Rooms are spacious but decor is dated, need new sheets, carpet need cleaning.
One subway stop from Kyoto station. Staff are helpful.

I spent 7 nights at this hotel mid June, 2011, and was very pleased with my experience. The room was about the size I expected, and is comparable to what you will find in the area. The location is convenient if you are planning on seeing the many sights Kyoto has to offer, since you are within walking distance from Kyoto station, and are less than five minutes from the Gojo subway station. But what really made my stay at the Aranvert memorable was the hotel staff. They were courteous, cheerful, and provided service I was not expecting. From escorting me to the elevator after breakfast (a decent mix of Japanese and western foods), to also being happy to answer any questions I had at the main desk, the staff was great. I would definitely stay at this hotel again if I were in Kyoto.

The location of the hotel is close to the Metro and only one metro station from Kyoto Central Station. The area has some nice temples but it is in between downtown and the central station so there is not much happening there. We found ourselves gravitating towards downtown to find restaurants for breakfast and dinner.

The room was very average in size (for Japan, small everywhere else) but clean and our windows was towards the back street so it was very quiet. We unfortunately never visited the bath at the top floor. The staff was friendly and spoke good English. The room was expensive but in Kyoto terms it actually quite OK priced.

Please, install wifi. Free internet is great but if you travel with a smart phone or a tablet wired internet is useless.

The hotel has seen better days. The room smelled of cigarettes, even though it was no smoking, the pale pink carpet was stained, and the whole place is dumpy. But it's in a great location and how much time do you spend in the room? The furnishings were fine. The staff are helpful and nice, we kept our luggage there awhile after we checked out. I didn't like leaving my key there each time we left, but it did mean I never lost my key. There are restaurants, men and womens baths, but I didn't use any of that. You get toiletries, robes, slippers, the usual. The bed and pillows are super firm. You get helpful instructions regarding the use of the AC, which was greatly appreciated. The staff speaks reasonable English and are quite friendly. You can borrow tour books, read the paper, hang out in the lobby. No wifi but you can borrow a LAN cable free.

The minibar comes loaded so avoid it, or take stufff out and put it back when you leave. There's a market about two blocks down for fruit, drinks, but we found the take out food was awful, I think it was called "Fresca" or something like that.

The location is great. You can get an all day subway pass (represented by the green and orange dots on the map you get) for about 600 yen, we found it worth it, and could get to most of the places we wanted to go with it. The hotel is at the Gojo Nishinotoin station, one stop up from Kyoto station, and exit #2 is on the same side of the street as the hotel, make sure you leave by this exist, as the hotel is then about 2 blocks away straight ahead. Look for the tall building with the green roof. You can walk to the hotel from Kyoto station, it's about 20 min. To walk, leave the station on the Kyoto Tower side (big white and red tower), cross the street and go straight for about a mile. You'll pass a big temple on your left (go back and visit later, it's impressive and free, opens around 6am, great for those who aren't on Japan time and are up at the crack of dawn), keep going, then turn left on Karasuma Gojo, a really big street, you can't miss it, and the hotel is about 4 blocks down on your right. Or you can take the subway from Kyoto Station, see directions above, but there are limited elevators and escalators, you will be lugging your stuff up and down stairs.

If you have limited time, I recommend making the eastern part of Kyoto a priority Take the subway to Higashiyama Sanjo and be prepared to do a lot of walking. It's beautiful and worth the trek to see Maruyama Park, Chionin Temple, and the older part of Kyoto. We also saw Nijo Castle, easily reached by the Nijojo-mae line; wear socks, you'll be taking your shoes off to walk the castle. And if you don't read Japanese, consider skipping the Manga museum, it's impressive but more of a manga library and if you can't read it you can't enjoy it much.

Anyway, that's a lot of non-hotel info, but stuff that would have been helpful for us, especially knowing how to get to the hotel and what subway stops to take. I'd stay at the hotel again, but only for location and value, not because it's a super nice place.