JAPANING Hotel Liv Ranroukaku

I was assigned a room on the first floor, which was very noisy. The first night I couldn't fall asleep until someone staying upstairs finished her long long super loud phone conversation till mid-night. The next early morning I was waked up by the cleaning lady - she made a lot of noise upstairs when she was walking and cleaning the rooms. She did the same in the second morning. The mattress was hard and not comfortable at all. The hotel did not make my bed although I had given them the permission to enter my room. They also told me the checkout time was 10am, rather than stated 11am.

The room was OK but the shower may get very hot and there is not enough space to put your toiletries. The staff was excellent and more than obliged your request for taxi, food, directions and Internet services.

Amazing hotel with friendly/charming staff (they do not speak English unfortunately). Go for it. The only drawback is the fact it is far away from th ecity center (but close to highly interesting spots in the same time). It is a hotel not a hostel so don't go there if you want to meet people.

After checking out of a horrible hotel 3 nights early, we ended up at the Liv Ranroukaku hotel and had an amazing experience there. The staff was incredibly sweet and helpful, the room was enormous by Japanese standards, and the view (river view room) was lovely. I speak decent enough Japanese, so I don't know how much English the staff speaks. However, there was a binder in the room with explanations for how to use many of the more "Japanese" items in the room (tea maker, washlet toilet, air conditioner remote, etc.). Everything was clean and tidy. Things in the local area do close down early as the Arashiyama area is mainly catering to tourists who come out for a day trip, but there are always buses running to the city center, or convenience stores open within a short walk. I would highly recommend this hotel if you want to stay in the western area of Kyoto. My one, extremely small, complaint would be that the refrigerator was actually quite noisy when it was running! So we just unplugged it during the evening before going to sleep.

Great little place in an excellent location. Our first time in a Ryokan. My wife loved the baths.