I booked a “Capsule Hotel” for my 5-night stay in Tokyo. I thought it would be a cool experience, but it turned into a nightmare. Let me tell you how it went.

What is a “Capsule Hotel”?

Let’s start here. Japan is full of overworked and underpaid salarymen. They often go out drinking after work to add a bit of joy to their dreary lives. Most of them live in the Greater Tokyo Area, because real estate inside the city is insanely expensive. This forces them to commute long hours using Japan’s impeccable public transport. It has one flaw, though: it doesn’t operate between 12:00 AM and 5:00 AM.

So when a salaryman spends too long drinking and misses the last train, he has two options:

Take a taxi, which will skyrocket in price the moment they see a drunk man needing to go far into the suburbs (that’s if they even want to take him).
Spend the night in a capsule hotel.

Capsule hotels try to compete with taxis on price and convenience. They offer a place to sleep and loads of free amenities like alcoholic drinks, soda, ramen, breakfast curry, toothbrushes, toothpaste, earplugs, and so on. It’s perfectly fine for a single night if getting home is too inconvenient.

But that’s the catch: I stayed there for five nights as a tourist. That didn’t work for me at all. The lack of personal space and noisy bunkmates made me lose a lot of sleep.

My Hotel

I booked five nights at Anshin Oyado Ginza Shimbashi Station (link to their listing on booking.com). I paid €270 for five nights — less than half the price of a normal hotel. This location is men-only, though there’s a women-only branch a few blocks away. The location itself was great: close to Shimbashi Station with tons of izakayas nearby. The reviews were solid, so I figured it would be worth it.

I’ll use pictures from their booking page to help illustrate my experience.

How it works

After filling out my details, I was given a bracelet with a key and a sheet of instructions. The receptionist spoke way too fast for me to understand everything, so I just nodded and said “yes.” It took me some time to figure out how things worked, and I immediately made two mistakes, so let me explain how it’s supposed to go.

1. Take off your shoes and put them in the designated locker

Japan is very particular about shoes indoors. In the lobby you’re asked to remove your shoes, put them in a small locker, and switch into slippers. Fair enough — I can handle that.

2. Put your belongings in your locker

The capsules don’t lock — mine only had a curtain — so all your belongings must go into a locker on the ground floor. Most guests only have their work bags with them, but I had five days’ worth of travel gear.

You are allowed to carry around a tote bag, so I basically lugged around my tablet, chargers, power bank, e-reader, toothbrush, toothpaste, medication — basically everything except my clothes — everywhere I went.

3. Change into the hotel pajamas

You are required to wear the hotel pajamas. Because outside clothes can be smelly — and also because most people don’t bring pajamas to work — everyone changes in the locker room. It was crowded, and I had to get fully changed right there.

4. Go to the lounge to relax

On the second floor there was a lounge with free snacks (instant ramen and rice with furikake), free sodas, and free alcoholic drinks (a suggested limit of five per person). People were scrolling on their phones, watching sports on TV, or relaxing in massage chairs.

5. Go to sleep in your bunk

When it’s time to sleep, you head to your floor. I had a top bunk for “extra space,” although it didn’t really matter. There were about 30 beds on my floor, around 75% occupied. Before entering the sleeping area, you had to take off your slippers again and put them in a little cubby. On the same floor there were shared sinks and toilets.

6. Try to sleep

This was the worst part. I brought my own earplugs, but the hotel also provided them — which, in hindsight, should’ve been a red flag. I still kept hearing snoring, coughing, and random noises all night. The air ventilation was on high because of the number of people, and at 5:00 AM the trains started running again right next door, waking me up.

7. Freshen up

After a night like that, I like to take a nice shower. Too bad there were no private showers. Only a communal bathhouse in the basement.

I checked the instructions on the leaflet that I was given upon checking in, and went down. About six other guys were washing up next to me. I was the only foreigner. Normally, when I don’t know what to do, I just look at the people around me and copy them — which is a bit inappropriate for a bathhouse.

So I sat on a small plastic stool, used the shower head, and cleaned myself. After that, I waded into the artificial hot spring and felt like I recouped some of my hours spent awake. Then I dried off, used the complementary hair products, and headed upstairs.

8. Change back into your outside clothes

Back to the locker room to get ready for the day. I had to change again in the same crowded space, with 15 other locals squeezing past and changing underwear. The cold air coming in whenever the hotel door opened, just behind a curtain, made it even worse. Honestly, this part was more uncomfortable than the bath.

9. Repeat this two more times

I repeated this entire ritual two more times, losing more sleep each night.

10. Give up and book a hotel room

After three nights, I had enough. I booked a proper hotel and stayed there for my last two nights. The experience was certainly interesting, but I couldn’t push through any longer. When I checked out early, the receptionist looked sad when I told him I still had two nights left — but I simply couldn’t take it anymore.

Why it didn’t work for me

My main issue was the total lack of personal space. After a day of adventuring, I like coming back to a room and relaxing. Here I didn’t have that. I was constantly carrying my stuff around and felt uncomfortable following all the rules.

I also didn’t enjoy being one of the few tourists. It felt like I was intruding on something meant for locals — most guests weren’t there to have fun; they simply needed a place to sleep.

Other problems:

The noise, even through earplugs
Waking up at 3 AM to use the restroom and almost forgetting my key to go back in
Having no place to dry sweaty clothes, making everything in my locker smell

And my expectations didn’t match reality:

I expected I could lock my capsule and keep my backpack with me
I expected better soundproofing
I expected more tourists, so I wouldn’t be the only gaijin in the bathhouse
I expected it to feel more like a hotel and less like a hostel with a giant sleeping hall

In the end, I’m still thankful for the experience. I did the thing! I slept there, I showered, I ate the snacks. But the price I put on a good night’s sleep is definitely higher than whatever money I saved by choosing the cheaper option.

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