Review – Hyatt Regency Kyoto Japan

Introduction

We were in Kyoto in early April for the cherry blossom season.  I had heard this hotel was one of the better ones in Kyoto.  You can read the issues I had trying to find award nights for early April on this post.  I used 20K points for the stay and the hotel was fully booked up, so it was a great use of points.

 

Getting to hotel

We took the train from Tokyo.  I think we arrived around noon-ish.  We decided to take a taxi to the hotel, which cost about ~$8 or so.  Here’s a pro-tip -> there are 2 taxi stands at the Kyoto train station – a very short line for tourists looking for English speaking taxis and a longer line for Japanese speakers.  I told my wife to stand in the tourist line (she was 5th in line) and I was like 25th.  Sure enough, my line moved MUCH FASTER than her.  By the time I got to the front, no taxis had stopped in the tourist stop.  I waived her to walk over.  My thinking was – if I catch a random taxi in Kyoto, I’m fairly confident they would know the Hyatt hotel.  Sure enough, when I stepped into the taxi, I showed the cab driver my phone with the Hyatt and its address on it, and he knew where to go.  The hotel was about 10 minutes away by cab (15 minutes if you walk it.)  If we didn’t have luggage and it wasn’t raining, walking wouldn’t be a bad option (we walked a lot more than that.)

 

Lobby

Upon checkin, we were told about our GOH benefits.  We were NOT UPGRADED due to the hotel being 100% full.

 

Wifi

Wifi was fine.  Nothing special.

 

Breakfast

The hotel has 2 restaurant breakfast options.  We didn’t want the American breakfast, so we went to the lower restaurant and got the Japanese set breakfast.  There were only 3 other parties eating that breakfast whereas upstairs was very noisy and crowded (I’m guessing the Japanese guests would want the American food since it’s different to them.)

 

Getting around

After breakfast, we took the public bus to Kyoto station.  The concierge told us the bus stop was right outside the hotel, which it was.  However, the Hyatt is the 4th stop away from the station, and so 3 buses drove by us because all were full.  The bus cost about $2 per person flat fee (no matter where you got on.)  If it wasn’t raining, we would have walked.  By the 3rd bus driving past us, even my wife said, “Uhhh why don’t we just take a taxi and pay $8 instead?”  Even she has caught on to the value of time.  I was then about to ask the other couple waiting as the bus stop to see if they wanted to share a cab, but then a bus drove up and we were able to get on.  After that incident, I vowed to never take the bus anymore in Kyoto.  Since Kyoto is small, most cab rides will be around $10 whereas the bu will cost you $4 as a couple.  Since vacation time is precious, I’m okay with paying the extra money to save me time to sightsee or whatnot.

 

Conclusion

I thought the hotel was nice.  I know some people like the Westin but it is further East of the Hyatt and is “out there.”  But the Westin does have a free shuttle to Kyoto station.  I do like the Hyatt in that it’s closer to the temples on the East side of Kyoto as opposed to the Ritz Carlson that’s West of the river (and more on the tourist side / nightlife side of Kyoto.)  Depending on the time you go, the value may not be there in spending 20K for this hotel though.

 

Pictures