Hotel Keihan Kyoto Grande is a bright, modern facility with friendly staff, elegant interiors, and excellent dining facilities. It is also well positioned for both sightseeing and transport. Located on the south side of Hachijo Street across from Kyoto Station’s Hachijo East Gate, the hotel is directly connected to the station by an underground tunnel.
The Hotel Keihan Kyoto Grande stands beside the Avanti shopping mall, across from Kyoto Station
The hotel is right beside the Avanti shopping mall and so has immediate access to the mall’s retail and restaurant facilities. Limousine buses for Kansai International Airport and Osaka Itami Airport depart from terminals that are directly in front of the hotel building. The hotel is also well situated for sightseeing at Kyoto Tower, which is an 8 minute walk from the hotel, and Higashi Honganji Temple, which is just 15 minutes away.
Hotel Rooms
All rooms have air conditioning, a humidifier, a refrigerator, a flat screen TV, a hair dryer, nightwear, a safety box, and tea making facilities. Bathrooms are fully fitted with a bath tub, shower, toilet, and come supplied with a full set of complimentary toiletries. All beds are fitted with the reliable Simmonds brand of bedding to ensure a good night’s sleep.
Standard Twin Room at Hotel Keihan Kyoto
Guest Room Bathroom
Luxury rooms on the 13th floor of the hotel also come with ironing equipment, bathrobes, a coffeemaker, free mineral water, larger TVs, free movie channels, separate bathing and toilet facilities and access to the top floor coffee lounge.
Superior Twin Room
The hotel has recently added a new room on the 3rd floor called the “Garden Junior Suite Room Zen”. This room is decorated in calming hues of green and brown, and includes a private courtyard with a dry landscape garden of stones and moss set in a symbolic sea of carefully raked sand. The garden is illuminated at night.
There are also special Ladies’ Rooms for the exclusive use of female guests. These have a brighter décor and come supplied with special amenities such as massage cushions, nano ionic facial steamers, and nano ionic hair dryers.
The hotel lobby
Check Rates and Availability
Hotel Keihan
at Kyoto Station
Dining Facilities
The restaurant Octavar is located on the 2nd floor of the hotel and serves Mediterranean style seafood dishes, such as stone baked paella, pasta, aqua pazza and stone baked pizzas. All of this is complimented with a wide range of European wines and beers. A buffet style breakfast is served each morning from 7.00 till 10.00 and costs 2,160 yen unless breakfast is included in your booking plan. The breakfast buffet has a range of both Japanese and Western style dishes with plenty of healthy vegetables, freshly baked bread, fish, meat, and eggs. Expect to pay around 2,000 yen for lunch and between 2,000 yen and 4,000 yen for dinner. The restaurant’s business hours are as follows:
Lunch: 11.30 – 14.30
Café: 14.30 – 17.00
Dinner: 17.00 – 23.00 (last orders at 22.00)
Bar: 20.00 – 24.00 (last orders at 23.30)
The entrance to the Octavar restaurant
Octavar restaurant interior
The Summer Beer Garden
From early June till the end of August the hotel opens a rooftop beer garden with a Brazilian style churrasco barbecue grill. If weather permits the beer garden is open from 17.30 till 21.00. Once a week, the garden also hosts entertainments, such as a Monday night samba dance show, or a Tuesday night drag queen show. Ask at reception for the entertainment schedule during your stay. Wednesday nights are “Ladies Days” and so female guests can get a 500 yen discount off the regular entry fee. The entry fees given below include the cost of food and drink.
June: 3,800 yen
July 1st – 14th / August 14th – 31st: 4,000
August 1st – 13th: 4,100 yen
Other Facilities
Free wi-fi is available throughout the hotel and in all guest rooms. There are also computers that can be used by hotel guests in the tourist information library on the ground floor.
Computers are available in the hotel’s reference library
The front lobby has a foreign currency exchange machine. If you need to use an ATM, the 7-Eleven convenience store on the ground floor of the Avanti Mall next door has a Seven Bank cash machines that accepts most foreign bank cards.
There are drinks vending machines on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th floors that hold both soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.
Trouser presses, ironing equipment, and bottle openers can be borrowed from the front desk. Lap top computers can be rented for 1,000 yen per night. A laundry service, luggage storage, and express delivery service are also available on request.
Article and original photos by Michael Lambe. All rights reserved.
