a Deluxe Twin of 25 m², and situated on level 2. Not massively big, but not as small as some of the Japanese hotels we stayed in during the 2019 trip. Or rather, it was big enough for the four of us such that we didn’t trip over each other during our stay.
We couldn’t get the air-conditioning to work – maybe it was switched off – so we slightly opened the window to get air in.
The room comes equipped with the usual toiletries, a bath tub, a shower-head with very strong water pressure – the strongest I’ve yet experienced in a hotel, anywhere – a small safety deposit box that’s large enough for passports, essentials and small devices like handphones etc. but not big enough for DSLRs, laptops and so on. There’s also a refrigerator and a complimentary mini-bar with a small selection of Japanese teas. Finally, there’s also a flat-screen TV, but we didn’t find anything interesting on the telly during our stay, so that was permanently off for us.
There’s a work table that’s built into the furnishing that’s wide enough for me to write these blog entries on the Dell XPS 13 laptop I brought along this trip.
We didn’t run into many guests during our 7 day stay. It didn’t feel like the hotel was at half-occupancy, and I seriously doubt if there was even nearly that many.
There’s a public bath in the hotel, with separate male and female rooms. We didn’t check that out – but it’s there.
Importantly, there’s a complimentary beverage corner at the ground level restaurant (limited availability hours though) that we availed ourselves to everyday.
In all, Almont Hotel Kyoto gets a recommendation from us: great rates, large-enough room, and – as Japanese hotels go – offering a basic level of functionality and cleanliness that you can be assured of. It’s by no means a luxury hotel: so, if you have the money to spend, there would certainly be better options.