4.5/5Excellent240 Reviews
0.28km from Bonnet
I stayed at Ark Hotel when Typhoon Jebi hit. The hotel isn't as bright as it looks in photos. In fact, it has a very dark setting with dark carpets, furniture, and comforters. It's evidently outdated, but fairly clean, which was nice. My family and I stayed for 4 days, 2 of which that were spent without electricity. It was understandable for the hotel to have a power outage when the typhoon hit, but the hours that followed were inexcusable. None of the staff knew when the electricity would be fixed, and the hotel ended up being, what I would assume, the only establishment working in darkness. For a hotel that is located in a disaster-prone country, you'd think that emergency supplies are quickly ready. However, we felt that this wasn't the case as the dark stairways were lit by mere flashlights taped to the corners of each landing. We'd still have to use our phones for more light as the flashlights the staff put were not enough. The breakfast buffet was not available, so they gave us food bought from what looked to be a convenience store, and cold coffee. When we asked the staff about their generator, they said that it wasn't powerful enough to cover all the rooms (airconditioning, toilets, etc.); it only covered an emergency light that could not be turned off when you wanted to sleep. We asked to be transferred to another hotel for a night at the expense of Ark Hotel because we, and many other guests, felt that we were not getting the value for our money considering that the rooms were hot, the elevators weren't working (imagine being on a floor above the fifth with all that luggage!), and breakfast couldn't be served properly. They were kind enough to do so, but only if you brought it up and made sure that they took note of such request. If you didn't ask, they didn't offer to do so. Those 2 days were quite stressful mainly because no one could say when the line would be fixed. Many of the staff would also admit that there was no one there to fix it yet (especially in the first 24 hours), so it took a very long time for the hotel to return to its usual operations. At the same time, they'd tell us that the hotel was not the only one without power, and that there is a whole line of buildings that were affected. It was very difficult to believe though, because there were no other buildings around that did not have electricity. Before we left, we told the staff that they should be ready for these kinds of situations, especially when considering that other hotels did not encounter the same issue. I wouldn't stay at this hotel again, and I think the hotel we were transferred to was actually much better (Hotel Sunroute Osaka Namba).