Nikko Konishiya Hotel

Out of many choices from the Japan-Guide.com website, we chose to make a reservation with the Nikko Konishiya Hotel because the price looked reasonable, although the meals were on the high side (listed separately from lodging). We wanted to experience a good traditional Japanese meal, and thought we must be getting one by paying 4,000 yen (per person) for dinner and 1,500 yen for breakfast. WRONG.

The sight of the hotel from the street was not promising. It's nothing like what's shown on the internet. We were a little skeptical once we entered the front door. The place was kind of dark, old, and cluttered, which is quite surprising to us. We were coming towards the end of our 6-day trip in Japan, and everywhere we had gone on this trip was clean and cleaner. Konishiya was just an anomaly, and it put a bad taste to our otherwise-wonderful trip.

The carpet in the hallways and in our rooms was not only filthy beyond belief (greasy, black dirty), but also worn. In its former life, I am sure it was a beautiful pink carpet. But in its current state, it was saturated with dirt and embedded with grease. The toilet was leaking, and they wrapped a towel around the pipe and put several towels on the floor to absorb the moisture. However, the water was running all night, quite loudly during the night. Everything looked unkempt and unclean. I kept my suitcase zipped up in fear of an insect crawling in. The latch on the sliding window was rusted in the open position. We could not lock the windows at night or when we were out. There was no security. The onsen bath (hot spring) was not a good experience either. The room was so small, and the ventilation was so poor that the room was as hot as a sauna. I couldn't stay long enough to enjoy it as I had at other places. The water in the bath was not circulating. We just didn't feel that it was clean.

The meal was a joke. In all other places we'd been to, there were countless delicious dishes; one more unique than the other. Here in Konishiya, there were 8 small dishes in total, including soup, rice and fruit. Not only did they not taste good, they were sitting on the table long before we arrived, and must have been sampled by the flies which we kept waving off during the meal. Needless to say, the breakfast was another disappointment.

The staff were not friendly to say the least. It was very different compared to everywhere else we had been to on this trip.

We all felt very strongly about posting a review.