Review – St Regis Osaka Japan

Introduction

We stayed here in April 2017 for 2 nights during cherry blossom season.  The consensus place to stay is the Intercontinental Osaka, but they were fully booked, so I booked this St. Regis using 20K SPG points per night.  Rack rate was around $800 due to the season, so it was a great use of points.  This was also my first time ever in a St. Regis and to be honest, they made me feel more special than the Ritz Carlton Kyoto.

 

Getting to hotel

We took the train from Kyoto to the Hommachi station.  You can then take exit #7 from the station I believe and then go up 2 escalators.  The hotel will then be around the corner, so super convenient.  We got to the hotel around 11:00AM and since they were full, we checked our bags and were told to come back after 3:00PM.  We then took that time to walk to Osaka castle (another post.)  We got back to the hotel around 6:00PM or so to check in.

 

Checking in

We were escorted up an elevator to the lobby area.  We sat there for a bit while we waited for a clerk to be free.  I don’t think we were offered drinks (or maybe we were) while we waited.  After a bit, we sat down at the checkin desk where the agent told me I had been upgraded to my Platinum status.  She then told me that I had 3000 JPY PER NIGHT that I could use on the minibar in the room.  She also gave me 2 drink tickets for the bar.  After that, a bellman escorted us up to our room.

 

Our room

As soon as we walked in, we noticed the HUGE bed.  Apparently they pushed 2 twins together, but they were closer to queen size beds to me.  The person dropped us off our bags, showed us around a bit and told us our butler will arrive shortly.  After 15 minutes or so, our butler arrived with a cake and some tea.  She then gave us a rundown of the butler service.  We requested 2 special pillows, and then had my shirt and wife’s dress pressed as well as my shoes shined.  We left them in the “nook” by the door and when we came back after dinner, they were done.

We did NOT use the unpacking and packing service just because we didn’t want them to rummage through our stuff.  We went ahead and got their half bottle of white wine with our 6000 JPY minibar allowance and paid the slight overrage.

 

Wifi

This was my only complaint about the hotel – the wifi was a bit spotty.  I had to switch to Tmobile a few times because the wifi wasn’t responding.

 

Breakfast

For both breakfast meals, we decided to get the Japanese set menu, which was pretty good.  On the 2nd morning, they changed the fish, but that was about it.  You could also enjoy the salad and fruits from the buffet, but not the hot items if you picked the Japanese set menu.  The buffet looked like typical American food with eggs, bacon, sausage, etc.  We definitely made the right choice by going with the Japanese option.

Also, we went down too late on the first morning and had to sit downstairs in the cafe for breakfast.  I thought the seats weren’t the comfortable and it was a bit too noisy and laid back.  So make sure you go early so you can get seats at the main dining room.

Conclusion

I thought the location was good.  It is on a subway station, but it’s in a business district and only a Starbucks is open at night.  I’d probably pick the Intercontinental next time since that seems to be in a more lively area.  I thought the breakfast was just okay.  The room and view were nice, but nothing worth bragging about.