Room with a View! (Osaka, Japan)
I’ve spent my fair share of nights in 5-star hotels. Apparently I have Starwood Preferred Guest Lifetime Gold status due to my 307 nights spent in Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridian, and W hotels over the years. (More than 1 Year of work days!) They are wonderfully convenient and predictable.
Public spaces are warm and inviting, beautifully decorated with plenty of natural light and artwork you would expect to find in a museum. The interior designer is well known by those who know interior designers.
Rooms are spacious and comfortable, with large heavenly beds and lush pillows. The sheet thread count is at least 4 digits, and the complimentary bath robe is something you would happily wear all weekend. The shower experience is certain to make you consider a home bathroom redesign (and 10 million times better than our shower in San Pedro, Guatemala.)
The staff is friendly and remembers your name. “Welcome back, Mr. & Mrs. GCC.” When was the last time anybody called me Mister? Anything you need, they deliver with a smile.
Indeed, 5-star hotels are very nice. But I don’t love them. On our list of preferred places to stay, they are last.
For our recent trip to Kyoto, Japan, a rare thing happened. Every hotel in town was completely full! We had inadvertently booked our flights during a Japanese holiday.
Often we use Booking.com to explore hotel options, and it reported 99% occupancy. The only option was some villa 2 hours outside of town for $2k/night. Then I looked on Airbnb, which showed 95% occupancy. There were a few places that looked great for a single guy who wanted to travel on the cheap, but nothing that looked like a good fit for a family.
This is where some flexibility and a stash of Starwood Points comes to the rescue. Instead of 8 days in Kyoto we stayed 3, followed by 5 days in Osaka. We used a mix of cash and points for the Kyoto hotel, and all points in Osaka. 5 nights is the ideal length of stay for Starwood hotels since they have a 5th night free redemption bonus.
There are 3 Starwood hotels in Osaka, but the only one with availability was the St. Regis at $651/night. Ouch. With points, we paid $0. It is absolutely gorgeous.
One cool thing about the St. Regis is you get a personal butler, just for you. They will press your suit, shine your shoes, and help with reservations and recommendations. Unfortunately my suit and shoes were donated a few years ago and all I had were some T-shirts and flip flops.
Normally when we stay in smaller local hotels, we love to chat with the staff. “If you were going to get lunch nearby, where would you eat?” is a question that has led to some amazing dining experiences. But in the high end hotels, the staff seldom lives nearby, nor can they afford to eat in the neighborhood. They recommend the Michelin Star restaurant in the building next door as opposed to the hole in the wall noodle shop.
We like food. Michelin Star restaurants are great! But not every night.
Case in point, I was looking for a small coffee or tea shop where we could meet up with fellow blogger Tawcan and his family. I wanted something that was a real Japan experience. The sheet of recommendations that was slipped under the door was a list of nearby Starbucks.
We were also looking for a grocery store to get some fruit for GCCjr, just a few grapes and maybe a mango. Our butler was happy to help, and provided a map to a nearby establishment with amazing produce.
Stunning Grapes
Succulent Mangoes
Based on the exchange rate of ~120 Japanese Yen to US Dollar, one bunch of grapes cost $54. Two mangoes… $224! Amazing!
I guess GCCjr is eating at the Michelin Star restaurant tonight to save us some money.
And lest I forget to mention, the directions we were provided to a “very local area” brought us to a shopping area filled with Chinese tourists buying tax-free luxury brand luggage, rice makers, and vacuum cleaners. All made in China.
By day 2 we decided to blaze our own trail.
There are definitely more 5-Star hotels in our future. I absolutely need to spend a day or two swimming in the rooftop pool at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. And I could probably be convinced to spend a week or two in a floating villa in the Maldives, Fiji, or Tahiti.
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore (photo credit to MBS)
But there is something I love about the authenticity of the grit and rough edges of small and local places, where the smiles are genuine, the suggestions based on first person experience, and the language not your own.
That’s what we experienced in our rental with a private pool in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, where we went mango picking with our neighbor. And our Airbnb rental in Antigua, Guatemala with an awesome cat and a host who had the best dining recommendations.
