I wonder how this ryokan made it into lonely planet? During our Japan trip trough several cities this was the worst price-performance ratio we had. We were budget travellers and this ryokan was the most expensivest of all on our trip.

The location itself is really great. Easy to reach from Hiroshima station (30 min ride with streetcar), less than 5 minute walk from the streetcar station to the ryokan and from ryokan you can walk to peace memorial park in another 5 minutes.

Besides the location we cannot tell anything positive about our stay at Ikawa ryokan. Ok, most ryokans are rather minimalistic but this place has the charme of a hospital. The room was quite big but dark and just loveless. Dirty wallpaper from the 80s, saggy matress, one windows was just inches away from the wall of the next builing and the other frosted glass window could not be opended (so no sunlight in there which is quite depressing).

The bathroom was the biggest dissapointment. In all other places during our travel we had perfectly clean bathrooms but here the armatures were dirty and almost all the jointings were coverd with black mold.

This just fits to the room which is called "the lobby". This room is just a big mess of old and cheesy stuff where nothing fits to each other. They have one(!) PC there for free use which seems to be as old as the ryokan itself so that you do not feel very safe typing your email and other passwords in there.

Personell were nice and english-speaking, though.

The glimpse of hope is that currently they are building a new complex right next to the old one. Hopefully the new Ikawa will be much more modern and cleaner...

it is 2:29am, my friend is sleeping on the lobby couch while i am typing this warning!
our japanese style room is bedbug infestet. Killed 10 in less than 5minutes than we decided against staying and r now waiting for hotel employes to start their work (no 24h reception). It does not seem nessesary to mention the worst pillows ever anymore.

Friendly service, however breakfast has to be taken by 8.00. Not for people who want to sleep long. Familiar Japanese atmosphere. Japanese style room was much better than western style room. No public bath.

We stayed here for two nights in March but we were a little disappointed with the ryokan overall.

We had booked a traditional Japanese room, thinking that this was going to be a traditional ryokan (small inn) But it was more like a hotel in which the rooms were modern interpretations of the traditional.

There were tatamis on the floor but that’s where the tradition ended.

The room was clean as was the rest of the hotel and there was a shared sex public bath – lock the door if you are in there!

The location was great – 2 minutes walking would get you to the Peace Park and another 5 would get you into the shopping arcades.

I think this place rated a bit lower for us because we had also just come from a perfectly idyllic ryokan in Kyoto.

It wasn’t a terrible place but if I were returning to Hiroshima, I would try somewhere else but in a pinch (as we were when we booked here) it was totally fine.