We have stayed at hotels located in or very near major airports. Some have been good, but we have found those actually in the airport usually practice treating guests as prisoners who don’t have other good options. Service there is usually average at best and care of the property is often marginal. Not so with the Sapporo Portom International. We wish every major airport in the world had a hotel just like it. It is new, modern, comfortable, well maintained, and run by a professional helpful staff. Our room was a Superior Twin, a typical shoe-box shaped hotel room, this one on the big side. Those who frequent hotels know the typical shoe box room will suffice as long as it’s clean and the water is hot, but you also probably notice some owners do a lot more than others with their rooms to make guests comfortable. This room has all the latest high tech, from lights to tv to curtains to outlets for charging. There’s a safe, fridge, and nespresso coffee maker. The bathroom has a little wet room with separate tub and shower. However, unlike many Japanese hotel wet rooms we encountered, the shower was western style (rather than the onsen-style with both shower and faucet, sitting stool and big bowl). However, if you want an onsen bath, the real thing can be accessed on the 4th floor of the hotel where there is everything you need to cleanse and then soak in a public bath of hot mineral water. The hotel also appears to be designed to facilitate quiet and rest. It’s purposely dimly lit and located at one end of the international terminal away from other airport services. It has black-out curtains. The location, which helps keep it quiet, is about 15-minutes' walk from the domestic terminal where most of the airport’s services are located (just a Lawson's convenience store nearby the hotel as well as a Visitor Welcome Center type place). Even if your itinerary doesn’t take you to the domestic terminal side of the airport, if you have time, you’ll likely want to peruse the many shops and restaurants over there. If you’re technology challenged, make sure to quiz the staff member who accompanies you to your room on room features and how they work. At checkout we were provided an airport cart and they loaded our luggage on it for us. This cart together with moving walkways between the international and domestic terminals removed a lot of the burden of crossing the airport on foot with luggage. We wanted to avoid rushing from the Sapporo city center to catch a 40-minute train or taxi to the airport for an early morning flight. The Sapporo Portom International was perfect, plus it afforded us a final onsen experience in Japan. Please build more.
