staying at Toyoko Inn

[dingchoiwong]

hello... making my second visit to japan... noticed that they require to identify your gender when booking... my high school buddy and i are going... two guys... straight... when we're booking online with the Toyoko Inn chain, an error message popped up saying that it does not allow two guys to stay in the same double room or twin room, while a male and a female is ok and two females were ok as well... what's up with that?

[annie]

did you try to make your booking in english or in japanese?

i only looked at their website briefly, but their japanese site doesn't seem to mention anything about 2 men not being allowed to stay in the same room....

it seems really strange that they wouldn't let two guys stay in the same room. but the more familiar i become with japan, the less logical it becomes.

i highly recommend http://www.superhotel.co.jp/. i stayed at their hotel in Nara, it was cheap and clean and the staff were friendly.

[laughinghyena21]

very weird

[ddell]

I'm not too surprised! I travelled to Japan recently with my wife and 13 year old son -- and it was very difficult to get a room for three people! Most hotels have rooms for just one or two. In fact, the rooms we stayed in had two twin beds and they rolled in another bed just for us. I don't know how Japanese families travel in Japan -- if you had two kids, you'd have to get two rooms -- and that's crazy!

Keep looking around -- we had to use a couple of different travel agents to find what we needed. That's another thing -- in the US we're used to just booking hotels from the hotel's web site. In Japan, many rooms are picked up by wholesale travel agents -- and you can't see those rooms on their websites.

[Belton]

strange. (and possibly illegal by being discriminatory, but good luck to anyone fighting it)

look elsewhere.
Doesn't seem to be a problem in traditional tatami rooms, where I've seen occupancy up to 6 and I think even 20jyo rooms for more than 7. And they're more interesting places to stay than a business style hotel.

Try
http://www.itcj.jp/index.html
or Rakuten
http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/en/
for an assortment of hotels and ryokan in the same sort of price range as Toyoko Inn I think, maybe cheaper.

Of the business hotels I've stayed in I liked APA. small rooms but quite good.

Usually I see charges as per person rather than per room. Worked well for me as I travelled alone (no single surcharges), not sure what it means for people travelling together.

[rssol0420]

Thanks! The websites are very helpful. I'm planning my trip to Japan

strange. (and possibly illegal by being discriminatory, but good luck to anyone fighting it)

look elsewhere.
Doesn't seem to be a problem in traditional tatami rooms, where I've seen occupancy up to 6 and I think even 20jyo rooms for more than 7. And they're more interesting places to stay than a business style hotel.

Try
http://www.itcj.jp/index.html
or Rakuten
http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/en/
for an assortment of hotels and ryokan in the same sort of price range as Toyoko Inn I think, maybe cheaper.

Of the business hotels I've stayed in I liked APA. small rooms but quite good.

Usually I see charges as per person rather than per room. Worked well for me as I travelled alone (no single surcharges), not sure what it means for people travelling together.