While traveling, our family usually go for no-frills accommodation. Staying in business hotels during this Japan trip was a great way to save some precious bucks, but comfortable enough for a good night’s sleep. For our two nights in Fukui, we chose to stay in Fukui Manten Hotel Ekimae.
A good choice of hotels for us is usually one that is reasonably priced, conveniently located and with clean rooms. Fukui Manten Ekimae fits the bill. The 3-star hotel is also rated highly by other travellers across the major hotel booking platforms.
This was our non-smoking superior double room. With an area of only 13 sq.m, the room is pretty cramped. We had to open our luggage along the room entrance. But that’s what is expected of Japanese economy hotel rooms.
The room was clean and simple, with a TV, kettle, fridge, hairdryer and phone. Nothing fancy but it serves the purpose of travellers who just need a clean room and bed for the night.
The en-suite bathroom comes with a small bathtub, bidet toilet seat and basic toiletries.
Location-wise, we give it a perfect 10. It is just beside the Fukui Train Station. On a few occasions we were caught without an umbrella when it was raining outside. Luckily the hotel was just around 10m across the road from the covered stretch of the station. By the way, they have umbrellas for loan at the lobby entrance too. Just take one and return when you are back. There are 3 convenience stores within 5 minutes walk so getting a snack in the wee hours of the morning is definitely not a problem.
Fukui is not on most international guests’ radar and we don’t see many tourists around. Hence it is understandable that the hotel caters to a local clientele. Their hotel staff ain’t really able to converse in English besides some basic phrases. We ended up checking in with the help of a Mandarin-speaking staff.
We ladies and the kids got to choose little welcome gifts from a small basket during check-in. Ladies get to choose from individually-wrapped colour hair bands. The choices for children include rubber duckies and stationery. A nice gesture even though most items are off the shelf. DL and CL chose to have the rubber duckies which are still sitting on their study tables as a memento from the trip.
For those who are fussy over pillows, they have 6 choices of pillows at Level 2 lift lobby. You can grab an extra pillow from there too, if you need. There are coffee machines for a cup of espresso or latte in the main lobby. The hotel has an onsen on Level 2 as well. I am not used to the Japanese way of onsen bathing in my birthday suit, so I didn’t check out the one in the hotel.
The free breakfast is predominately Japanese cuisine, mainly rice with dishes. For those who craved Western style breakfast, there is some bread with sausages and eggs. The room rate included only breakfast for 2 so we had to top up JPY 1,000 per day each for the kids’ breakfast. There is also a meal ticketing machine near the restaurant’s entrance. No one checks the breakfast vouchers though. It’s all based on trust and honesty.
While we were there, they served free ramen for supper too from 9pm to 10pm. We just had to grab a queue number and wait for your number to be called. The piping hot noodles was yummy.
Check out the availability of Fukui Manten Hotel Ekimae on Agoda here.
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Read about our trip itinerary and the places we visited in Japan Nagoya Itinerary 2017 .
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Useful information:
Address: 910-0006 Fukui, Fukui, Chuo 1-11-1, Japan
Telephone: +81 776-20-0100
Check-in time: 2:00pm
Check-out time: 10:00am
