spreadyourwingsandflyy

So earlier this year, my parents and I took a 6D5N trip to Osaka (with one day spent in Kyoto) 😀

So as always, first things first – Lodging! 😀

We stayed at the Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka, located righttttt above OCAT terminal and JR Namba (for first timers, JR-Namba and Namba are different stations. Same area, but a slightly apart).

I’ll touch on getting there and info about it’s surroundings later in this post so that you (hi reader! :D) can see if this hotel is to your taste first 😛

Our Room

Triple Non-Smoking City View

The city view

                         

     
The room

It’s a nice room with a very cozy, homey feeling. And something my family and I love – there’s a room light in the center of the room, making it bright even at night 😀

A set of sleepwear (pajamas) is available for every guest in the room. You may refer to a card that should most probably be left on the bed, to refer to the sizes of the pajamas available. If you need another size, just contact front desk!

Pajamas 😀

Card showing how to identify the size of the pajamas

Various amenities are available. Slippers, shaving kits, toothbrush sets, combs and even hair-ties are provided! Rooms come with coffee and tea amenities and ironing sets (i.e. ironing board and iron) are available upon request. Hand soap (in a foam pump bottle!!!) and shampoo, soap and conditioner are provided (and in pump bottles as well!).

Coffee & Tea amenities

Cute little pink iron that came in a special container/holder 😀

Ironing sets are available upon request. (The board and iron will be brought to your room)

Oh do take note: tap water is drinkable.

(Sorry, I know the photo is slightly blur ._.)

There isn’t a safe in the room but there is a safe deposit room at the hotel lobby, next to the front desk. To get a box in that room, you will need to request for it from the front desk. They will issue you a slip of paper showing your name, box number and room number. Keep this paper for subsequent access! You’ll also be given one out of the two keys for the box (the one with the green tag).
Every time you want to access this box, you will need to show the paper to the front desk, and they will record your access by asking you to sign the log, after-which they will hand you the other of the two keys (aka the one with the white tag). With both keys, you can enter the safe deposit room (pretty small so I’d say a maximum of 2 to 3 people can fit?) and access your safe deposit box. One key will be for the metal cabinet itself, and the other for the metal box that is in it. There are boxes of different sizes available but of course, there are limited numbers that will be empty for your use.

The Locker Room / Safe Deposit Room, located next to the front desk

Different boxes of different sizes
The keys with a white tag (kept by the hotel) as shown

The key with the green tag is what you keep

Check-in starts at 3pm and Check-Out starts at 11am

The lobby of the hotel is at Level 22. To get up there, simply walk through these areas once you’ve past the hotel’s ground level doors:

Key card access is required at the lift lobby of the level you are staying at.

How to get there:

Airport Limousine Bus from Kansai International Airport (KIX) or Itami International Airport (Osaka International Airport) (ITM).

We went to Osaka via KIX so I’ll just touch on going to OCAT from KIX in another post HERE (link to be updated).

Otherwise, you can access this hotel via JR-Namba station (JR line) or Namba Station (Yotsubashi / Midosuji / Sennichimae Lines).

 

Laundry services:

Unlike Citadines Shinjuku Tokyo, there isn’t a coin laundry in the hotel itself BUT there is one nearby! About a 10 to 15 minutes walk away!

The shop is called コインランドリー せんたく館 難波元町店 on Google Maps.

That’s their logo ~

And the shop itself! (I only went there at night)

Location of the laundry shop compared to key places in the Namba area

A little more zoomed in… 

Area between Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka and the Coin Laundry Shop

So this is the main idea of the route you can take to the coin laundry shop. 

But of course, there are also a million alternatives, depending on how much you want to explore around the area 😀

Lots of crossings in the area so flexibility’s yours. You can also cut through the park instead of walking around it. 

Take note that you should turn right once you have exited the building.
Oh and see the supermarket/cart icon near the laundry shop? That’s MaxValu Supermarket. A landmark if you’re ever lost in the area 😀

The Coin Laundry Shop! (featuring Daddy :D)

This Coin Laundry Shop is open 24/7, has washers and dryers, and even a coin sneaker washer and dryer too! A few seats are also available so that you can hang around while waiting for your laundry to be done. Otherwise you can just leave your laundry there and go have a nice walk around the vicinity. There are about two vending machines within a minute’s walk away from the shop in case you want to grab a drink and sit outside like I did *it was in the middle of the night okay :P* (outside, because food and drinks are not allowed within the shop).

Do take note that for the washers, there is no need to add in any soap/detergent. That’s done automatically (if you’re not sure about it, just find a sign somewhere that says it’s automatically added. From the images above you can see it on the center of every washer, and also next to the coin slot of the washer. 

Using the washer is pretty simple especially with the illustrations available in the shop:
1. Close and lock the washer,
2. Select the mode (Normal/Soft/Hard Wash),
3. Insert the coins,
4. Wait for it to be done 😀 (Duration is fixed to 30mins)
For the one we used, it’s 400yen for 30mins in the 9kg washer (smallest of the available ones) 🙂

For the dryer, insert the coins based on the duration you want the drying to last for. For the 16kg dryer (also the smallest of the available) we used, it was 100yen for every 10mins 🙂

In total so there’s about 5 washers ranging from 9kg to 33kg, and 5 dryers ranging from 16kg to 27kg. Lost and Found corner (and a small bin) is next to the door; and as shown from the images, there’s a coin-exchange machine for you to change your notes into coins too, and it also sells packets of powdered detergent. The switch for the air-conditioning is along the row of chairs at the seating area (the angle which I’m taking most of these photos from).

 

Check out the room prices on Agoda here! (Psst it’s an affiliate link that helps me sustain this travel blog ☺️)

Alternatively, you can access the hotel’s official website here: http://www.hotelmonterey.co.jp/en/index.html

 

• Note: Information are all correct as of May 2016