Beginning with the last player (who has the highest turn order tile) and in counterclockwise order, each player chooses a guest from the face-up ones on the game board and places it into his café at no cost. After each choice, slide the remaining guests to the right and place a new one from the draw pile on the empty space at left.

Little piece of advice: definitely prepare 3 rooms. If you are Scottish or simply like saving money, you can prepare 3 free rooms.

Then each player prepares up to 3 rooms by taking room tiles from the game board and placing them on same-colored spaces of his hotel boards. He must start with the bottom left room of the hotel board. Subsequent room tiles must be placed adjacent to already placed ones. For each prepared room the player must pay the preparation cost shown on his hotel board.

You know, there are several ways to get Victory Points: guests provide some, you get some in the Emperor Scorings, and for occupied rooms. With the right staff, there are even more ways to get points.

The game is played over 7 rounds. At the end of rounds 3, 5, and 7, there is an emperor scoring. After round 7, there is also the final scoring. The player who then has the most victory points wins.

There are several ways to score victory points including moving guests to rooms, using certain staff cards, and moving on the emperor track.

At the start of each round, the start player (the player who has turn order tile “1”) rolls all the dice, sorting them by their pip values and placing them on the corresponding action spaces. Then the start player takes a turn or passes (see “Passing”).

During a round each player gets two turns in the order determined by their turn order tiles. The first turns are in first player to last player order. The second turns are in last player to first player order.

If a player does not pass then he takes the following actions:

1. Take a guest from the game board (optional).

2. Take a die and carry out the corresponding action (mandatory).

Perform “additional actions” (optional, can be before, between or after the above two actions).

If a player has an empty space in his café, he may move one of the 5 guests from the game board to his café, paying the cost printed on the game board.

Slide to the right all guests on the game board that were to the left of the taken guest. Place a new guest from the draw pile on the resulting empty leftmost space.

Can I tell you a secret? The truth is the hotels choose their guests. A successful hotelier only takes guests that help the hotel prosper. So choose wisely, but try to get a new guest each turn, if possible. Be careful though: a guest does not leave your Café unless you complete their order!

Choose an action space with at least one die left and carry out the action. The number of dice on the action space determines how much you get from the action. Then remove a die from the action space and place it on the lowest visible number on your turn order tile.

The actions in detail:

• Once per turn, you can pay 1 krone to add 1 to the number of dice on the chosen action space.
  On Yucata do this by selecting the “+1” symbol by the action space.
• You can pay 1 krone to move up to 3 dishes and drinks from your kitchen to the orders on your guest cards.
• You can score the points of a politics card you have fulfilled the condition of (see “Politics Cards”).
  On Yucata this is done automatically at the end of your turn.
• You can use a staff card you played with a “once per round” effect.

• You can move a guest whose order you have completed to a free room. You immediately receive the printed number of victory points and the reward that guest provides. Red, blue and yellow guests can move only into an unoccupied room of the same color. Green guests can move into any unoccupied room. Turn the room to its “occupied” side and place the guest on the discard pile. When you turn over the last room in a group, you receive a bonus (see “Occupancy Bonus”).

  If you have no free room of matching color, you cannot take this action. Guests for which you have no room stay in your café.

  On Yucata when a guest is moved to a room, take benefits in the following order: the guest's reward, staff card (Custodian, Groom, Male Floor Housekeeper, Masseuse, Stableman and Tour Guide) benefits, and finally a possible occupancy bonus.

Except for the “add 1 to the number of dice action”, you can take the additional actions any number of times during your turn.

Additional actions can be taken before or after taking a guest and before or after taking a die action.

Whenever you receive dishes and drinks, regardless of how you get them, you can place them immediately on a guest’s order. Place any you do not want to serve to guests into your kitchen.

After you finish your turn, the player with the lowest number visible on his turn order tile goes next. Consequently, the player to the right of the start player takes two consecutive turns.

Example of a turn:

It is Doris’ turn. Since she has 3 guests already, she cannot attract a new guest into her café. She chooses action 2 (there are 3 dice showing “2”) and pays 1 krone to add an additional die to receive 2 wine and 2 coffee. She places those on her Baroness, thus completing her order. She moves the Baroness to a prepared blue room, turning that room to the “occupied” side. She receives receives 5 victory points and the depicted reward (drawing 3 Staff cards and playing one of them) and places the Baroness on the discard pile. She also receives an occupancy bonus of 2 victory points for occupying the last room in the group.

Instead of taking a turn, you can simply pass. This happens quite frequently when there are only a few dice left on action spaces you do not want to use. When you pass, you must wait until every other player has either passed or taken two turns (and, thus, covered both numbers on his turn order tile).

When all players have passed or taken two turns, the player with the lowest number still showing on his turn order tile takes the remaining dice from all the action spaces, removes one, rolls the rest, and places them on the matching action spaces. Then each player who passed takes a turn or passes again.