Our 5-star hotel in Japan was great. But these are the places and memories we love.
Where do you love to stay?
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Want to give Airbnb a try? Get $25 off your first stay.
Part of me always feels like the uber luxurious places don’t give you a good sense of the place you’re in – it’s basically like Disney. You experience the facade. I like the places that seem closer to the ground, where you get the experience real life, and so I love me some Michelin starred restaurants (we went to Tickets in Barcelona and it was amazing), but sometimes the street vendors are where the really good food is at.
You’ve perfectly captured the feeling. It’s not so much Japan as faux-Japan.
I haven’t been to Tickets, but I think the best restaurant meal I’ve ever had was in Barcelona at Cal Pep. The evening was already going great when Señor Pep pulled a bottle out of his personal stash.
Fruit in wooden boxes always screamed excess to me. :)
Tickets is a molecular gastronomy type of place, where food is made to look like different things except not nearly as crazy. And relatively reasonably priced given it’s stardom.
I’ve never stayed in a 5 star hotel, but in general, I couldn’t agree more that I’d take an AirBnB over a hotel any day. We’ve done 15 countries in the year since we moved to Europe, and the only hotel we’ve stayed in was a Hilton in Barcelona, and it was only because we were about to lose 100k worth of expiring points. We knew we needed to use the points since it was basically free money, but we were definitely bummed about missing out on a more authentic experience.
All I know is that I love the St. Regis Osaka. I’d never be disappointed staying there. It’s always available with points too. :-)
I know the feeling. I would never hesitate to stay at the W Hotel in Seoul, for example. The outdoor hot tub overlooking the Han River is a great way to start the day.
There was a time when I was there every few weeks, and the staff and I were on a first name basis. I went out one weekend with the crew that worked brunch for a tour of the city, and the head bartender still has one of my fedoras. On one trip, Whitney Houston’s crew was staying there and we partied all night. Lots of good times
Their restaurant recommendations near the hotel kinda sucked though ;)
Do you have a post on how you got the points? I collect points but never enough to get a free night like that
Hi Rob
I don’t have a post, but here is a quick summary
My wife and I alternated SPG Amex Cards for a few years, which got us 35k points each time for a total of ~100k
I traveled quite a bit for work at the time, and used that card as much as I could. I think when you get Platinum SPG status, $1 = 5 points for stays.
I ditched the card when I retired because they had foreign transaction fees. This is no longer the case, but they changed the annual fee from $35 to $95 in the process. Still, $95 is not a lot to pay if you get a few free hotel nights out of it
Hope that helps
Jeremy
5 star hotels are pretty sweet, and I’ve been fortunate to stay in 1 or 2 for business. When it’s my dime or my points, I’m usually looking at the best bang for the buck and that’s usually somewhere around the middle to slightly below the middle.
Somewhere that is still nice, has amenities, but isn’t too pretentious or targeted toward the luxury travel or 1st class businessperson. Lately, we’ve been staying in a lot of Four Points by Sheratons and Alofts. Lots of Category 2 redemption options at 3000 to 4000 points per night to maximize our redemption.
The nice thing about the more budget end of the Starwood chain is that they give away a lot of free stuff that some luxury hotels charge extra for. Wifi, bottled water, and in-room coffee and tea to name a few. The luxury hotels figure guests aren’t price sensitive because they’re dropping $700/nt themselves or because they expense it all and just don’t care, therefore $7 for an espresso at the coffee bar downstairs or $9.95/nt for wifi or $4 for a bottle of water is no biggie. It’s a biggie to me! :)
The more budget hotels also get you in a “better” part of town generally. Not a nicer, more glitzy luxurious part of town, but one where you can find those local hole in the walls, chat with the housekeeper or front desk staff about the best place to get tacos/sushi/whatever is local.
Beyond that, we love Airbnb for stays over 2 nights. With 3 kids, having that 2nd or 3rd bedroom and a comfortable living room plus an extra bathroom or three is totally worth the slight extra hassle. The cost isn’t really much more than nightly hotels in my experience.
