Hotel Gracery Kyoto Sanjo

Very good sized room, extremely clean with very comfortable beds and a sofa/desk. Though it's right in the city, it's very quiet and everything worked well (shower, air conditioning, etc). Very good central location in the shopping arcades, walking distance to lots of shops, restaurants and sites, and easy to access public transport to go further afield. Washing machine/dryer was a bonus.

I love everything about the hotel; great location, a variety of breakfast, bed are comfortable etc. One thing needed to be improved is a manner of staff. As I travelled by the support of my government, I needed a proof of my stay. When I was asking a male staff at the reception about getting an invoice or any proof of my stay which is more official than an ordinary receipt (My organization call this type of document as "invoice"), a female receptionist with short black hair, who did not fully understand and followed the whole conversation because she just finished a conversation with another guest, told me that "We don't know the word 'invoice'. What you mean is 'certificate'. You should search in dictionary." Then, she ignored me and continued doing her thing at the counter without any further explanation. I was shocked by her manner. I am not a native English speaker, but I do not think my English is that bad. I graduated from a university in the UK and Kyoto University. (Sorry for bragging myself here. Just wanted to give readers background of my education.) At that moment, I admitted that I was using simple English sentences with her coworker because he could not speak English. Thus, I needed to communicate with him by using easy words. I clamed myself for 1 minute in front of hotel lift before went back to her and told her that her action is not acceptable. At that point she looked surprise that I could speak in full sentences. I then continued telling her that what she should do is asking for further information and try to help me getting the document from her hotel. Not looking into dictionary. Actually, I also showed her the word "invoice" from my phone. The term means "a list of goods sent or services provided, with a statement of the sum due for these; a bill". Guess what. What she answered was more shocking. She told me that she thought I could not speak and understand English.

Well priced.Comfortable beds. Hotel looked to be brand new. Hotel is located within one of the busy,covered arcades downtown-which is great on rainy days . I appreciated that the windows opened. Yet-no traffic noise.Quiet at night.Black out curtains. Starbucks on the first floor. Strong wifi signal.

We booked the 'Kabuki Room' which was the only one in the hotel! Actually only booked this hotel because this room was so unique and charming! It turned out that it was a good choice of hotel, anyway, as very nicely located within the shopping arcade and not far walking from 3 different lines of station. Also close to the food market and the river and lots of restaurants as well as a lovely Art Museum nearby. Depending on one's fitness, it was also close enough to walk to a lot of the attractions like Kiyomizu-dera Temple via the river path (40 mins or so) .

The staff were very helpful during check-in and when arranging for luggage forwarding to our next hotel. We liked the location inside the Teramachi covered market, it was always easy to find a good restaurant. It was also convenient to several bus stops and subway lines for reaching all the major sights. The soundproofing is quite good; with the window shut, I couldn't hear any noise from the market outside, and slept very well. (However, one night I could hear another guest using the TV in the next room.) Although the room was small, as expected, the lounge space on the second floor was really wonderful. It was a good place to work with our laptops and enjoy free coffee and soda.