Matsue, being the sedate city it is, didn’t offer much options in terms of accommodation around the train station. Since the conference venue was located beside the train station, my workplace arranged for my institution’s attendees to stay in the couple of hotels in the immediate vicinity of the station. The hotel I was reserved 7D6N at was the Matsue Excel Hotel Tokyu, a three star establishment (my guestimate).
Our arrival from Fukuoka into Matsue on Day 04 was fairly long though: the Shinkansen ride from Fukouka to Okayama was comfortable, but the next leg from Okayama to Matsue was by a Limited Express train, and the ride was anything but smooth! The ride was bumpy, the train carriage felt old, and the train changed speeds so many times that I wrestled with nausea barely 15 minutes into the almost 3 hour ride.
Still, my brief comments of the hotel:
The room I got was a level 5 one, and what looked like a twin room, and probably around 25 sqm: i.e. easily large enough for me as the sole occupant.
The hotel does not supply complimentary drinking water into the room. Rather, in its effort to be green, the hotel requests guests to pick up one (just one – not kidding) bottle of water from the reception area each day. Nope, one bottle isn’t nearly enough during summer season. Thankfully, there is a small water kettle with 0.6 liter capacity in the room, and several packs of drip coffee and green tea are also in the room. There is also the uniquitous 24 hour convenience stores nearby: including a Lawson about 2 minutes walk away, and also a 7-11 at Matsue Station.
The hotel does not automatically clean rooms for long stays either: you’d need to place the usual signs at your door if you’d like your room clean and/or linen replaced. I neglected to put this put up on a few days, and returned to the hotel in the evening to find it in the same state as I’d left it. Linen and towels I don’t mind re-using, but I would have liked more of that drip coffee packs!
The toilet has a standard long bath, complimentary conditioner, shampoo and body foam, and water pressure from the shower head was excellent.
The room has in-room WIFI, but it didn’t look like the hotel was using nest WIFI, what with its multiple SSIDs that you select from. Most hotels of this class would not have access points for each room. Mine certainly didn’t have its own SSID. So, I was routinely connecting to another room’s WIFI. The Internet was spotty: I experienced frequent disconnects, and several times the data throughput would just get completely choked. Still, I was able to get HD level streaming when things did work, and caught up with episodes of Star Wars: Ahsoka while I was on this work trip.
Breakfast was included in the package, and featured standard Japanese breakfast fare. I was thoroughly tired of BF options by the third day, and opted only for the minimal each morning and only so that I wouldn’t get hungry in the morning.
In all, this was an alright stay: not nearly as luxurious as the Fukuoka one that we’d stayed in earlier this trip. Thing is: there just aren’t that many options around, so this is about as good as it’d get.