We are huge fans of the Residence Inn. All of our points are with Marriott, so this is certainly more convenient, but we love having a kitchen and, like you said, there’s certainly a more local vibe there. Plus, you can usually stay for very few points. We earn a ton from work travel now, but then spend them slowly at the lowest tier places we can find.
Virtually every five-star hotel where we’ve stayed, always for work, has been disappointing in some way. The Four Seasons in Santa Barbara, for example, had the noisiest room I’ve ever stayed in! Four stars is a nice compromise if someone else is paying. :-)
For our family, choosing Airbnb over a moderate hotel is a tough choice. Our hotel chain of choice is Hyatt and it’s hard to pass up a hotel with all of their amenities for an Airbnb that we can’t guarantee is going to meet our needs.
We’ve become better at figuring out which properties are good choices for us, but the horror stories we’ve heard about others have us a little apprehensive. Whenever we’re paying for a stay versus using points, we start with Airbnb and go from there. For more tropical locations, we tend to stick with resorts for all the amenities they offer.
And there are still ways to find local gems. We often ask taxi drivers (if we are able to speak the same language) for their recommendations. But even that is tough if they’ve got a “brother-in-law” with a great place, etc. Missing out on authentic experiences is definitely one of the biggest downsides to a luxury hotel stay!
For me, a hotel is a place where you sleep when you’re traveling. If you’re doing travel right, then you’re only in the hotel to go to bed, and, perhaps, to do breakfast in the morning, although hotels rarely provide any better meal than one that you can get outside of the hotel (the Renaissance Hotel in Dallas is an exception). So, I’ll happily eschew hotel luxury for splurging on a great meal or a great adventure somewhere. As long as the place is clean, safe, and reasonably bedbug-free, then I’m perfectly happy. Hotels are rarely a destination in and of themselves.
I definitely need to give Airbnb a try. I’ve been stacking some Marriott points for a while, but I haven’t used them for personal travel yet. I like seeing them grow too much to use them :)
I was doing this with Starwood points. At one point I had over 400k worth of them, which is worth about 3 months in a 2-3 star hotel or 1.5 months in a 5-star. I think of it as another asset class that we can use in the early years while we let the portfolio continue to grow
My husband and I usually split the difference. We do several days in a local joint and then end the vacation in the high end luxury place. Best of both worlds
While I love the ambiance and feel of the upscale places, the way they nickel and dime (and $5 and $10) you is grating.
$5 for the bottle of water in the room? The mid-range places hand me bottles for free.
In the last place I stayed I ordered room service.
21% gratuity added, automatically. (OK, that’s what I’d have done anyway)
Plus a $6 service charge.
And when the waiter presented the tab for me to sign…
…big, bold and open was a space to add a tip. Learn to live with disappointment.
I’d have laughed, but it’s hard when you’re grinding your teeth.
The wifi charges in business hotels get me!
I’m annoyed by the automatic minibar that charges $7 for a candy bar that I didn’t eat.
Wifi and bottled water were free, I think because of the Lifetime Gold status. There was also a Nespresso machine with free capsules, so I got to be George Clooney for a few days
Just another specific illustration of the general rule of thumb that frugality not only requires no sacrifice to quality of life, but actually improves quality of life.
I have a pet so we like Residents Inn in the USA. And, I can cook our meals to save money :)
I agree completely! We used points last year to stay in London and Paris. We redeemed a ton of points (this was just before we converted to frugal living travel hackers). In Paris, we were surrounded by expensive shopping and dining and I wished we had booked an Airbnb rental in a less touristy area. Heading to Mexico City next week and doing it right. Staying with a host in a non-hotel area that sounds terrific.
That hotel room looks glorious, very similar to the Marriott hotel that we stayed in Osaka. Glad that we used our points instead paying the stay with cash.
You thought that mango was expensive? We saw a melon in a Ginza department store for 16,000 yen and were like “are you serious?” Then we look up the shelf and long and behold there was an even more expensive melon at 35,000 yen. Yeah a melon that costs $350 US. Makes me wonder what they do with it when it doesn’t get sold.
Oh yeah I wanted to take a picture of these expensive fruits except they had giant “No photo” signs all over the place. Boo.
