Vessel Inn Sapporo Nakajima Park in Sapporo

Having stayed a number of times at Sapporo station and Susukino areas, I’ve targeted Nakajima Park area this round for a different experience. The key criteria of the Nakajima Park area hotel has to be near a subway station entrance as it’s winter so I may opt not to drive during the evenings. Eventually we settled at Sapporo Park Hotel given its proximity to the subway station entrance. It’s also the hotel which I stayed for the longest period among the 9 hotels in my 17 days trip but yet also the one that fell short of expectations. I will rate it as a 3 stars stay.

Upon arrival, the lobby looks impressive and reminiscent of a 5 stars hotel. As we reached the hotel in the late evening, there was nobody to help out with our luggages which we duly understand given the unusual arrival timing.

The room as expected, was aged and in need of a major revamp. That is probably why the hotel is going to under a major revamp come 2026. It’s however clean and is well equipped, so it served its need sufficiently. The view out of the window gave a magnificent view of Nakajima Park, which made a good venue for a morning stroll before starting the long day of sight-seeing.

What let the hotel down was the front desk service. The front desk, being the cover page of the hotel, did not give a good impression. The Japanese front desk lady who did my room check-in spoke the best English among all that I’ve met in my 17 days travel. Despite her English capability, she was the most complacent and just wanted to do a quick job and as a result, didn't provide me with all the information required as a room guest. For instance, she didn’t ask whether I drove so as to brief me on the necessary parking process information. She only seemed interested to do a quick check-in and collect the room fees. It’s only after I reached my room, did I realised that I was not asked for the car plate number nor provide me information on the parking, so I’ve to make a call to the front desk and was told to bring my parking coupon to them the next morning….

During the 4th day of our stay, I went to the front desk to check if the hotel has a lost and found section as kiddo left an earmuff at the lobby the previous night. The staff who manned the front desk happened to be the one who checked me in during the first night, she called the cleaning department in my presence, to find out if they have found any. But when the cleaning department did not pick up the phone after 5 seconds, she immediately told me that they did not find any. If I need to put a word on her work attitude, it has to be “sloppy” and she has let the hotel down. Her sloppy service attitude essentially removed 1 star from the hotel rating, else if her service was up to the usual standard as per the other 8 hotels I’ve stayed in during this trip, I would have rated the hotel 4 stars.