Hotel Keihan is the hotel chain of Keihan Holdings, the railway that links Osaka and Kyoto, and its fifteen hotels sit where a rail company would put them: within five minutes of a station in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo and Sendai, with one tower two minutes from Universal Studios Japan. The rules are written in an English terms document that few guests read, and they include a 20:00 no-show cutoff, a late-checkout tariff in percentages, cancellation fees from three days out, and a rooftop onsen that charges 2,150 yen and bans tattoos.
Everything below is from the official English site: the group terms and conditions revised July 1, 2024, and the pages of Hotel Keihan Kyoto Grande, Sapporo, Tsukiji Ginza Grande and Universal Tower. Room rates are not here; the breakfast and onsen prices the hotels publish are.
Hotel Keihan at a glance
| Item | Standard (official terms and hotel pages) |
|---|---|
| Room hours | 15:00 to 11:00 (L’Hotel de Hiei 16:00 to 10:00). |
| Late checkout | At the hotel’s discretion: 25% of the room rate to 13:00, 50% to 15:00, 100% after. |
| No-show rule | No arrival or contact by 20:00 (or 2 hours after your stated time) = the hotel may cancel. |
| Cancellation (up to 14 people) | 3 days before 30%, day before 50%, same day 80%, no-show 100%. |
| Brands | Grande (lifestyle tier: Kyoto, Namba, Kyobashi, Tsukiji Ginza, Universal City) and Hotel Keihan business hotels. |
| Baths | Sapporo: free natural hot spring. Universal Tower: rooftop onsen, 2,000 yen + 150 yen tax, no tattoos. |
| Breakfast | Extra. Kyoto Grande: 2,750 yen adult, 1,400 child, 700 from age 3. |
| Passport | Non-resident foreigners: passport shown and copied. |
| Smoking | Smoking rooms exist at some hotels (Kyoto 8th floor, Sapporo). |
| Pets | No, except assistance dogs. |
Group terms (revised July 1, 2024) and hotel pages, read September 16, 2026. Hours and prices are per hotel.
What is Hotel Keihan, and which hotel is which?
Hotel Keihan Co. belongs to Keihan Holdings, the Osaka–Kyoto railway group that also owns the Biwako Hotel and the Kyoto Century Hotel. Its English site lists fifteen Hotel Keihan properties: Asakusa, Yotsuya and Tsukiji Ginza Grande in Tokyo; Kyoto Grande, Kyoto Hachijoguchi and Kyoto Ekiminami by Kyoto Station; Yodoyabashi, Tenmabashi, Tenmabashi Ekimae, Kyobashi Grande, Namba Grande, Universal Tower and Universal City in Osaka; and one each in Nagoya, Sapporo and Sendai. Grande is the newer lifestyle tier, with restaurants and a premium floor; the plain Hotel Keihan name is the business format, promised within a five-minute walk of a major station.
What is different about the Grande hotels?
Kyoto Grande, two minutes from Kyoto Station’s Hachijo exit, shows the pattern: a second-floor restaurant with a view of the Shinkansen, twin rooms of 23 square meters, Simmons beds and Airweave mattresses in the king doubles, a Japanese-style “Zen” family suite looking onto a dry garden, and a 13th-floor Superior Floor reached with a dedicated key, with its own lounge and coffee. Tsukiji Ginza Grande adds a gym and three automated check-in kiosks.
What is in the building?
The hotels we opened list vending machines on odd floors, microwaves, ice machines, coin laundries, a foreign-currency exchange machine, an amenities bar where you pick your own toiletries, smoking booths, and free Wi-Fi. Universal Tower has coin lockers, a bell counter and a USJ ticket counter in the lobby.
Rooms from 15:00 to 11:00, and the price of staying longer
What are the standard hours?
Article 9 of the terms: the room is yours from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m. the next day, with L’Hotel de Hiei on Mount Hiei at 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. For consecutive nights you keep the room through the day.
How much is a late checkout?
