Hotel Hayashiya

This is a business hotel that seems to be run by a kind couple. I think it is the closest and most affordable hotel to downtown Ishinomaki. When I checked out, I received a handwritten note thanking me for my stay and two chocolates, which made me feel at ease.

I was charged for the room upon check-in. That in itself is not a problem, but I thought I had paid by card when I made the reservation. I thought maybe I had misunderstood, so I paid and went to the room. After a while, I checked the reservation site to see if the plan included breakfast, and it said that the payment had already been made at the time of reservation. I called the front desk to confirm, and they said they would check. After a while, they called me back and said without apology, "We have taken the payment, so we will refund it." That alone was unbelievable, but I left something in the room, and when I called the next day and said, "I'm sorry, but could you please send it to my house? I'll pay the shipping," they said "Yes" as if they were annoyed and hung up the phone. When I got home two days later, my forgotten item had arrived with the shipping prepaid. I was grateful for that, but then I got a call after 9pm that night, and they lectured me, saying, "Did it arrive? Normally you charge the shipping fee, but we paid for it and sent it to you, and you didn't even contact me?" As other reviews have said, the landlady's condescending attitude is really unpleasant. I never want to have anything to do with her again.

When I tried to check in, I gave my name and the name of the company I was working for, but they didn't understand, so I contacted the company. Since I was a subcontractor, the company didn't know the name of the person who made the reservation, and we had a heated argument while on the phone. Although they admitted that it was my fault for not checking the name of the reservation, their response after that was terrible. "We don't have a reservation with that name." "We're fully booked today, so we can't accommodate you." They were using phrases that made me feel like a criminal, and I couldn't imagine they could understand Japanese at all. After that, I found out that it was a reservation for 8 people, and when I told them, they said, "Oh, if it's 8 people, is that Mr./Ms. XX?" They responded in a completely different way. Finally, I checked in, and as soon as I entered the room, the room light rang, and they made a point of calling me with an excuse like, "If it was that group, you should have said that from the beginning." I've stayed in many hotels on business trips, but this was one of the three worst customer service I've ever experienced. There were many posts on other sites about similar experiences, so if you're thinking of staying at a hotel in the future, you should prepare yourself for an unpleasant experience.