Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex: A Stay Review — How’s the Breakfast?

For this Shizuoka trip, I stayed at the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex, which opened in February 2022 and sits about a 6-minute walk (roughly 550m) from Shizuoka Station.

In this article, I’ll share my honest impressions and review of my stay at the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex.

If you’re curious about this hotel since it only just opened, or you’re hunting for a good place to stay around Shizuoka Station, this article should be a great fit for you, so stick around to the end.

Who the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex Is a Great Fit For

There are roughly 50 hotels around Shizuoka Station.

Shizuoka Station is the prefecture’s central hub, serving as a transfer point for both the shinkansen and local lines, so it sees heavy use for both sightseeing and business trips.

With so many hotels clustered around the station, it’s easy to get stuck deciding where to stay.

This time I picked a hotel near the station for sightseeing purposes, and after actually staying here, I’d say the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex is a great fit for people who match the following:

• Want a hotel within walking distance of Shizuoka Station
• Want a hotel with a large communal bath and sauna
• Want an affordable hotel that includes a breakfast buffet

Let’s go through each one.

First, people who want to stay within walking distance of Shizuoka Station.

It’s about a 6-minute walk (roughly 550m) from Shizuoka Station to the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex. That’s not a 2-3 minute dash from the station, but being within comfortable walking distance means you’re not boxed in by tight transit timing, which is a real plus.

Second, people who want a hotel with a large communal bath and sauna.

The large bath includes a sauna (men’s side only), which makes it perfect if you want to unwind and sleep well.

Third, people who want an affordable hotel that includes a breakfast buffet.

Rooms with breakfast start from around ¥6,000 a night, and if you’re splitting a twin room between two people, it can come down to the ¥4,000 range per person — a seriously good deal.

Access to the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex

The Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex is a business hotel from the Kuretakesou Group that opened in February 2022, located about a 6-minute walk from Shizuoka Station.

Every plan comes with a free breakfast buffet, and the hotel’s facilities and amenities are a real highlight.

From a welcome drink (one alcoholic drink included) to a comic corner, training room, relaxation room, and a local-specialty corner, there’s an impressive range of hospitality touches.

• Note: if you’re walking from Shizuoka Station, be careful not to confuse this hotel with another Kuretakesou Group property along the way, the “Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Ekimae” — the names are easy to mix up.

Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex Plans and Rates

The plan I actually booked and stayed on was Rakuten Travel’s “Standard Twin [Non-smoking] Compact, 100cm x 2,” which came to ¥7,600 on a weekday rate including breakfast. Split between two people, that’s just ¥3,800 each — and that includes breakfast and access to the large communal bath.

Parking at the hotel costs extra, at ¥800 per night.

Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex: Hotel Overview

Now let’s get into the details of my stay at the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex. I drove to the hotel and used its mechanical parking system.

It looks like there are 29 spaces on a first-come, first-served basis, and you can’t move your car in or out partway through your stay, so it’s worth running your errands before you park for the night.

Even if the hotel’s parking is full, there’s a coin-operated parking lot right next door, available for ¥600-650 for 24 hours from the time you park.

Check-In

Right as you walk in the main entrance, there’s a small, cozy front desk just to the right.

It sounds like there can be a wait to check in during busy periods, but since I stayed on a weekday, I breezed right through.

You’re handed a card-key style room key.

If you check in between 18:00 and 20:00, you get one welcome drink free.

There’s a solid lineup of alcoholic drinks too — a real treat if you enjoy a drink. And a drink after a good soak in the bath is the best.

Honestly, there’s so much choice it’s hard to decide.

On top of that, there’s free curry, light snacks, and even ice cream — you might not even need dinner after all this.

Guest Room

Take the elevator up to your room.

The guest-room hallways are bright and spotlessly clean from end to end — it just puts you in a good mood.

My room for the night was on the 13th floor! I tapped my key card and headed in.

Walking into the room, a twin bed setup was right there in front of me.

At 18 square meters, it’s a little tight for two people, but since you’re mainly just sleeping here, it’s more than enough space.