A percentage of the basic room charge rather than a flat fee: 25 percent to stay until 13:00, 50 percent until 15:00, and 100 percent after 15:00, and only where the hotel agrees. On a 20,000-yen room that is 5,000 yen for two extra hours, which is why remm’s free noon checkout or a business chain’s flat 1,000 yen an hour can be the better deal for a late flight.
What if I arrive late?
The terms let the hotel treat the contract as canceled if you have not arrived or made contact by 8 p.m. on the arrival date, or within two hours of an arrival time you gave. That is the earliest cutoff among the big chains alongside Hotel Resol; give a realistic time and phone from the airport if the train is late.
Cancellation: 30 percent from three days out
| When you cancel | Up to 14 people | 15 to 100 people | 101 or more |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days before | — | — | 10% |
| 14 days before | — | 10% | 15% |
| 7 days before | — | 20% | 30% |
| 5 days before | — | 30% | 30% |
| 3 days before | 30% | 30% | 50% |
| Day before | 50% | 50% | 80% |
| Same day | 80% | 80% | 100% |
| No-show | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Attached Table 2 of the group terms. L’Hotel de Hiei uses a separate table (up to 7 / 8 or more). A plan or contract can set different fees.
What if I shorten the stay?
You pay the fee for the first canceled night only, however many nights you drop. Groups of 15 or more may cancel up to 10 percent of the headcount they had ten days out without charge. The fee is counted from the day the hotel receives your notice, so an e-mail at 23:00 counts for that day.
How does it compare?
The three-day start is between Hotel Monterey (seven days) and the business chains that charge nothing until the day before. The same-day 80 percent, not 100, is the friendly detail; only a true no-show costs the full rate.
The baths: a free one in Sapporo, a paid one over USJ
What is Skyspa S-PARK?
The 31st-floor natural hot spring of Hotel Keihan Universal Tower, the official partner hotel two minutes from Universal Studios Japan, with beauty-water baths, a whirlpool and a sauna. It is not included in the room rate: guests aged 13 and over pay 2,000 yen plus a 150-yen bathing tax for a ticket. Hours are 16:00 to 1:00 (last entry 0:30) and 5:00 to 9:30 (last entry 9:00), for hotel guests only.
Who is turned away?
Anyone with a tattoo, a tattoo cover sticker or body paint, which is stricter than chains that accept a covered tattoo; anyone intoxicated; and children aged 0 to 2, for safety. From age 7 or 120 centimeters children bathe by gender. The hotel posts an onsen-manners sheet for first-timers; our tattoos and onsen guide lists where a cover seal does work.
Is Sapporo’s bath free?
Yes. Hotel Keihan Sapporo, four minutes from JR Sapporo Station, has a guests-only natural hot spring bath behind gender-specific passcode locks, open 15:00 to 1:00 and 6:00 to 10:00, with the laundry corner in the changing room. The page does not print a tattoo rule; ask before you count on it.
Breakfast, the USJ tower and the family rooms
What does breakfast cost?
At Kyoto Grande, 2,750 yen for adults, 1,400 yen for elementary-school children and 700 yen from age 3, for a buffet of Kyoto obanzai and international dishes from 7:00 to 10:00 (last orders 9:30). Tsukiji Ginza Grande’s second-floor restaurant TOMORU serves a modern Japanese buffet from 7:00 to 10:00 with vegetables from the group’s own farm, miso soup on its “Kiwami dashi” and a Vietnamese-style chicken dish; no price is printed. Other hotels publish their own.
What is the Universal Tower like inside?
A 641-room tower fully renovated in spring 2025, themed as a cruise ship and the ocean: cabin-style “Tower Premium” rooms on floors 25 to 30, low-bed rooms for two to four on 19 to 24 and 8 to 18, and bunk-bed rooms for up to six on floors 5 to 10 with rock-shaped bunks. It sits next to Universal City Station. Park tickets are a separate purchase; our USJ tickets guide covers the options.
Can I check in by machine?
At Tsukiji Ginza Grande, yes: the reception has three automated check-in kiosks and the page pitches a swift arrival. Other hotels list a staffed front desk with a foreign-currency exchange machine and an amenities bar beside it, where you pick toothbrushes and toiletries yourself rather than finding them in the room.
