You guys know that I’m a hotel nerd. I write about hotels for a living, I’ve worked front desk and concierge, and my absolute favorite thing to do on my blog is to stay somewhere cool and share all of the details with you guys so that you can make informed choices when you’re travel. (Or just add a cool place to your wanderlust wish list!)

This is a sponsored post brought to you by Fish & Tips. I thought their website was so interesting that my fellow travel fans would want to check it out, too!

This week, I was introduced to a cool website called Fish & Tips. It’s a Japanese hotel review site, but all of their content is available in English. When you’re booking a trip to a place as far away as Tokyo or Okinawa, it’s super helpful to be able to see a lot of photos and info before making your decision!

While they focus on hotels in Japan, they do also offer a limited number of reviews of hotels in international destinations including Singapore, the USA, and Canada. I was super excited to see that one of the USA hotels that was reviewed was Disney’s All Star Sports Resort. I’ve worked there!

Each hotel on Fish & Tips is reviewed by an individual person who stayed there following a specific format (see above), and has SO MUCH INFO. I was so impressed when the first one I looked at listed out all of the toiletries and such that were supplied in the bathroom.

Given that some reviews appear to be written by people fluent in English and others are translated from Japanese, there is the occasional head-scratcher where something got lost in translation (among the list of bath products in one post was “milky lottery” – I still haven’t figured out what that could be!) but for the most part the reviews are easy to understand. Definitely better than my Japanese!

I’m instantly a fan of any hotel where I get to relax while someone brings me drinks!

As a lover of details, the amount of work that goes into the hotel reviews gets a big thumbs-up from me. They start with the exterior, show you the lobby and check-in, give a tour of the room they stayed in, show other amenities and restaurants on-site, etc. From the kind of products available in the gift shop to whether or not your room’s fridge is stocked with free drinks, they cover everything!

Unlike a lot of other review sites, these reviews mostly stick to being informative rather than being rants or raves. They do offer some opinions, like “It was nice to be able to see the ocean from the balcony,” and thoughts like “There was plenty of room to stretch my legs in the bathtub.” or “The meal was very filling.” That said, they do still point out flaws – I saw one review that said, “The room was beautiful except for the white carpet that was a little dirty.” It’s a nice alternative to sites that are purely informative and those where random travelers complain about every little detail.

I liked that each review also offers notes on the staff and guests, including if it seems like mostly families, couples, or business travelers. That kind of info can be hard to figure out just looking at a regular hotel booking site. Another thing I really liked is that each reviewer include why they picked that particular hotel to stay at. An example:

Even if you’re not currently planning a trip, it’s fun to look at the hotels if you’re a travel nerd like I am. I found it interesting just to see how different things like the coffee makers were, and how some of the rooms came with things I’ve never seen in the US, like pajamas provided on the bed or a “beach robe”. (Basically a waffle weave bath robe but designed to be used as a beach cover-up. Can we get those in Florida hotels, please and thanks?) Just browsing the reviews definitely stirred my wanderlust! To be totally honest they only requested that I write at least 150 words about the website, but I wound up looking at cool hotels for about two hours. Am I the only one who finds that kind of thing really fun?

Have you ever visited Japan? What kind of info do you like to know about a hotel before you book a stay there?