There’s a walkway down the middle, with a 100cm single bed on either side.

In the middle there’s a digital alarm clock and two outlets. Above the outlets is a light switch you twist left or right to turn it on and off.

The TV is wall-mounted, a clever way to free up floor space in a room this size.

The TV is actually pretty large relative to the room — you’re basically meant to watch it from bed.

It has screen-mirroring too, so you can cast your phone or laptop screen to the big TV and enjoy YouTube or Netflix to your heart’s content.

You can check real-time crowd levels for the coin laundry, restaurant, and large communal bath, so it’s worth checking before you head down to use any of them.

It seems like newer business hotels are starting to make this crowd-level feature standard.

Bathroom and Sink

The bath, sink, and toilet are laid out the way you’d expect for a business hotel — a bit snug, but kept very clean.

The shampoo, conditioner, and body soap are all POLA brand.

Extra amenities are kept by the front desk, so just grab whatever you need from there.

They also rotate seasonal bath salts, which gives you a little hot-spring feeling on top of it all.

Large Communal Bath

Yes, the Kuretake Inn Premium Shizuoka Annex has a large communal bath! The photo above is the men’s bath.

It’s not a huge amount of space, but it’s genuinely impressive that a business hotel has a large bath at all. Since it only just opened, the plumbing areas are spotless too — a comfortable place to soak.

The water is called “black silica” hot water, drawing minerals and far-infrared rays from natural stone that are said to warm you from the inside out, leaving you with a nice, light sweat.

The water runs on the hot side, so don’t overdo a long soak. Bathing hours are 17:00-25:00 and again from 5:00-9:00 the next morning.

Being able to grab a morning bath too? Honestly amazing.

This is the women’s large communal bath.

This side uses “Yakeyama Ishi no Yu” water, where far-infrared rays warm the body while negative ions help ease fatigue.

The men’s and women’s baths swap daily, so if you stay one night, you’ll only get to try one of the two — though a longer stay means you can enjoy both.

Sauna

There’s a dry sauna in the men’s large bath.

It can fit 4-5 people shoulder to shoulder, but a comfortable capacity is more like 3. The temperature runs around 90°C, which seems to be standard across the Kuretakesou Group.

You’d normally want a cold plunge after the sauna, but there isn’t one here — your only option is a cold shower at the washing stations.

There’s also no lounge area to rest in, so you’re stuck sitting on the edge of the tub or on a stool at the washing station, which is a bit of a letdown.

Breakfast

The breakfast venue is right across from the entrance, next to the front desk. Breakfast runs from 6:30 to 9:30.

Breakfast is buffet-style, with a noticeably wider and more homemade selection than you’d get at a major chain like Toyoko Inn.

For local Shizuoka specialties, there’s Shizuoka oden, fried black hanpen fish cake, and even ramen — a long list of dishes dreamed up by a city-hotel head chef. You can easily eat until you’re completely full!

There are also take-out containers available if you’d rather bring your food back to your room to eat — a nice, thoughtful touch.

Final Impressions of My Stay

Since it only opened in 2022, both the exterior and interior feel clean and pleasant, though being right along the railway tracks means the shinkansen noise can be a little noticeable (this varies by room).

Despite being a business hotel, it has a large bath and sauna, plus a comic corner, relaxation room, training room, kids’ room, and more — a genuinely well-rounded set of amenities!

The breakfast buffet comes free with every plan and has plenty of variety, letting you sample a bit of Shizuoka’s local specialties too — a service you won’t find at most other business hotels.

My one gripe is that the welcome drink window is only open for two hours, from 18:00 to 20:00 — I’d love to see that extended a bit.

If the price stays this reasonable, I’d definitely stay here again!

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About the author

Joe

I love hotels, hot springs, and saunas across the whole country!!
I’ve made it to 40 prefectures so far.
Around 100 hotel stays and 50+ saunas visited, and the count keeps climbing.
My hobbies are travel, golf, snowboarding, saunas, and the gym.

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