Is there parking?
Most hotels list a parking lot, and the terms are blunt about it: the hotel provides the space and takes no custodial responsibility for the car, whether or not you hand over the key, and none at all for a lot it merely recommends. Ask the hotel for the fee and height limit before you drive in.
Are there smoking rooms?
Yes, which is rare among newer chains. Kyoto Grande concentrates them on the 8th floor, with non-smoking rooms on floors 4 to 12 and an all-non-smoking 13th; Sapporo lists smoking versions of most room types. Smoking in bed is banned everywhere by the house rules.
Registration, payment and the house rules
What do I show at check-in?
A non-Japanese guest without a Japanese address gives nationality, passport number and port of entry, presents the passport and has a copy kept by the hotel. Anything you plan to pay with instead of cash, a card or a coupon, is shown at registration. Charges are settled at the front desk on arrival or when the hotel asks, and a deposit may be requested when the booking is made.
What is on the bill?
The terms itemize the basic charge (room, or room plus breakfast), extras such as meals, and three taxes: consumption tax, the prefecture’s accommodation tax where one exists, and a municipal bathing tax where you use a hot spring, which is the 150 yen added to the USJ onsen ticket.
What do the house rules ban?
Leaving the room in nightwear or slippers, receiving visitors in the room, opening the windows except in an emergency, using the room as an office or shop, smoking in bed, and pets other than guide, hearing and service dogs. Bags sent ahead are accepted only if the hotel agreed beforehand; items left behind are held until the owner asks.
Can I send luggage ahead?
Only by arrangement. The terms make the hotel responsible for a bag that arrives before you do only if it agreed to receive it in advance, and it hands the bag over at check-in. Tenmabashi Ekimae advertises free bag storage before check-in and after checkout for sightseeing; ask the others.
Who Hotel Keihan is for
Rail travelers who want a room a few minutes from the station in Kyoto or Osaka, families heading to USJ who want the tower next to the gate, and anyone who values the Grande tier’s restaurant and premium floor over a business hotel’s free breakfast. It is a poor fit for late arrivals who cannot phone, for tattooed guests hoping for the rooftop onsen, and for anyone who expects a free breakfast; Dormy Inn is the chain for that.
Frequently asked questions
What time is check-in and check-out at Hotel Keihan?
What is the cancellation fee?
What happens if I arrive late?
Does Hotel Keihan Universal Tower have an onsen, and is it free?
Which other hotels have a bath?
How much is breakfast?
Do foreign guests need to show a passport?
Are there smoking rooms?
Bottom line (2026). Rooms run 15:00 to 11:00 and a late checkout costs 25, 50 or 100 percent of the room rate; cancel four days out to pay nothing, then 30, 50, 80 and 100 percent; be there or on the phone by 20:00; the USJ tower’s rooftop onsen is 2,150 yen and refuses tattoos even under a sticker; Sapporo’s bath is free; and Kyoto Grande’s breakfast is 2,750 yen.
Sources
Rules and figures are from Hotel Keihan’s official English site (hotelkeihan.co.jp/en): the Terms and Conditions for Accommodation and Use Regulations (rules), and the English pages of Hotel Keihan Kyoto Grande (rooms, facilities, restaurant), Hotel Keihan Sapporo (facilities), Hotel Keihan Tsukiji Ginza Grande (facilities, restaurant) and Hotel Keihan Universal Tower (rooms, facilities, Skyspa S-PARK), all read on September 16, 2026.
Some links on this page may be affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you book or buy through them — at no extra cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure.
Tokyo to Osaka, Tokyo to Kyushu, Tokyo to Hokkaido — day by day — plus seven places most visitors never reach.
- 12 pages, 80 photographs, every stop linked to its guide
- Every price and opening hour read from the official page
- Re-issued monthly, so it does not go stale in your inbox
Free. One email a month, plus the rare change that matters. Unsubscribe with one click in any email. By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy.
