Sora Niwa Terrace Kyoto

Excellent location. Friendly staff. Great Onsen. Lovely styling with a good mix on contemporary and traditional Japanese elements. The free coffee and soft drinks were also nice. Nice rooftop bar as well

Location Comfortable bed My husband loved the onsen facilities Rooftop views Stylish decor

Our room (deluxe double) was impossibly small with no storage Breakfast is dreadful. Don’t bother! That’s both Japanese and western. Served in paper boxes with disposable cutlery. Quality poor. Free drinks were too strictly monitored

Great facilities and location

All really good, room was comfortable, pillows were awful

The location was great and the public baths were relaxing and well equipped. We loved being in Kyoto.

I have never experienced a hotel that feels quite so relentlessly penny-pinching. Many aspects of our stay seemed designed to impose restrictions or extract an additional payment, often for things that should reasonably be part of the service. A ¥200 table charge to sit on the roof terrace ). ¥3,000 for an additional key card. A room with very little daylight as all you can see is a brick wall, nowhere to store a suitcase under the bed and so little space that two people cannot comfortably move around at the same time. We were also charged twice for an already very expensive dinner. When this was brought to their attention, the proposed compensation was an out-of-date box of sweets – hardly an appropriate response. There is no communal restaurant, no bar and no real opportunity to relax and socialise within the hotel. Breakfast consists of a standard cold meal in a plastic box, which has to be collected before 9 am. One day Japanese 🇯🇵 one day European neither of which were particularly good and you didn’t have a choice. To be fair, there are some positives. The staff are efficient, smiley and friendly, the bedding is crisp and comfortable, and the location is excellent. However, friendliness cannot compensate for a hotel philosophy that seems to prioritise charging guests for petty things over providing a welcoming and relaxing experience. Ultimately, this is a hotel that gets the basics of staff service and location right, but misses the point of hospitality.