A clean, well-lighted, extremely tiny space

September 14, 2007 10:49 AM

Capsule hotels in North America?

I'd love to stay in a capsule hotel, but I doubt I'll get to Tokyo anytime soon. Are there anything like capsule hotels in North America? Super extra multiple plus-plus bonus points if there's one in or around Toronto.

posted by the dief to travel & transportation (7 comments total)

Well, that Wikipedia article you linked to mentions the Pod Hotel in NYC.
posted by mkb at 11:06 AM on September 14, 2007

The Pod Hotel isn't actually a capsule hotel. It's a regular hotel with small rooms. Prices are $150-$320 a night, decor is fancy, and amenities are plush. I don't think it's anything like what the asker is looking for.
posted by decathecting at 11:36 AM on September 14, 2007

Extremely doubtful. Comparisons with chicken coops and the accursed American zoning laws would prevent such a thing.

Wondering why you'd like to stay in one, I come up with three reasons.

1. Price.
   I am also interested in very cheap but tolerable accomodations in major North American cities; the acceptable types I've found are labeled "European" since their bathrooms are shared. In fact I asked about these recently, but the results were disappointing.
2. Size.
   You'd like to sleep in a capsule-sized room. I can relate, I feel extremely secure sleeping in such a small place, and fortunately I live in a 1.5 room apartment with a small sleeping loft, just about capsule-sized.
3. Neighbors -- you want to attempt sleeping in close proximity to drunken, snoring Japanese salarymen.
   This is the reason why I've never bothered trying to get into a Japanese capsule hotel (many of which prohibit gaijin lodgers).

posted by Rash at 11:51 AM on September 14, 2007

Not modern in any way, but the Whitehouse Hotel in New York has wooden sleeping stalls that are about a foot wider than twin bed they contain.
posted by the jam at 11:56 AM on September 14, 2007

Not exactly the same but how about an Amtrak sleeping car?
posted by coevals at 1:38 PM on September 14, 2007

Capsule hotels are not what you think they are. They are not a place to stay for a few days while you visit a city. You cannot leave luggage at one. You cannot go there during the day. You cannot have the same pod several nights in a row.

Capsule hotels are a place for you to crash for a few hours before waking up and going to work. Trains shut at midnight in Tokyo, and cabs are prohibitively expensive. If you are out drinking on a weeknight downtown and you miss your train, you go to the capseru hoteru.

You lock your shoes in a small locker at the door. You go to a desk and trade your shoe locker key for a key to a real locker upstairs. This locker key is on an armband so you can wear it on your wrist. You go upstairs, bathe at the provided japanese-style spa (gang shower and hot tub) change into the pajamas that were in the locker, and push the drunken salarymen out of the way to pass out in your tube. If you are lucky, you set the alarm clock in the tube before you pass out.

At six thirty sharp, you are awakened by the mad rush of people leaving to get to work. You brush your teeth with a disposeable toothbrush that comes individually wrapped in plastic. You buy overpriced fresh underwear, socks and a shirt from the little kiosk, put your suit on and leave.

There is no place in here to put luggage, no place to rest for a while, and they are not, as a general rule, particularly clean. The ones I have stayed in are not well lit either, but I have only ever shown up at one in the middle of the night.

They are unpleasant, full of surly drunk Japanese people smoking cigarettes, and there is invariably someone throwing up in the bathrooms, but that said, five thousand yen for a tube beats twenty thousand yen for a taxi.

You really don't want a capsule hotel. You want something else.
posted by OldReliable at 2:17 PM on September 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

I completely disagree with OldReliable's assessment. It wasn't recent, but when I travelled in Japan, I would often pick capsule hotels to stay in, even if other alternatives weren't much more expensive - they're NEAT. Also, generally, there are coin lockers in or nearby, so you can store your luggage. I never found anyone puking in the bathrooms, and as for Japanese smoking - that happens everywhere. I agree that you are not going to make friends, as you would in a youth hostel, but I have had no problems in the roughly dozen stays I had in capsule hotels.

I realize that this strictly speaking doesn't answer the question, since it addresses Japanese capsule hotels, but I thought I'd give a counterpoint to OldReliable's view.
posted by birdsquared at 6:13 PM on September 14, 2007