If any player passes a second time then when all players have passed a second time or taken two turns, proceed as above for all players who passed a second time.

Play continues in this fashion until all players have taken two turns or there are no dice left on any action space.

If a player passes the first of his two turns in a round, his second turn is passed also.

When all the rooms in a group are occupied, you receive a bonus based on the size and color of the group. According to the table on your hotel board, you receive advancements on the emperor track for yellow rooms, victory points for blue rooms, and krones for red rooms. The bigger the group, the greater the bonus you receive.

You can trigger the occupancy bonus when receiving an emperor tile bonus or a reward from a guest that lets you turn a room tile as well as when you send a guest to a room. You get the bonus whenever you occupy the last unoccupied room in the group. If a room in the group later becomes unoccupied (due to an emperor penalty) and then you occupy it again, you receive the bonus again.

Example:

Benedict moves a noble to his last free blue room, thus occupying the last room in a blue group. He immediately receives an occupancy bonus for that group. Since the group has 2 rooms, he can advance 5 spaces on the victory point track.

Each politics card shows a requirement. As soon as you meet the requirement of a politics card on your turn, you can place a wooden disk on the highest available space, receiving the printed number of victory points. You can place only one wooden disk per politics card.

If you have no clue what to aim for in this game, you should take a look at the Politics cards. They usually provide some idea of what to play towards. If you have better plans, though, you can ignore them altogether.

Claiming a politics award is an additional action. You can perform additional actions only during your turn. Therefore, you cannot claim a politics award during an emperor scoring.

There are 12 politics cards, but only 3 are used in each game.

A detailed overview over the politics cards can be found in the Appendix

At the end of the 3rd, 5th, and 7th rounds, there is an emperor scoring (see “Emperor Scoring”). After the 7th round and its emperor scoring, there is a final scoring.

At the end of each round, turn your once-per-round staff cards face up again. Then pass your turn order tile to the next player in clockwise order. The new start player takes all the dice and moves the round marker one space forward.

Each player receives the number of victory points printed below his position on the emperor track.

Then each player must move his wooden disk a number of spaces back on the track: 3 spaces after the first, 5 spaces after the second, and 7 spaces after the third emperor scoring. If a player's wooden disk ends up in the yellow area (space “3” and above), he receives the bonus on the emperor tile. If his wooden disk ends up on “0”, he suffers the penalty of the emperor tile. If his wooden disk ends up on “1” or “2”, he neither gets a bonus nor suffers a penalty.

There are 12 emperor tiles, but only 3 are used in each game. The penalty part of some tiles shows 2 options. If one of them is not possible, you must choose the other.

A player can have a negative number of victory points due to a penalty.

After the emperor scoring after the 7th round there is a final scoring:

• You receive victory points for your staff cards that provide them.
• You receive victory points for your occupied rooms: 1 victory point for each room in the first row of your hotel board, 2 victory points each in the second row, 3 victory points each in the third row, and 4 victory points each in the top row.
• You receive 1 victory point for each krone and leftover dish and drink in your kitchen.
• You lose 5 victory points for each guest in your café.

The player with the most victory points wins. In case of a tie, the player who has more dishes, drinks, and krones left wins.

In order to familiarize yourselves with the game, we recommend that players start the game with equal sets of staff cards. Before your first play, sort the staff cards and give each player a set. The start player receives set A, the next player set B, and so on.

Then shuffle the remaining staff cards to form the draw pile.

At the start of the game, each player receives 6 staff cards, chooses 1 and takes it into his hand, and passes the rest to the player on his left. Each player then chooses and keeps 1 of the 5 cards passed to him and passes the rest to the player on his left. Repeat this process until players have chosen and taken 6 staff cards into their hands.

Use the rules from the original edition of the game instead of the rules from the 2021 edition. The changes implemented on Yucata from the 2021 edition are:

• E. Gizia lets the player carry out the action of an action space containing at least one die instead of taking a complete extra turn.
• The 12-point maximum was removed from the Operator.
• Playing the Kitchen Hand costs 5 krone instead of 3.
• Emperor C2 penalty: Instead of removing one of the highest occupied rooms and a room in the same column, remove one occupied room from each of the two highest floors that contain at least one occupied room.
• Emperor A1, A3, A4, B2, B3, B4 and C4 penalites: instead of the player being allowed to choose between the "lose points" and the alternate penalty, the player must suffer the alternate penalty if he is able to.

Exclude the Kitchen Hand staff card, which some players deem overpowered, from the game.

If no player takes a guest during a round then discard the two free guests at the end of the round. If the round is followed by an emperor scoring, discard the guests before the emperor scoring.

Include the three politics cards designed by Yucata player herlius.

Include the nine staff cards designed by Dale Rowe-Smith.