Ariston Hotel Kobe

Very conveniently located. Staff genuinely tries to be very helpful.

The hotel, and especially my room, while clean, is very tired. Feels like you’re in a motel six 120 miles outside of Omaha. Was very surprised to find this level of quality in Japan. It is clean, and very convenient, but set expectations experience in terms of the accoutrement

Being slightly away from the city on port island was really nice, but also only being 10 minutes away from mainland Kobe was very useful, the bed was very comfortable and room was kept at a lovely temperature.

Slightly dated decor

The staffs were very friendly and helpful, check-in and check-out are really easy. I like that the room was very spacious and had everything I needed. I booked it for a conference so I wasn't staying for long. The location is convenient. It's just about 3 minutes walk to the portliner terminal and there's also a Lawson nearby.

The room and building itself are very old. My bathtub's drain is leaking a little bit so my bath time was sort of timed 😅 The soundproofing was also not very good as I can sometimes hear people talking outside. It's understandable for the price though. In my opinion it's a good hotel in its price range.

The only good thing is the size of the hotel room. - At 42sqm, I cannot complain, it's v good size. - Aircon is stable can get quite cold if turned on for a few hours. - Decent nice toiletries

NOT good aplenty: - Not even a small tea spoon, metal fork, or chopsticks in the room. I can't even make a cup of 3-in-1 instant coffee or tea with no stirrer spoon or fork. - Internet is not always smooth, and laggy - Japanese plug point types are known to be weak two points and not helpful for UK-version (which covers many Commonwealth countries). An international hotel should have a multi-versions plug point to allow different type of plug points. - Only given 1 room key despite two guests, very inflexible. I have to ensure my family comes back same time as me and we can't split our itinerary as we don't 2-3 keys to share around. And the key is literally a long physical key and not a key card. - Only given 1 pillow for one guest per bed.. omg (really stingy). I have to call for Reception to pass me two more pillows as we have 1 pillow for one adult. And the pillows are so hard it make me have stiff neck by Day 2. - Breakfast ends too early.. it ends at 930am which is still early. In fact the hotel staff at first even tell me it would end 845am, when he actually is supposed to say last order is 845am (which is still too early!) - Hotel location is a little out of the way.. have to drag the luggage from and to the Monorail station (8-10mins if a heavy luggage). Also the streets while are very clean have poor street directions with dimly lit lights especially at night. I could not even find a proper signage at night to lead me from the monorail station to my Hotel despite it being 7mins walk, it ended up a 20mins search for all the wrong directions. I highly recommend a nearby hotel called Portapia Hotel as a much better choice than Ariston Hotel if anyone is to visit the area especially for a conference. - Too quiet a neighbourhood, a dull place. - Super old technology, lights are illogical in design thinking..