English Beach

Standard APA hotel with a nice view of Kitakami River from my window. **Positives: *Pretty sure this was the one that had an HDMI port on the console, making it super-easy to plug in my Switch. (Might have been the APA hotel before this; I don't really remember; but that makes two APA hotels as which I've seen this: the other one was APA Keisei Narita.) **Neutral: *All these business hotel I've been staying at lately are blurring together, so I don't really remember specifics about this place.🤔 I remember it being pretty clean...I think. *Pretty sure the shower was nice, although not super-powerful and with a hose to the showerhead that was just a BIT too short. *The AC, while cold, was a bit skittish, and I wound up playing the "turn it down a degree, then it gets to cold...so I turn it up a degree, then it gets too warm" game. *Vending machine on the 1st floor sold drinks I drank... **Negatives* ...but no hot coffee. Had to get those at convenience stores. (Yes, it's August; no, that doesn't stop me from wanting hot coffee after meals.) *Check-in time was pretty hectic, and the line to check in was long and full of people whose patience was clearly wearing thin.

Excellent hotel, great breakfast and really lovely staff. Perfect location too.

We came for the Sansa Odori festival and this was in the perfect place. The property is modern and clean. The room was a hit tight for 3 of us, but I kinda knew that going in. The beds were comfy and the cleaning and breakfast staff were super nice. The front desk, though, was a different experience. They were quite resistant to helping us with something as basic ordering a taxi or telling us where we could get tickets for the stands fir the parade. Using a translation app didn't help, either. If all the hotels we have stayed at in Japan, this had the least helpful front desk.