Review: Crowne Plaza Naha Okinawa

I apologize for being so late with these upcoming posts, I’ve been quite busy since PCSing here to Okinawa from Philadelphia. Unfortunately because of incompetence, I was forced to stay in the awful BOQ here on Camp Butler for three weeks while my family waited for the right paperwork to come through. Thankfully though, when they finally came over, we were able to spend our first 10 days in some amazing Okinawan hotels. Because they came around the time of Oban, which is a Japanese holiday, though, we had to book 3 different hotels, because of room scarcity. The first hotel we stayed in was the Crowne Plaza Naha.

It is in a somewhat awkward area of central Naha, where it takes a little walking to get anywhere. On the other hand though, if you want to be secluded yet in the middle of the city, this is the place to be. We had a very warm greeting at the front desk, where I was thanked for being a Platinum guest and being upgraded to an upper floor room. They also offered me a free drink at the top floor bar, the Starlight Bar, which I gladly accepted.

They took our luggage up despite my protests, haha; we were on the 9th floor, which I guess is a “premium” floor, although I’m not quite sure why. Walking in to the room, it was a little cramped, but still well put together. The room faced Eastward over Naha. Thankfully, the room had my favorite amenity an any room, blackout curtains. The kingsize bed was comfy, as were the pillows (which has not been my experience all the time in Japan thus far). They had the ever-present and ever-appreciated Tata washlet toilet, and an unfortunately very cramped bathroom. The wifi was fast!

Since it was a hot day out, I immediately went down to the pool, which was nice, and luckily not crowded. There’s also a small garden surrounding the pool. I did not check out the workout area, as we were near Onoyama Park, which is a great area to run or work out, only about a mile away.

That evening, I ate at Ukishima Garden, which I cannot recommend enough – it is delicious! And it’s only about a 2 mile walk away. There are good restaurants which are closer, but I returned to this one several times.

I checked out the Starlight bar, on the top floor, which had great views, and I met interesting people there every night, mostly contractors in town for a job.

I did take advantage of that free drink – I asked if I could get the 18 year Yamazaki, and the bartender said sure! It was absolutely delicious!

Since breakfast was not complimentary, and since I had to get up early for work (I had over an hour commute each way!) I ordered room service breakfast every morning, which was decent, although the coffee was very weak.

Overall, it was a very good stay. Not a great stay, but still a very good one. However, we had a much better stay while in Naha, that I’ll be posting subsequently!