For this trip, I stayed at Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa, about a 5-minute walk from Fujisawa Station — a great base for exploring Enoshima and Kamakura. There’s a convenience store right in the building, and plenty of restaurants and shops nearby, making it a genuinely convenient spot.
In this article, I’ll share my honest impressions and review of my stay at Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa.
If you’re curious about staying at Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa, or you’re hunting for a good hotel around Shonan Fujisawa, this article should be a great fit for you, so stick around to the end.
Who Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa Is a Great Fit For
Enoshima and Kamakura are among Kanagawa’s most popular sightseeing destinations, so the area is dotted with hotels.
Which one you should pick really depends on where you want to use as a base and which route you’re planning around the area, so it’s easy to get stuck deciding.
This time I chose Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa with sightseeing in Enoshima and Kamakura in mind, and after actually staying here, I’d say Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa is a great fit for people who match the following:
- Planning a trip to Enoshima and Kamakura, but want to keep hotel costs as low as possible
- Driving, and want to avoid crowds and traffic as much as possible
- Want to ride the Enoshima Electric Railway (Enoden)
Let’s go through each one.
First, people planning a trip to Enoshima and Kamakura who want to keep hotel costs as low as possible.
Since the whole town of Enoshima and Kamakura is basically one big sightseeing spot, hotel prices in the area tend to run high, making it genuinely hard to find something affordable. Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa, though, comes out to around ¥8,000 for two people — and it’s not just cheap, the facility is also really clean.
Second, people who are driving and want to avoid crowds and traffic as much as possible.
The coastal Shonan area is prone to heavy traffic, especially on weekends, holidays, and certain peak days, so if you want a smooth trip there and back without getting stuck in jams, a hotel around Fujisawa is a great choice.
Parking around Enoshima and Kamakura is also expensive and hard to find, whereas parking around Fujisawa is relatively cheap.
Third, people who want to ride the Enoshima Electric Railway (Enoden).
The Enoden is famous as a filming location that shows up in movies, dramas, and anime.
It’s only about 200m from Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa to Enoden’s Fujisawa Station, so you can walk there in just a few minutes and board the line right from its starting station — incredibly convenient.
Access to Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa
Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa is about a 2-minute walk from the south exit of Fujisawa Station (JR Tokaido Line, Odakyu Enoshima Line, and Enoshima Electric Railway) — a business hotel from the Smile Hotel chain (Hospitality Operations Group) with a convenience store and family restaurant attached.
With plenty of restaurants and shops nearby, it’s a convenient base not just for business travel but also for sightseeing and leisure trips to Enoshima and Kamakura, and it draws a lot of guests for exactly that reason.
Breakfast offers a Japanese-Western buffet with around 40 dishes, including all-you-can-eat shirasu (whitebait) rice bowl, a Shonan specialty.
Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa Plans and Rates
The plan I actually booked and stayed on was Rakuten Travel’s “[Fully Non-Smoking] Double Room,” which came to ¥7,800 on a weekday rate without breakfast. Split between two people, that’s just ¥3,900 each — about the same as a capsule hotel.
Breakfast is available separately for ¥1,100 per adult. Children under 6 are ¥550, and under 3 is free.
Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa: Hotel Overview
Now let’s get into the details of my stay at Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa.
I drove to the hotel, but it has no dedicated or affiliated parking lot, so I parked at the nearest coin-operated lot. Parking around Enoshima and Kamakura tends to be pricey, but parking around Fujisawa is nice and cheap.
With a Gusto family restaurant, a Shabuyo shabu-shabu restaurant, and a 7-Eleven nearby, you’re never stuck for food — very convenient. The hotel’s smiley-face logo is its signature mark, though it does look a little low-budget.
Check-In
The front desk lobby is on the 4th floor. Stepping out of the elevator, I immediately spotted the front desk with the hotel’s smiley-face logo (oddly, this particular smiley was gray).
It has the classic look of a business hotel front desk, but since the hotel had only recently opened, everything inside felt very clean. I received a card-style room key and check-in was complete.
Apparently you can get in and out of the attached 7-Eleven using your room key without ever stepping outside the building. Genuinely convenient!