There were no photo signs at this place too, but I can’t read Japanese ;)
The most expensive melon we saw was 5,400 Yen. Still ridiculous
It’s pricey cause the stem makes that cute little t shape. That’s what my Japanese friend told me, at least, when we marveled over produce prices on Tokyo. And they’re meant to be given as gifts, not scarfed down for your own lunch. Japanese are real big on gift giving as I’m sure you know!
Totally agree. I once went to a resort in Mexico and it could have been located anywhere in the world. Sure, there are small local differences but you can’t escape the chain-like mentality and atmosphere. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy stays at very nice hotels!
However, the most memorable experiences definitely happen in smaller boutique hotels. My spouse and I had several good experiences in Argentina, including a stay in a boutique hotel dedicated to tango and a bed&breakfast run by a young German&Argentinean couple.
I spent a week exploring the Atlantic Coast in Ireland in June, and really really liked staying at B&Bs and hostels there. Overall, I also didn’t see lots of chain hotels on Ireland’s west coast, thank God! What’s the point of traveling, if I eat burgers and stay at Holiday Inn wherever I go?!
The most fun and quirky B&B I stayed at is on the tiny island of Inisheer, the smallest of the 3 Aran Islands near Cliffs of Moher, entirely by accident. The owners are this sweet couple who actually live on the island, and the wife makes the best seafood chowder I’ve ever had! In fact, it was so good, with so generous portions of fresh crab meat, I cleaned up my plate and decided to stay overnight because I had to have the chowder again! :) They even arranged to get my overnight bag carried to the island with the ferry company.
There’s more! I ran into the couple at the local pub (of course, we are talking about Ireland) and they immediately took me under their wings (I was traveling solo) and made me feel welcome and at ease. Long story short, we ended up crammed into their tractor cab (don’t ask me why they had a tractor!), along with their drunken neighbor who kept hitting on me, and rode back to the B&B which is only a few blocks away. But I would not give up that memorable tractor ride for the world!!
Now, how would I ever dream of getting an experience like that out of a 5-star hotel?!
Nice! I stayed a night on all 3 of the Aran Isles in 1999, camped on one of them. My buddy and I even sang an extremely poorly rendered version of a Garth Brooks song at a pub because, well, we were the only Americans on the island and the locals insisted. I think it was actually I Got Friends in Low Places… Man, that was a great trip. For a solid month exploring mostly the west coast of Ireland, with airfare we spent maybe a couple grand each. Of course, that was back in the days when we could stay in youth hostels…
These days, my wife and I tend to B & B it when we’re not traveling with the kiddo. We also like boutique hotels. Many B & Bs in the states seem to prefer no kids. That’s OK though, my cash has a distinct prejudice against places that don’t like kids, so I guess you could say the feeling is mutual :) We’ve also used both AirBNB and VRBO, had better experiences with VRBO for the most part.
These are the special ones. It takes a lot of caring, you can google them. The regular ones at the grocery store is comparable to the US.
3.5 stars hotels are ok. I’d like the microwave so I can eat the left over from dinner, as I don’t enjoy breakfast food. Mr. is already has his special breakfast food, no point of me eating out all by myself. :)
I took 6 vacations so far this year, I started to like higher end 4-4.5 stars hotels, I also started to use the point to pay for them, so “begger can’t be chooser” hehe,,as long as it’s free, I can go without a microwave.
Best post retirement vacation I ever had was staying in a condo in the historic area of Florence Italy. We found it through a company called Windows on Italy. It was a beautiful apartment in a 15th century building in the heart of the pedestrian only historic district. We had decided to stay for a month to really explore local life so we walked everywhere, hung out at the piazzas, learned the culture, got to know the locals at mom and pop restaurants and the clerks at the grocery store and outdoor markets, enjoyed all the amazing Renaisance works of art, the Boticellis, Da Vincis, Michelangelos and more, hung out at piazzas and generally experienced the joys of “slow travel”. The cost of all of it? $100/person per day, every thing in included….. Airfare, rental, all food, museum tickets, bus fare, souvenir shopping etc. Conversely, we were curious about what a hotel in the area would have been like for approximately the same cost. We asked to see the rooms at a nearby place and were shocked at the shabby accommedations. I have never stayed in a 5 star Hotel and wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to do that but staying in rentals has been my preferred way to travel, so far. Love your blog!
