Toyoko Inn is one of the preeminent business hotel chains in Japan known for clean and safe rooms with a boring design. Big and small cities in the East Asian nation feature prefabricated rooms that are almost the same regardless of the branch.

In need of basic accomodation during an overnight domestic connection in Cebu, Toyoko Inn seemed a good option for our short visit to the city.

Location

The hotel is around thirty minutes from Cebu Mactan International Airport, depending on how much traffic there is. Grab and Joyride are the best options for ride hailing while in Cebu but expect a long delay in finding a car if there’s heavy rainfall. The hotel is located off a busy intersection with little of interest to visitors nearby with almost all city sights requiring a taxi ride. Cebu Business Park is around fifteen minutes drive from the hotel. It is located next to ‘J Centre’ shopping mall which now appears to be temporarily closed

Public areas, breakfast and check-in

The entrance to the hotel is very enclosed and rather dingy. You need to enter through a security check, as is common in almost all public spaces in the Philippines.

Once through, the reception is located on the top floor of the building, with rooms located beneath this. The reception is quite nice for a budget hotel and also offers walk-up bookings for customers. Services such as in-room massages are available at decent prices.

Breakfast, which is included in the price, also takes place on the same floor. While nothing exceptional, the food was serviceable and filled us up - in particular, the fried chicken was tasty (even if it may be a little ‘foreign’ as breakfast item for Europeans).

Taking the elevators to or from your hotel room will enable you to see all the offerings of the notice board. While it is a little DIY in it’s style, it imparts useful information including the free shuttle to the airport and avaialbility of laundry services while staying at the property.

The room

The primary reason you’re staying here is not for the public areas or shared facilities but a cheap place to sleep. While it might not be luxurious, the hotel certainly delivers on being a comfortable place to spend a night. The rooms are tiny but large enough to fit a double bed that is quite firm and are kept clean. As these units are pre-made before installing, the finish isn’t great and the walls are thin - meaning sound insulation isn’t the best however I was able to sleep reasonably well.

Adjacent to the bed is a desk with chair, as well as a safe and mini fridge, alongside a wall-mounted television with local cable. This is more than sufficient for what we wanted during our visit to Cebu City.

Usefully, as a business hotel, Toyoko Inn have several international power outlets meaning no fumbling around for your travel adapter.

The bathroom is a small space yet manages to fit in both a shower and short but deep bath. I had no complaints with the water pressure and temperature. While not quite the fully automatic Japanese style washlet, there was a manual bidet attached to the toilet.

And that was it! There really wasn’t much else this hotel needed to deliver on besides providing a safe, comfortable place to sleep between my flight from Boracay on Air Asia and then my subsequent flight the following day to Siargao on PAL Express. With prices as low as £30 per night, you really can’t go wrong here if you need a budget place to sleep that has few frills.

Serviceable, clean and boring is sometimes what you need from a hotel - Toyoko Inn Cebu delivers on that.