Guest Room
Guest rooms run from the 5th to the 13th floor — you tap your card key on the elevator’s touch panel, then press the button for your floor. Security is well thought out.
Not every floor has vending machines, a microwave, or a coin laundry, but a few floors each have them. The guest-room hallways have a calm, monotone look reminiscent of a high-rise condo’s inner corridor — a nice atmosphere.
Beside the room number there’s a little illustration of a bed — I wonder if it changes depending on the room type.
The room is a non-smoking double at 14 square meters — a bit on the small side. The bed itself is 140cm wide. The tiled walls have a slightly dated, Showa-era look that isn’t really my taste personally, but they’re kept very clean.
The bed uses a pocket-coil mattress from Serta, one of the world’s three biggest mattress brands, and it’s genuinely comfortable to sleep on.
On the bed there’s a digital alarm clock, an internal phone line to the front desk, and a dial-style lighting switch.
The walkway is narrow, but as long as you don’t have a ton of luggage, it won’t be a problem. There’s a full-length mirror beside the door and a humidifier next to the TV. For a double room, the space does feel a bit tight.
The room had towels and simple slippers for each guest.
The TV is on the small side and mounted a bit high, which makes it tricky to watch lying down in bed, though you can adjust the angle left and right.
The chair is the kind you’d find in an office, with no particular sense of luxury — it’s clearly built with business trips and remote work in mind. The lighting is bright enough to make desk work comfortable too. Free Wi-Fi is available, along with two power outlets and a wired LAN port.
The shelf in the middle of the room has a hair dryer, cups with green tea and hojicha tea bags, and an electric kettle.
Down to the lower left there’s a mini fridge, though it won’t turn on unless you flip the switch above it, so keep that in mind if you’re planning to store ice cream.
Bathroom, Sink, and Toilet
The unit bath is clean, though it isn’t spacious enough to stretch your legs out. There’s no outlet near the sink, so be mindful if you need to use any electronics there. The shower curtain had some visible wrinkling, but that’s within the acceptable range.
Under the Plastic Resource Circulation Promotion Act that came into effect in April 2022, amenities are only available in the amount you request from the front desk, so none are left in the room as standard. Shampoo, conditioner, body soap, and hand soap are all provided, though.
In-room loungewear is kept near the elevator. It’s plain white, the kind of thing you’d only really wear to sleep in, and it’s stacked up on a shelf.
It would leave a slightly better impression if it were folded a bit more neatly.
Breakfast at Smile Hotel Shonan Fujisawa
Breakfast is served on the 4th floor, the same floor as the front desk. It’s a bright, clean venue with a Japanese-Western-Chinese buffet of about 40 dishes — the kind of spread that really gets your appetite going. Hours are 7:00-10:00 (last order 9:30).
The breakfast menu rotates daily, and includes a few local specialties too, like the Shonan specialty shirasu (whitebait) rice bowl and Fujisawa’s B-grade-gourmet Muraoka mayo yakisoba.
The miso soup is unfortunately instant. Drinks come from a self-serve bar with orange juice, apple juice, coffee, and tea.
All-you-can-eat shirasu rice bowl, right there at breakfast! The light, fluffy texture and well-balanced saltiness make it genuinely excellent. There’s also the standard Japanese breakfast lineup of grilled salmon and kinpira gobo, plus Western staples like bacon and scrambled eggs.
Final Impressions of My Stay
Close to the station, with several restaurants and a convenience store nearby, and easy access to Kamakura and Enoshima — this hotel has a genuinely excellent location.
The price was great too, at ¥3,900 per person, or around ¥6,000 including breakfast, all while keeping easy access to the sightseeing spots.
This isn’t the kind of hotel where you’d want to relax and unwind — think of it more as a place to shower, sleep, and grab breakfast — but viewed that way, it’s a genuinely great value, and I’d recommend it.
The room is on the smaller side, so if you’re after a hotel stay you can really savor, it’s worth bumping up your budget a bit and choosing somewhere else instead.
A clean, budget-friendly base just steps from Fujisawa Station with easy access to Enoshima and Kamakura — if you just need somewhere convenient to sleep and grab breakfast before a day of sightseeing, this one’s hard to beat on price.
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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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