Hotel Binario Umeda

Hotel rooms are new and clean, a bit small akin to other hotels in Japan. Staff are helpful and nice. But I wonder why they offer ear plugs when I checked in. I found out later. Rooms facing street are right opposite to a fire station. You NEED these ear plugs to have some normal sleep otherwise you'll be responding with the firefighter all night.

Family holiday in Japan, December 2023: This was our least favorite hotel booked by our travel agent. It was just too far away from everything, such as the train station and good restaurants. The breakfast was okay, and my kids liked the soft-serve ice cream for breakfast. The rooms were very small, and the service from the staff was just okay.

The male staff we met on the day of check-in were very kind and helpful. They answered all our questions with a smile and made us feel welcome. However, on the last day, a female staff member named HIRATA completely ruined our mood. Honestly, I would recommend avoiding her if possible. The day before, I lost my phone at Universal Studios. Before flying back to Korea, I needed to call Universal to check if it had been found. One of my friends speaks Japanese, so we politely asked the front desk if we could briefly use the phone. The response was simply, "No." We understood—different countries may have different policies. So I called the front desk from our room and asked in English if we could make an outside call. I used very simple English: "Out call OK?" The staff didn’t understand, so I even spelled out “call” slowly to make it clearer. But instead of trying to understand, HIRATA suddenly raised her voice and shouted “NO!” in an aggressive and rude tone. As we tried to ask why, she kept interrupting, repeating “NO! NO!” over and over again in a very unpleasant manner. I was so frustrated that I went down to the front desk and asked, “Why do you keep shouting NO? Did you even understand what I was saying?” Only then did she say, “I’ll let you call Universal, but we’re busy with check-outs until 10 AM. Come back later.” Honestly, that wasn’t even the main issue for us. The real problem was her attitude. Is it really your hotel’s policy to yell “NO!” at guests without any explanation? I asked to speak with the manager. An older man appeared and took us aside. But instead of addressing the issue, he immediately said, “You didn’t explain why you needed to use the phone.” We explained in Japanese, “Your staff never asked us why. And we’re not upset about being denied a phone call — we’re upset because of the staff’s disrespectful attitude. We would appreciate an apology.” Yet he just kept repeating, “You didn’t explain why.” Even though we were speaking in Japanese, it felt like we were not having a real conversation. His expression showed clear annoyance, as if we were just being difficult. Then, shockingly, he started lecturing us, saying that tourists should prepare properly before coming to Japan, especially about how to make phone calls. It made us wonder—has he ever even traveled abroad? He clearly had no understanding of a traveler’s situation. And then came the worst part. He suddenly said, “These days, Koreans are making too many unreasonable demands from hotels, just like the Chinese.” We were speechless. This is a deeply offensive and discriminatory remark against both Korean and Chinese guests. When we asked, “Couldn’t your staff at least say ‘Sorry, we don’t speak English’?” He replied, “We are equal, we don’t say sorry. Only ‘excuse me.’” — an unbelievably arrogant statement. In the end, we never received an apology from either HIRATA or the so-called manager. If you’re Korean or Chinese, and you plan to stay at this hotel, please be very careful about asking for anything. It seems that any request you make will be seen as unreasonable or troublesome. Because of these two individuals, the image of Osaka and this hotel has been deeply damaged for us. Even now, I feel uncomfortable remembering that manager. I honestly wonder how someone with such a narrow and discriminatory mindset could be in a managerial position. I hope he was just pretending to be the manager.