Be aware of certain issues until the Doubletree transition is completed
I felt the need to review this hotel again despite having reviewed it a couple years ago. The first thing to note is that the prices have gone up a little bit, but that's acceptable because compared to the other hotels in downtown LA, this one is still a bargain. I believe in my last review that I said they don't charge more for the renovated "deluxe" rooms (which are on the higher floors). However this time there was a difference of maybe +/- $20/night between the standard and deluxe rooms on their website. The next item is that the Kyoto is in the process of becoming a Doubletree by Hilton. I believe they said this should be completed sometime in the summer of 2012. For me this is long overdue, as I use this hotel frequently when downtown for business, and getting Diamond recognition and credit (points) for my stays is always a positive. But the drawback is that lots of things are being worked on and there were major maintenance issues during my stay last week (early Feb 2012). The deluxe room has a great large HD LCD tv in it, but this does you no good when there's only about 10 channels that come in at all. And at that, only half of those were of watchable because the picture quality was so horrific. There was no HD on any channel. Every channel that I enjoy watching when unwinding in the evenings was totally out (A&E and Travel Channel). On the first night I asked maintenance to come up and see if they could fix the television. The tech came up and said that the satellite people have known about it for a while and that they don't know when it is going to be resolved. I got a key to another room on a different floor just to verify the outage was affecting more than just my room. I suspect they aren't going to fix it, and am hoping they are just going to put a whole new TV system in place. Not being able to enjoy television (for me) is a HUGE problem. When I called the front desk to express my dissatisfaction, they said they could comp a day of my parking, which they did, but that didn't do anything for me whatsoever since it was a business trip and it was me, not the company, that was having to deal with the problem. It would have been so much better if they would have offered me a room credit that I could have applied toward all the times I ate/drank in the lounge. The next thing is the water. In my last review I stated that the bathrooms in even the deluxe rooms are very old. Old to where when you turn the light on in the bathroom you can hear the lights "clink" on, and the sink/vanity is VERY low. But on this trip they must have been doing work with the plumbing and water pressure, because on one occasion when I turned on the water, nothing came out, I heard a loud bumping noise and then it shot water out like an explosion and ended up all over me and my pants. Not the best situation when you're about to walk downstairs for dinner. On another occasion during my stay, I turned on the water and again heard the grumbling sound in the pipes and it shot out brown/dirty water. And on the morning I checked out, a note was under the door that they were doing maintenance and that the water supply for the entire hotel would be turned off for short period of time. Here's the thing about this hotel - the price is good and the people are terrific. They have a great staff and everyone from the bar to the room service to the valet are all wonderful. Being right downtown next to the Japanese village with great restaurants and shops is a huge bonus, and if you want to go a little further, the hotel has a free shuttle (remember to tip, people!). So I'd gladly give them another chance, but I truly hope that this Doubletree upgrade will involve a re-do of the bathrooms and vanities, fix the plumbing issues, and get a real TV channel line up with HD channels. Having those things would finally make this a truly fantastic hotel.