Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyoto Sanjo PREMIER

This hotel is in an excellent location for getting a good start each day for prime sight seeing across Kyoto, but is in a very cool and chill upscale neighbourhood for strolling at all hours of the day. There are great coffee shops, bakeries, and excellent shopping. There are loads of chic restaurants to look up and book ahead of time, and some more relaxed options to stumble upon if you’re going with the flow each day. We enjoyed coffee at the Blue Bottle cafe, sandwiches and baked goods at the Flip Up bakery, and shopping the North Face purple label goods at stores in the immediate hood, and nearby market area.

What could be improved: It’s a Japanese hotel which means you’re going to get some nice touches like the public onsen, skincare and toiletries to take with you to the room, and slippers/pjs. But, the service is just different from western levels. Japan like everywhere seems to be struggling with staffing and I would say the team here is very junior and not very knowledgeable about the neighbourhood. They were unable to make recommendations for dinners, but did offer to navigate the booking pages if required.

The room was very very good with a lot of space. It would have been nice to have had some draws or shelves to put clothes rather than having to live out of a suitcase.

What could be improved: The breakfast could have been much better. There was a very limited selection of fruit, there was no bread of toast despite there being jam and marmalade and the menu for hot food was very limited.

1) The attentiveness, kindness and care of all staff was the best we ever experienced! 2) Both the public and private spa were beautiful! 3) The free coffee in the lobby was greatly appreciated! 4) elevators super fast 5)location amazing 5) The restaurant is beautiful and food exceptional and fairly priced! I loved the cheese and the workshop space, but WISH they offered actual classes! I would love to learn how to make mozzarella!

What could be improved: Since we do not eat big breakfast we did not like that the hotel only offered a buffet (fixed price) offering. Ala carte is much preferred for Americans.

I liked everything! We booked a deluxe suite that was on the ground level, which although was beautiful, the windows were frosted (so no view). I asked to be moved to a room with proper windows because our previous hotel in Tokyo had the same issue, which was not great. The staff quickly showed me two different room options (both with lots of sunlight). I was able to pick whichever room I wanted and we moved within minutes. It was seamless and they were so accommodating. The rooms were so clean and beautiful. The hotel smelled incredible and the onsen was so gorgeous. The location was also super. I can’t recommend this hotel enough.

What could be improved: The breakfast could’ve had more Japanese style options in my opinion but otherwise it was great.