Hotel The Leben Osaka (Osaka, JAPAN)

Last month, we finally got our travel life back in order and made the most of it by flying over to Australia to meet up with family and friends. But we are not done yet. In order to make up for lost time, we are paying a premium on a family trip to Osaka over Christmas. The credit card statements are not going to be pretty but this is an important step towards resuming normal life. Everyone on my team was super excited about it.

Not surprisingly, doing the research for this trip (or any other city for that matter) wasn't an easy task at all. With the lockdown during COVID-19, most hotels were either closed or used for quarantine purpose. There were really no traveler's reports on many hotels over the span of almost three years. New hotels such as Hotel The Leben Osaka where we would be staying for this week, had almost no information available other than a few photos on their official website. It's making things very difficult.

But I have a gut feeling that our stay at Hotel The Leben Osaka will be a nice experience for all of us. After all, a hotel recently opened in March 2022 (just 8 months new) and strategically located near Shinsaibashi (心齋橋), it can't be bad, right? 

I love a hotel lobby that's bright and clean. This already made a very strong first impression.

The welcome drinks at the bar were a pretty nice touch.

Our Superior Double bedroom was very spacious (>40 sqm) and I thought it looked even bigger than what was shown in the photos. 

The large windows provided more than enough natural lights for everyone.

I was less happy with the space management though as the sofa and some other furniture were totally unnecessary. By removing those from the equation, we could have afforded more room for other stuff such as our luggage!

The bathroom was well-appointed. Another layout of the Superior Double Room actually came with two separate basins.

There was enough room for a bathtub and shower which was always a luxury here in Japan.

Little nugget managed to spend a lot of time in this tub while playing with his rubber toys at the same time. 

Directly connected to the bathroom, was a separate toilet area.

Talk about using the spaces wisely, the designer did a great job creating a small shoe cabinet  next to the door. 👍

Despite the great location and nice set of amenities, Hotel The Leben did come with some deficiencies. The view from the window was almost non-existent.

This is getting more and more common in Japan. The hotel room has no telephone system. In case of emergency (i.e. help needed from the front desk), one has to go to the corridor and use the phone affixed on the wall. Not ideal!

Some improvement areas as well, especially for the Housekeeping Team. Sliding tissues into the gap simply doesn't work unless you do a better job in hiding them out of sight.

We pushed the two double beds together to form a super BIG bed during our stay so there won't be a gap in between for this guy to fall into during his sleep. That was working quite well for us.

He said he would most definitely come back and stay here again. I will take his words for it~!

Rating: ❤❤❤❤

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 2 Chome-2-15 Minamisenba, Chuo-ku, Osaka 542-0081, Japan

Closest Subway Station: Shinsaibashi / Nagahoribashi

Tel: +81 (0)6-6263-1111

Website: www.leben-hotels.jp/en/