My Rough Night In A Japanese “Cabin” Hotel

During my review trip to South Korea and Japan, I had a quick overnight at Tokyo Haneda Airport. I arrived at Terminal 1 at around 10PM, and wanted to be at Terminal 3 at around 5AM the following morning. There’s a “proper” mega-airport hotel connected directly to Terminal 3, which is Hotel Villa Fontaine. However, I had reviewed that recently, and it’s also pricey for what you get (especially on such a short overnight), so I decided to mix it up this time.

I booked the First Cabin Haneda Terminal 1, which is a “cabin” hotel located in the land side portion of the terminal (it’s worth emphasizing that this isn’t a “capsule” hotel, which is another popular type of accommodation). This was a pretty good deal compared to the alternative, at 12,000 JPY (~80 USD) for the most premium room type. However, I think this will be my first and last time staying in such an accommodation.

I like the concept of these cabin hotels

Let me start by saying that I don’t want to seem like I was coming into this with unrealistic expectations. I wasn’t expecting the presidential suite at the Four Seasons. Quite to the contrary, I’ve enjoyed my stays in these kinds of super dense accommodations, especially at airports. Whether it’s the Sleep ‘N Fly Sleep Lounge Doha or the Bahrain Airport Hotel, there’s something I find cozy about these setups.

And in fairness, the physical accommodation at the First Cabin Haneda was also pretty decent. I booked the “first class cabin,” which is the largest cabin they have.

Essentially, it has a bed and then some space next to it, while the smaller cabins just let you slide into a bed, with no extra space. The cabin was reasonably nice, and since this is Japan, everything was at least clean. Now, the beds were super hard, to the point that it felt like sleeping on a yoga mat. But I was tired enough, so that wasn’t a huge issue for me.

While I don’t love the idea of shared bathrooms and showers, I wasn’t really planning on using those facilities anyway, as I was going to shower in the Japan Airlines First Lounge Haneda the following morning, which has great showers.

Why this concept probably isn’t for me

That brings me to the things I didn’t love about this cabin hotel concept. Let me acknowledge that most of these are “me” problems, and just reasons I’m not the right fit for this concept, rather than something being wrong with this particular cabin hotel (quite to the contrary, it represents a fair value).

The first issue was the noise situation. The cabin bans basically any avoidable noises, as it should. You’re not supposed to talk on your phone, watch entertainment without headphones, etc. Since this is Japan, people followed the rules (I’d love to see how this concept would work out in Miami… heh).

So it was completely silent… except the symphony of snoring and farting. Ugh. These cabins aren’t enclosed — there’s a bit of a shield, but there are gaps at the top and bottom, so you really hear everything, and smell most things, from flatulence to dirty socks.

This is also a huge facility, with lots of cabins. So there’s also the constant stream of people arriving at and departing from the facility, which involved quite a few of the privacy shields slamming open and shut, luggage rolling across the floor, etc.

One can use earplugs to avoid the noise, but this brings up a whole different issue, which made me sort of paranoid about sleeping. You’re not allowed to set an alarm that makes noise, which is a policy that makes sense. But I hadn’t really considered the logistics of that:

• You can put your phone on vibrate, though to be honest, I don’t remember the last time I’ve put my phone on vibrate mode, and I questioned if it would wake me up, as I’m often a deep sleeper
• In theory you can use earphones and have an alarm go off that way, but I knew that in my sleep I’d subconsciously take them out
• There’s no system in place whereby the staff will wake you up, so you’re on your own

So I was worried that I’d oversleep, and wouldn’t realize my alarm was going off. As a result, rather than sleeping through the night, I kept waking up every 30 minutes, thinking I’d miss my anticipated departure.

After waking up several times, I decided to just get up and head to the communal lounge area. I was also sweating at this point, as I found the whole facility to be quite warm. This was around 2AM, so I fired up my laptop, picked up a coffee from the vending coffee, and got some work done.

It wasn’t ideal, but I wasn’t worried about the lack of sleep, given that I’d be boarding a Tokyo to New York flight in business class, and I could sleep for much of that journey. The less I slept at night, the more sleep I’d get on the flight.

So let me once again emphasize that I’m not saying that this is a bad concept, or that other people shouldn’t use it. It’s just that this isn’t ideal for the type of sleeper that I am. I would’ve probably been just as happy sitting in the terminal on my laptop, or otherwise I’d splurge on a real hotel room, where I could set an alarm and have more control over the environment.

Bottom line

I’ve gotta say, my overnight at Haneda was quite the experience. I like the concept of super dense capsule hotels where you have a door that can close and can control your own air. But I found this cabin hotel to be hot, with a bit too much snoring and farting for my preferences. Add in my paranoia around not being able to set an alarm and missing my wakeup, and it wasn’t a great night of sleep.

Has anyone else stayed in a cabin hotel like this? If so, how did you control the alarm situation, if you needed one?