What’s it like to stay in a Japanese container hotel?

We spend the night in the new rising-star class of hotels in Japan .

There’s a new class of travel accommodation that’s been rising in popularity in Japan recently: the container hotel .

Not to be confused with capsule hotels , in which you rent a slot in a wall of sleeping compartments for the night, container hotels give you an actual private room…but that room in enclosed within what’s essentially a converted shipping container .

Container hotels tend to be less expensive than conventional lodgings, but do those saving come at the cost of cramped, maybe even claustrophobic discomfort? To find out, we sent our Japanese-language reporter Takashi Harada to container hotel Cradle Cabin , located in the city of Tateyama in Chiba Prefecture , to spend the night.

As you can see, each container is narrow enough to fit inside a parking space .

Granted, these are parking spaces wide enough to accommodate shipping trucks, but still, it doesn’t seem like a lot of left-to-right space from the outside.

Things didn’t look any more encouraging when Takashi opened the door to his room, and he inwardly groaned a little at how narrow the layout appeared.

However, after stepping past the entry area, he discovered a surprisingly well-designed interior with all the space he really needed .

Sure, the dimensions are still cozy, but this is pretty much as much space as you get in Japan’s budget-friendly “business hotels.” As for why the area just inside the door seems so narrow, that’s because the container has its own self-contained bathroom and shower .

This was also a pleasant surprise, as Takashi had been bracing himself for the possibility that container hotels would only have a communal restroom and bathing facility.

Instead, he had a fully private setup, again comparable to what you’ll find in most regular budget-priced Japanese hotels, including a nice washlet-type toilet .

Continuing to check for places Cradle Cabin might have cut corners, he next checked the bed.

Once again, though, his worries were misplaced.

The mattress was soft but supportive, and the housekeeping staff had laid out two pillows of differing firmness for him to pick from .