Henn-na Hotel

This first of its kind hotel in Japan likes to take its no-humans approach rather seriously. As a first to be ‘manned’ by robots, right from the receptionist, the concierge and the porter, the Henn na Hotel is invested heavily in living up to its name that literally means ‘weird’. It has, and rightfully so, been attracting inquisitive visitors who want to experience robotic hospitality at its best. Even dinner is served by a series of vending machines!
Beginning with the check-in process, you can choose from an English speaking dinosaur and a blushing female humanoid that speaks Japanese. The owner plans to introduce Korean and Chinese next. Check in is done by the visitors themselves through a console after which a room is allotted and the visitor’s face is scanned. This face recognition will be used to let you in your room instead of the standard key once you’re there. Luggage is transported to the room by a mechanized porter, of course if you’re planning to carry oversized baggage, there could be a problem with fitting this onto a predesignated space.

The hotel is owned by Hideo Sawada who runs this experimental set up as part of an amusement park and is obviously happy at the lack of labour issues he is likely to have in his lifetime. A robot cloak room allows customers to keep valuables in lockers, again operated through a robotic arm. With all this mechanization, cost of stay is halved (USD80) as compared to the average stay at any other Japanese hotel.
If you are landing at Fukuoka, take the subway to JR Hakaka Station and hop on to the ‘Huis Ten Bosch’ limited express train. It will take 1 hour 40 minutes to the JR Huis Ten Bosch Station. From Nagasaki airport, the Sasebo goes to Buis Ten Bosch limited express bus that takes about 60 minutes.

Those coming by train, from Hakaka Station, take the Huis Ten Bosch limited express train to JR Huis Ten Bosch Station. From the Nagasaki Station, take the Seaside Liner express train on the JR Nagasaki/Omura Lines to Huis Ten Bosch Station. Your travel time will be 1 hour 30 minutes. If you are disembarking at the Sasebo station, take a rapid of local train on the Omura Line to the Huis Ten Bosch Station.