While planning our trip to Japan, we quickly realized that hotels were: 1) expensive, 2) filling up quickly, and 3) not many American chain hotel programs offered good value. When we booked our ANA First Class flights to Japan 11 months prior to travel, we had no idea that Japan was hosting the Rugby World Cup during our travel dates. Whoops! Many hotels were already full (including the Park Hyatt Tokyo at over $1,200/night) 8 to 10 months in advance. With few options available to book with points, we made the best of a bad situation. Luckily, we found a treasure in Kyoto: the Enso Ango Fuya II, a Hyatt Small Luxury Hotel.
The Enso Ango Fuya II is one hotel of four in this family. You have access to all four hotels, but the other three are small and offer few amenities. This hotel is a Hyatt Category 4, meaning it is 15,000 points per night. A free annual night certificate from a World of Hyatt credit card or the free night certificate for spending $15,000 or more on your Hyatt card also works. Either way, this hotel offers great value, as rooms are usually $250+ plus taxes.
The hotel's location is good: approximately 1 mile from Kyoto Station (the epicenter for the numerous trains throughout the city) and less than 3 blocks from Nishiki Market and the closest metro stop. There are great restaurants all around and the area is very walkable.
The lobby and lounge area are open and inviting. All guests enjoy complimentary continental breakfast in the Lounge. Hot tea, coffee, pastries, hard-boiled eggs, cereal, and toast were available from 6 a.m. until 10 a.m. As mentioned previously, you have access to the 3 other properties and their different breakfasts, but none were as ample as our hotel. If we return, I would not venture to any of the other properties.
The highlight of this hotel was the rooms. Very large by Japanese standards, the rooms contained many features that you expect in a luxury hotel: nice bedding and linens, black-out curtains, mood lighting, a really nice bathroom and shower, etc. For us Westerners, it seems odd that a luxury hotel has twin beds as its standard room, but we found this throughout Japan. Overall, the room was very nice and we were quite comfortable for our two night stay.
The hotel has 5 floors and each floor has its own coin laundry facility. The units were new and in good condition. Quite surprisingly, do-it-yourself laundry was the only option I could find, as there was no information in the guest rooms or at the front desk for laundry or ironing services. This is unexpected at a luxury hotel.
This property worked great for our needs and felt like a perfect balance between luxury and practicality. We would recommend this hotel to other travelers and would consider it again for another trip to Kyoto.
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