TL;DR: Everything else was booked, was forced to stay here. Location is good in terms of being close to JR. Staff are friendly. Rooms (especially the smoking ones) are pretty disgusting but not tiny. Not worth the money they are charging and definitely not recommended.
Sapporo was unfortunately for me, pretty much fully booked the night I wanted to stay due to a concert. This was one of the few options left a week out - and the next hotel up was double the price. The only room they had available was a smoking room, but beggars can't be choosers, I booked it and hoped that there would be some cancellations. There weren't and the stench of stale cigarette smoke hit me as soon as the elevator stopped at the floor.
The room itself is worn, dated and quite honestly pretty revolting. Immediately my eyes starting stinging and the air felt thick and heavy. Thank god there were no stains on the sheets (just a hair). The same could not be said about the floor in regards to stains! The bedcover had cigarette burns and looked so dingy I didn't want any part of me touching it. The drapes, furniture and extractor fans all had that layer of grime and discolouration that comes from a room that has been heavily smoked in.
A few minutes after entering the room, a friendly and apologetic staff member appeared with a "freshening spray"...TL;DR: Everything else was booked, was forced to stay here. Location is good in terms of being close to JR. Staff are friendly. Rooms (especially the smoking ones) are pretty disgusting but not tiny. Not worth the money they are charging and definitely not recommended.
Sapporo was unfortunately for me, pretty much fully booked the night I wanted to stay due to a concert. This was one of the few options left a week out - and the next hotel up was double the price. The only room they had available was a smoking room, but beggars can't be choosers, I booked it and hoped that there would be some cancellations. There weren't and the stench of stale cigarette smoke hit me as soon as the elevator stopped at the floor.
The room itself is worn, dated and quite honestly pretty revolting. Immediately my eyes starting stinging and the air felt thick and heavy. Thank god there were no stains on the sheets (just a hair). The same could not be said about the floor in regards to stains! The bedcover had cigarette burns and looked so dingy I didn't want any part of me touching it. The drapes, furniture and extractor fans all had that layer of grime and discolouration that comes from a room that has been heavily smoked in.
A few minutes after entering the room, a friendly and apologetic staff member appeared with a "freshening spray" and bombed the room. It didn't help overly much. Bathroom was all plastic with cracks that had been taped.
There was nothing great about the room, but the TV had clearly been recently upgraded (one could see the discolouration on the wall where the old one had been). The room wasn't poky like many other hotels in Japan, but severely dated and tatty. (Scuff marks on the wall, cracks in the wallpaper etc.) The shower pressure (despite having a shared control for shower/sink) had surprisingly good pressure.
Nothing felt clean in the room, and I didn't want to unpack (left the suitcase closed) and definitely not walk on the floor in bare feet, nor use the provided non-disposable slippers .. so I wore socks and then the slippers. The brightest colours in the room were two glossy guides for adult porn movies :(
WiFi is implemented crudely but effectively - it seems they have just placed a bunch of access points at each floor and one chooses the strongest signal. No wireless encryption or login required (though I recommend using a VPN or at least https seeing it is open Wifi).
The walls are paper-thin, and one hears everything from neighbouring rooms and the corridor. My room was on a quieter street so outside noise wasn't a problem.
Accessing the hotel from JR Kotoni station is a snap - don't do what I do when I first arrived though and trudge through driving snow to get to the hotel! There is a covered walkway that goes through a shopping center of sorts, and you can stay dry the entire way (save a short 100m or so at the end). When exiting the ticket barrier at JR, turn right and climb up a set of steps.
Kotoni station is on the airport line, so getting to the airport tonight should be relatively painless.
The staff as I mentioned were nice and friendly, and the front desk / reception area actually looks OK. It's once you get into the green elevators and up to the rooms you realise what a dump this is. Had it been half the price, it might have got two stars.
I am aware that I booked a smoking room, and that it probably wasn't going to be great .. but my "she'll be right" approach bit me in the backside this time. I woke up with sore, stinging eyes, an unpleasant taste in my mouth and got the heck out of that room as quick as I could. The staff are OK with leaving luggage for the day. I skipped the breakfast not wanting to spend any longer than necessary in this place.More
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