With three kids, we love Embassy Suites… we get a mini kitchen, can fit all five of us (with a door in between!) and we get warm breakfasts. Outside of the US we have less experience… I guess we’ll figure that out as we go along.
I’ve stayed in floating villas in the Maldives, Fiji, and Tahiti and highly recommend them :). However, when it’s my choice I prefer to stay in AirBnBs or similar so I can have a sense of how people in that city actually live and feel a part of it.
My favorite place is our family westfalia van. Over the summer we visited 30 states and parked in some great locations.
Damn, $224 mangoes? It sound like Japan is pretty expensive overall.
When we travel we use AirBnB or hostels. When we go for a hostel, it is always a private room. You are right, by not going 5 star, you do get a much better sense of how locals live and where they eat and hangout.
Haha you met Tawcan? That would have been awesome. I like to stay in hotels that have a local feeling rather than luxury hotels that are filled people’s vanity. Not to mention, it is reasonably cheaper :)
We used to always just stay in the cheapest 3 star hotel we could find. But now with Airbnb, it opens up a ton of possibilities! I think most of our trips from now on will be Airbnb rentals. Next month, we’re staying 10 nights in Cape Town, South Africa in an 11th floor apartment, right across from the beach with amazing views. Thanks to Airbnb, you can pick your exact room/view instead of booking at a hotel and hoping you have a room with a good view. Not to mention, Airbnb can be a heck of a lot cheaper!
I’m also not a fan of 5-star hotels. I’m perfectly fine being in jeans or shorts and a t-shirt all the time. But when I stay in a place that nice, I feel like I need to dress up and spend like I’m made of money. That’s not fun to me.
I think 5-star hotels have their peaks, but you will definitely be further from what an average local would experience daily. I tend to travel light and talk to random people. but i guess it is different once you have kid.
It would be churlish of me to knock luxury travel. One likes one’s little comforts. But when I have the choice, the location is more important to me than the star rating. I want to be in a neighbourhood with food, bars and/or things to see – hopefully all three. I always make time to walk around a few blocks and stop off for a local bite or drink.
I am cuurently traveling around Turkey for 8 weeks staying at low budget guest houses. Own bathroom and usually breakfast included. Prices between $11–$23 per night. I would like to point out that every single place has had free wi-fi.
I work at a 5-star Starwood property in the US. I am a bellman/valet and hear the concierges and managers always recommending the top of the line places to eat. If I see a guest is disappointed with the “high-end” selections I pull them aside as they are leaving and tell them where they really should go for the best bang for their buck.
When I was in Cairo, Egypt we asked our driver to take us where he and his family shop. We ended up at an amazing market with no tourists and prices so low we couldn’t believe. Ask those of us on the lowest rung of the ladder (bellman, valets, house keepers, drivers, etc.) and we’ll tell you where you really should go!
Looks great GCC … It will give me some good ideas/tips for my next visit … we were just visiting Japan in July/August for 2 weeks … I think September/October would be cooler and less busy, but we had fun. My sister in law was there at the same time in the Nagano mountain area …. but we did the usual? first timer route …. we flew into Osaka and did Kobe, Nara and Kyoto area …. then we flew from Osaka to Tokyo …. did the Tokyo sites including 3 days at Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea … then flew back to Beijing … about 80,000 RMB …. but had upscale hotels … love your photos …. From the Far Side of the Planet and a baby new blogger Michael …. alias CPO
http://christianprofessionalsoverseas.com
I used to stay at Intercontinental when on business to get more points to stay in the Holiday Inn with family and noticed the Intercontinental even after the $300+ room made you pay EXTRA for breakfast!! Holiday Inn is free… never understood that!
Who wouldn’t choose a suicide shower in Guatemala over some fancy 5 star hotel?! Lol! I’ve done both and enjoyed both equally, though for different reasons. You’re correct that the experiences differ vastly and each has its pros and cons. Despite my preference for AirBnBs and local boutique hotels, I’m adding that hotel in Singapore to my list!