karaksa hotel grande Shin-Osaka Tower

My family and I of six persons stayed 5 nights in late March 2024 in this hotel. We chose this hotel because of firstly, its excellent location and within walking distance to Shin Osaka Station, restaurants/eateries around the hotel (we ate at Sukiya and Osaka Manmaru (Shin Osaka Branch)), Lawson convenience store, Sports Depo and the Central Square Life grocery store (where we bought in-season strawberries at cheap price) and secondly, it has an in-hotel onsen. How to get there & hotel location: we took the JR shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Shin-Osaka Station. Upon exiting the turnstiles, we followed the yellow signages for North Exit. We then took the escalator in front of MacDonald’s to the second floor (2F), walked towards the signages for red Osaka Metro/Subway Midōsuji Line and came to a signage for Exit 4 (Number 4 inside a circle). We took the elevator at B4 down to street level. Upon exiting the elevator, we turned left and saw from the distance at the top of a brown building a black signboard displaying “karaksa hotel grande shin osaka tower” with a right turn arrow. We walked along 淀川区第1224号線 street towards that building, crossed the street and upon turning right at the building, we finally arrived at the hotel entrance on the ground floor – in about 8 minutes of walking of about 350 meters from exiting the elevator to the hotel entrance. We then took the escalator to the second floor (2F) where the hotel front desk reception is located. If you are taking the local Osaka Metro/Subway Midōsuji Line or M Line, head towards “Exit 1-4” or towards Lift “a” after alighting from the train at the Shin-Osaka station, then walk the above described route to the hotel via Exit 4. Hotel staff: as we arrived early and one of us had a body pain and needed to rest, the lady receptionist was so kind and helpful to hasten the room cleaning service so as to let us check into our rooms earlier. We really appreciated that act of looking after its guests and their needs. Throughout our stay, the hotel staff always greeted us whenever we walked past them. Hotel Room: we stayed in a non-smoking connecting room for 6 adults – actually 2 triple sharing bedrooms each with 2 large twin beds and a twin sofa bed (slightly shorter than the twin bed) with the doors between the adjoining rooms opened. When we entered, we were impressed by the compact layout of the room comprising lavatory, bathroom (with Pola Esthe Royer soap and conditioner), sink area with towels and bedroom. We find each triple sharing bedroom spacious. There was a pleasant and modern feel about the bedroom decorated with grey wall paper with white flowers, grey curtains and brown furniture. Besides the 3 beds (each bed with one hard and one soft pillow), each room has a wall-mounted LCD TV, wall-mounted wardrobe with hangers, a round coffee table with two round seat chairs, a cupboard that keeps kettle, two cups and green tea packets, a mini-refrigerator with 3 bottles of water that were replaced daily, an air ionizer, 3 pairs of slippers. However, there was no ironing board, no iron and no safe. We liked the following about each room: (1) The beds are comfortable such that we all had a good night sleep (2) The room was very clean and well maintained (3) The room was very quiet due to the excellent noise insulation from neighboring rooms (4) Air-con was strong yet quiet (5) Complementary wi-fi access and connection speed was fast (6) Black pajamas which are changed daily (7) A large green bag to carry our belongings when we go down to the onsen (8) The lavatory has a small sink and tap to wash our hand (9) The round coffee table and two round seat chairs enabled us to comfortably have our meals or drinks We disliked the following about the room: (1) The view from the room window looked out into the 淀川区第1224号線 street, the shinkansen track and car park but is half blocked by the next brown building. (2) The bathroom is very small – about 120 centimeters long by 85 centimeters wide – which accommodates one adult with hardly any room to move about Hotel Restaurant As we did not want breakfast, we did not patronize the hotel restaurant Gochisou Sun on the third floor (3F). Nevertheless, there are two dispenser machines – the first one dispenses hot and iced coffee, hot decaf coffee, hot and iced café latte, hot chocolate, hot cappuccino, hot milk and hot water (to make tea from the available complimentary tea bags) and the second one dispenses soft drinks and juice. Both dispensing machines are available for hotel guests during breakfast and between 10am to 10pm. Hotel facilities There is no gymnasium, no swimming pool and no porter service. While there is no laundry service, we did use the launderette on the fourth floor (4F) which has four washing and drying machines where we deposited coins to use (¥500 to wash and dry 3kg clothes in 2 hours, ¥400 to wash and dry 1kg clothes in 80 minutes, ¥300 to wash 3kg clothes in 35 minutes and ¥100 for additional 30 minutes drying). There is also a microwave oven on one of the upper floor that we used to heat up our food before we depart for sightseeing. I also went to the Men’s onsen on 4F and reinvigorated myself after a day’s sightseeing. In terms of security, you have to tap your card in the elevator before you can go up. Do note that the hotel access cards that you get during check in have to be returned during check out otherwise you would pay a penalty fee of ¥1000, which happened to us when we lost one card. Overall, my family and I enjoyed a wonderful stay at the 3-star Karaksa Grande Shin-Osaka Tower Hotel. This excellently located hotel looks after its guests and their needs well and is really value for money. Hence it is no surprise that it was awarded 2024 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards. We will definitely come back here the next time when we are in Osaka.