M’s Hotel Sanjo Wakoku

After a month of travelling around Japan, this is without doubt THE WORST hotel I’ve stayed at. For the price they charge (upwards of £100 per night in GBP, which is very expensive for Japan…) the place is utterly abysmal value for money and has some of the worst service I’ve encountered anywhere around the world. The beds are rock solid, the room stunk of damp and cigarettes, there are no staff on site at any time and the luggage storage is a joke - they use second-hand bicycle locks that don’t all work properly instead of offering a luggage room. Oh, and they don’t give customers any keys to ANYTHING - you’re expected to memorise several different codes for accessing buildings and rooms instead, which are printed on a receipt that I guess you’re screwed if you lose? Because of the no staff?? During my stay I ended up in a situation where I almost missed my Shinkansen because I couldn’t unlock my bags from the railing when I came to check out. Due to the zero staff policy, there was nobody I could ask for help - only an iPad that powers the check out process and a telephone connected to an off-site call centre for the general M’s brand. I was only able to leave with my bags because a very stressed out, quite clearly overworked (and probably underpaid) cleaner helped me cut the chain - the call centre staff were useless and not having any reception staff on site to help was very frustrating. There are also no toilets available once you’ve checked out of the room, and no information inside the room, meaning you have to contact the off-site call centre for basic things like the wifi password. In all, M’s hotel is overcharging tourists for very small, uncomfortable rooms and literally non-existent customer service. Clearly they are cutting staff so the distant shareholders can pocket all the cash. There are hundreds of hotels in Kyoto, so please don’t pick this one.

We last minute booked around 11pm and arrived around midnight, and they thankfully were able to check us in no problem despite the late hours. It went smoothly. The room was clean and modern, and it was quiet. After we checked out, we left luggage at the front so we didn’t have to lug it around while we were site-seeing in the morning. They offer that service for free! ✨ I really appreciated the ease of our stay there. Also the staff were polite and helpful.