The fourth and last property we stayed at this 15 day trip, and in Nagoya. This was probably the hardest region to find accommodation, on account that by the time we’d firmed up our region of travel and dates, many of the hotels around the immediate vicinity of Nagoya Station which had a family room and within our budget no longer had room availability. We settled thus for The Royal Park Canvas Nagoya, which met our requirements of the family room and somewhat closeness to the staton – but also the most expensive of the four places we stayed at this trip. And of the four, the kids liked this Nagoya hotel the least – even though quality, posh-ness, and the ‘star’ quality of it, it’s actually above Almont Hotel Kyoto and Residence Hotel Takayama Station.
We stayed for 3D2N, and here are our comments on our second night of stay:
We booked a Deluxe Twin, at a relatively pricey rate of SGD268 per night. The room can normally sleep three adults, but it was able to accommodate a fourth and child. We had a corner room on the seventh floor, which affords a decent view of the road below, and a few of the towering skyscrapers around Nagoya Station.
Accessibility-wise, the hotel is within reasonably easy working distance from Nagoya Station – just a 5 minute walk. However, Nagoya Station is a major intersection point for subway, rail-lines and also the Shinkansen. We were unfamiliar with the layout of Nagoya Station, so was disoriented on how to get to this hotel on Day 13 morning. Of course, the easiest way is to walk above-ground on the main roads where Google Maps can do its AR work and try to recognise key landmarks to get you a better fix on where you are. But this isn’t so appealing in winter – even more so if it’s snowing and you’re hauling luggage. The alternative in such weather would be to find your way towards Unimall from the gate you exit at Nagoya Station. Unimall is a long underground shopping and dining stretch that runs parallel to the Sakuradori line. Walk through it, look for exit U10, and take the left staircase up. The hotel is immediately on your right when you come out of exit U10 and beside Family Mart.
Check-in time is 3PM, and the hotel was happy to hold onto our luggage when we arrived on Day 13 morning.
The twin-room is a 28sqm. Such a floor area would normally be still about alright: were it not for the lack of sufficient table surfaces! I reckoned we were spoiled by the last two places we stayed in Kanazawa and Takayama – both of which had dining room tables for us to work on. This won’t matter if you don’t have a ton of gadgets to charge and/or a laptop you want to type away on. We packed in a portable laptop table for exactly this contingency, and ended up using it as needed.
Decor-wise is reasonable: neither semi-antiquated (like Residence Hotel Takayama Station) or very modern (like Hyatt Hotel Kanazawa).
The room comes with the a good range of amenities; including a coffee maker machine with hotel supplied coffee capsules, complimentary bottles of water, a small mini-fridge, a 46″ (I think) flat screen TV, bathroom stall with a rain-shower head and bath tub. Unlike our Kanazawa and Takayama places of stay though, the bidet-styled toilet is integrated into the bathroom, so the usual turn-taking was necessary for our family for any possible reasons.
The wardrobe is pretty small: there is enough space – and hotel supplied hangers – to hang our jackets and an additional apparel or two: and that’s it.
The rainshower head has good water-pressure: something the missus really appreciates!
Daily breakfast coupons were issued at check-in for three of us in the room, while our 9 year boy required the purchase of a separate breakfast coupon, but at a fairly low price of ¥550. The breakfast spread is decent, with a focus on western/international breakfast items.
In all, on balance, it’s an OK stay, and we slept well. Room rate is a little pricey for what it is affording. Our not so great feelings about the property is also probably because we’d just came out of two pretty good stays just days prior: Hyatt Hotel Kanazawa was roomy and modern and quite a bit cheaper and super accessible, and Residence Hotel Takayama Station was very roomy, super accessible, and pretty cheap to stay in, and even Almont Hotel Kyoto before that was slightly roomier, not so accessible, but the per night rate was super low.
So final analysis about The Royal Park Canvas Nagoya: alright, but there’s got to be better places at this price range.