Three Hours in Yokohama Hotels: a Morning Pool, a New Year, and Fireworks from the Top Floor

Not one day, but three. Three separate hours spent in hotels in Yokohama: a morning by the pool, the turn of a year, and a night of fireworks.

The indoor pool at The Kahala, and a morning with no hurry

In August 2023 we stayed at The Kahala Hotel & Resort Yokohama as a family. Two things stayed with me: the indoor pool, and where we sat the next morning.

Into the room just before three, on 14 August

We got into the room a little before three in the afternoon on 14 August.

The bedcover carries a geometric pattern and the room is pulled together in light colours. The window is large and the daylight comes well in. For reference, the hotel opened on 23 September 2020 at 5-3 Minatomirai in Nishi-ku, near Pacifico Yokohama, and all 146 of its rooms are 47 square metres or larger.

The pool is indoors

The pool is inside. Light drops from the ceiling and the surface of the water is bright. It is a heated indoor pool of roughly 20 metres, part of the spa.

A few other guests were swimming that day. Mid-August, so of course — but it does not fill the way an outdoor pool does. And being indoors, you are not managing the sun, which in that month counts for a lot.

After swimming we went back up and rested with the curtains still open.

The next morning’s table was the best of it

The next morning we sat down to eat.

White cloth, knife and fork and glass laid out, a large window with the outside bright behind it. Breakfast is usually the meal you compress into the gap between two moves. That morning it wasn’t. We sat, we looked out, we ate slowly.

The moment a trip feels like a luxury is not necessarily the moment you are eating something expensive. A morning with nothing to hurry for is already enough.

Notes from this stay

• The Kahala Hotel & Resort Yokohama, 5-3 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, near Pacifico Yokohama
• Opened 23 September 2020. 146 rooms, all 47 m² or larger; 14 floors above ground plus a basement and a penthouse
• The pool is indoors — a heated pool of about 20 metres in the spa, so no sun to manage in summer
• This stay ran 14–15 August 2023
• Breakfast was at a table with a view
• Room types, facilities and rates change. Confirm when you book

Stayed August 2023. Facilities and pricing are as they were at the time of the stay.

Also in Yokohama: a night on the club floor of The Westin Yokohama, where the 22nd-floor lounge’s steak was the best part of the evening.

Seeing in the new year at InterContinental Pier 8

On New Year’s Day 2025 I watched the sunrise from the window of the room. It was a wonderful feeling — that is still the impression I am left with.

Arrive on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, and see the year out there

We checked in a little after three on the afternoon of 31 December 2024.

InterContinental Yokohama Pier 8 stands on Shinko Pier. It sits on a pier surrounded by water on three sides, which is unusual in Japan. It opened on 31 October 2019 and has 173 rooms, on floors three to five. Rather than a hotel, there is a sense of being inside a building moored at a port.

We spent the evening of New Year’s Eve to the morning of New Year’s Day there.

The building was not quiet over the new year

There was a red Michelin box set out inside.

On the morning of the first, the lobby was busy. People crossing it with luggage, crowded in the way the turn of the year is crowded. That many people had chosen to spend the new year in a hotel.

The window turned red

What I remember most from this stay is the morning of the first.

The room window faces the sea. I had slept with the curtains open, so the light coming up was simply apparent. The colour of the sky changed from around the horizon and the inside of the room went red with it.

There is a way of doing this that involves getting up early and going out into the cold to see the first sunrise. We did not do that. We sat in the chairs and watched the same thing happen on the other side of the glass.

I felt no particular guilt about taking the easy option. It was a wonderful feeling.

Notes from this stay

• InterContinental Yokohama Pier 8, 2-14-1 Shinko, Naka-ku, Yokohama — on Shinko Pier
• Opened 31 October 2019. Surrounded by water on three sides; 173 rooms on floors 3–5
• A western restaurant and bar and a sushi counter, a spa and gym for guests, a courtyard and a rooftop
• This stay ran from 31 December 2024 to 1 January 2025
• From a sea-facing room, the first sunrise of the year is visible from the window
• Room types, facilities and rates change. Confirm when you book

Facilities and pricing are as they were at the time of the stay.

The Kaikosai fireworks, from the top of the Westin

We watched the fireworks of the Yokohama Port Opening Festival from a hotel restaurant. Watching fireworks without moving from a seat was new to me.

From the grill on the top floor

On the top floor of The Westin Yokohama there is a restaurant called Iron Bay. A grill working over wood fire for meat and fish, with the Minato Mirai night view through the windows.

We ate there that evening — the night of the 2025 Yokohama Port Opening Festival.

They start going up mid-meal

The festival includes fireworks. At the appointed time, the outside of the window turned bright.

I had understood a fireworks display as something where you stake out a spot, look up from inside a crowd, and queue a long way to the station afterwards. None of that here. You stay seated, you carry on eating, and it is directly in front of you.

There was a slight sense of having taken the easy route. But watching my daughter go over to the window to look, it seemed fine as it was.

Spending a festival day quietly

A festival is fundamentally people gathering and making noise. Watching it from inside a window, it is hard to claim you are taking part.

Even so, you were in that place at that hour on that day. You are watching fireworks that went up into the same sky. There can be more than one way of being involved.

Notes from this evening

• Iron Bay, the wood-fire grill on the top floor of The Westin Yokohama
• The Minato Mirai night view is visible from the windows
• The Yokohama Port Opening Festival is usually held in early June and includes fireworks
• This was the night of the 2025 festival
• Festival dates, menus and hours change. Check before you go

Opening details are as they were at the time of the visit. Some images here are illustrations, not photographs.

More on this hotel: The Westin Yokohama club lounge.