Hotel Abest Grande Okayama

What a premium experience! Entering Hotel Abest immediately gives you a "grande" feeling ... the entrance area and reception was very beautifully decorated for Christmas and well maintained with a map of nearby restaurants and areas. There is no cramped feeling like a typical budget capsule hotel, you feel like you're in a regular hotel. Even the "capsule" is basically a little room for yourself, with enough space to keep your luggage indoors and even walk around and a bedside table with a huge locker to store your personal items. A wall mounted TV and loungewear is also provided for you to relax, after you enjoy the excellent sento facilities. The women's section requires keycard access and has its own toilets inside. I was only here for a one-night stay, but what an enjoyable night it was. You also get a free welcome drink at the bar and amenities near the reception! Staff is kind and very welcoming, even though I didn't speak much Japanese, they tried very hard to communicate with me. Location is very close to Okayama Station and you can easily walk to Okayama-jo and Koraku-en.

The hotel is less than 5minutes walk from Okayama Station and close to the tram and shopping centre. This hotel had regular hotel room and dormitory type of accommodation. I really like the hybrid room I have. Its like a dormitory style with a convenient of a hotel. The room is decent, comfortable bed and just enough space to put my luggage beside the bed. The breakfast buffet had decent selection of food. I love it. The staffs are amazing. I left the luggage with ease and the same staff help me with check-in. He speaks good English and very helpful. When I left the hotel, a friendly staff near the elevator say a nice departing goodbye. They are really impressive. I highly recommend them.

The staff were very friendly and helpful with everything, the cabin room was actually quite comfortable and sufficiently spacious for the price I paid, the temperature was perfect, especially for the hot summer weather, it was also very nice that there is a gym and a sauna

Being more of a budget traveller and sleeping primarily in hostels, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that their "cabin rooms" (which I expected to just be like the little capsule rooms) were actually basically smaller one-bedrooms. Facility is clean and has a nice public bath (there's a larger one that they'll switch between men and women on different days) but also has private showers so you have the option. Location was close to the train station, so it was easy getting to different areas for day trips.

Room: The cabin was nice and cozy, exactly like in the photos. The bed was pretty comfortable. The locker under the desk was pretty spacious, enough for my backpack, laptop and snacks. I also liked that the brightness of the room light is adjustable. Location of the hotel was really good too, it's sort of just across the street from Okayama Station. But it's a little tricky to find it on day one. Staff: The staff were nice, and check-in was smooth. The folks that I talked to all knew enough English to facilitate the process. Others: The communal bathroom was very clean. They also have a public bath on the 7th floor with cold and hot tubs, which was a pretty fun experience. Special shoutout to the hotel breakfast, which I LOVED. They have around the same food items everyday: scrambled eggs, sausages, dry udon/pasta, smoked/pickled fish, miso soup, salad, cake, yoghurt, fruits, bread/mini croissants with butter and jam. But I really just went there for the crispy tonkatsu + momotaro curry over steaming white rice. Simply heavenly in the morning. Ate so much for breakfast that I skipped lunch most days.