Struggling to find the right hotel in Tokyo

[Sandeep1]

OP, I've been to Tokyo twice and always choose Shinjuku. I really like that area but you're going to pay up for it, there is no getting around it. Hyatt Regency is a great choice. Do you have any rewards points? A room at the Hyatt Regency is only 12,000 points a night and I think there is a credit card offer now which offers 50,000 Hyatt points (something to consider).

 

[catmegs]

We just returned from our trip. My husband is 6'7... so I feel your pain of trying to imagine him fitting in a bed!

We stayed at the Mimaru Ueno North, Mimaru Hatchobori, and Hilton Tokyo Bay. We we were traveling with 3 kids, so probably the Mimaru apartment/ hotel concept might not be what you want. But we loved each hotel and location- and all 3 had beds (and showers) that my husband had no issues with.

In Tokyo I absolutely highly recommend the Ueno area. It is so convenient to both the JR and metro lines and the Narita airport express train. It has a ton of shopping and markets and the park is beautiful. I really did not like the Shinjuku and Shibuya areas- they felt like any other large asian city and almost quite seedy at night. Hatchobori was also lovely, very quiet, but harder to access the central train lines.

Good luck with booking!

 

[corgi_monster]

Check out Tokyo Stays Ginza. It’s very affordable and I think the bed sizes might fit your needs. This hotel is designed for a long-term stay and some rooms even have an in-room washing machine/dryer. The location is just ok, but I think any inconvenience is offset by the very affordable price.

 

[wishing4PA]

Hi! I know this is a bit late. I have been less active on the site lately b/c not really planning a WDW b/c I feel priced out of it atm! Yet I'll be taking DD15 to Japan next June. We originally would have overlapped with your dates, but a Spring Break activity came up for her that would have left her miserable during our Japan vacation if she had to miss it. Life's complicated with that kid!

We plan to visit the following areas: Shinjuku (obviously), Harajuku/Shibuya, Akihabara, and Asakusa. I think it would make sense to stay in one of those areas...? We will also go to TeamLab Borderless in Odaiba (maybe Toyosu Market there too?), the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, the Pokemon Cafe, and maybe Shining Moon Tokyo (the Sailor Moon show restaurant) in Azabu-Juban. I hope wherever we stay has somewhat easy access to those as well (not a million transfers...).

I need to you write a good trip report, b/c in addition to TDR most of your list is my tentative list.
Except Sailor Moon.
I assume you have checked into the details on the Ghibli Museum already? I haven't decided for sure if I want to plan on that, but DD would like it. The problem is we only have 2 days at TDR, then 2 days in Tokyo which must include a day trip to a neighboring prefecture b/c this is my first trip back to Japan in 40 years, and I have some weird personal need to visit a city near my old "hometown." And to show that area to DD. And to make that the one day of our trip that will be a non-touristy day, in a way.
Anyhow, if you don't know already, the Ghibli Museum tickets aren't even sold at the museum. If you wait until you get there, you might not be able to get one at all. So be sure to order tickets in advance, and adjust your schedule around that timed entry if you get them. Imho it'll be worth paying the $30 or so upcharge to have them procured for you rather than you trying to save $20 per ticket buying them yourself and perhaps missing out, if that's a "must do."

I'm starting to think nothing's going to be in our desired budget ($150-$225ish), though (at least nothing really very nice), and we should probably just give up on that and deal with high prices. I'm still thinking Shinjuku is a good base, but we'll see.

For the most part, we're even looking at the same areas, but with different lodging needs. I'm leaning toward Asakusa, though, as much b/c of atmosphere as pricing. I want to show DD Senso-ji, and she might not want to go out of her way for it. Aren't I sneaky? Jk, really, b/c I'd rather walk out of my hotel or ryokan into a normal human-scaled street area with small shops etc. than into the fronts of skyscrapers and mega department stores anyhow.

Unfortunately, Keio is not booking for April right now, so it's a little frustrating to not have any idea of what their pricing might be like.

We have so much time before our trip that a lot of places aren't available to book yet. If I decide on a place I really want, I may wait for it to open for booking later. In the meantime I might check to see if what their rooms run at some random intermediate dates (e.g. plug in Jan 19-20, or March 3-5 or Nov 15-17 whatever, just trying to match up days of week to the days of week I'm actually going to be there in June, and avoiding holidays, since it won't be a holiday during my trip.)
FWIW, some places I've looked at haven't shown up with available dates on TripAdvisor, but the hotels' websites had booking pages. Or maybe Google maps showed a booking company that wasn't part of TripAdvisor's list or vice versa. If that's the case, you may be able to find actual prices rather than use fake date prices, though I've been able to completely rule out some hotels based only on fake date pricing. If it's $400 on all the fake dates, it's probably not under $150 in June.
Well, I look forward to hearing more about your trip!

 

[Sandeep1]

June isn't that expensive in Tokyo. It will be quite hot and a lot of people wish to avoid that.

Hilton Shinjuku is about $240 for a few random dates I checked in June. I would jump on that. That's a good hotel, I stayed there in April.

 

[wishing4PA]

June isn't that expensive in Tokyo. It will be quite hot and a lot of people wish to avoid that.

Hilton Shinjuku is about $240 for a few random dates I checked in June. I would jump on that. That's a good hotel, I stayed there in April.

Well, I def don't want to hijack this thread, but the OP and I are doing lots of the same stuff! Long story short, I hated rescheduling from April to June b/c it's going to be just lovely weather in April and I know June is iffy. kbmartin, I'm jealous! But at least we leave by mid-June b/c the ticket prices sort of forced me into not staying too late! Flights departing Japan after 6/16 were too much pricer vs. our original tix for me to justify (b/c of airline hub shuffling or the Olympics nearing, idk.) So as much as I hate the shortness of our trip, at least we aren't staying into the worst of summer. It'll be worse when we arrive back in the US probably, but at least then I can hole up in the A/C w/o missing anything. Maybe I'll even sit under a fan and write a trip report.
As for the Hilton -- well, I haven't yet decided on our TDR area hotel, so we might end up in the Hilton Tokyo Bay. That plus Port Vita near USJ will mean 5 nights of "nice" semi-western style hotels, and probably 5 nights of sleeping in Western beds.
So for our 2 Tokyo nights I'm leaning toward something like the Dormy Inn Express in Asakusa (DD thinks late night "free" ramen is a selling point, and they at least have a decent bath area, though iirc they don't have true Japanese-style rooms, just sort of Western-Japanese rooms or Western). Or Andon Ryokan (I love the story behind it, but it's going to be all gaijin). Or Edo Sakura (horrid no cancel policy and a bit more than I really want to pay esp. without cancellation options -- but gorgeous tatami rooms AND daily tea ceremony.) Also considering Onyado Nono Asakusa and Family Inn Saiko in Toshima, etc.
So, I don't think OP and I are looking for the same thing in our Tokyo hotel. I don't have height to worry about bed-wise, and my #1 wish is Japanese style bedding and hopefully nice smelling tatami mats -- possibly some tiny bit of Japanese cultural activity such as the tea ceremony convenient in house. Maybe an onsen/sento. The bath would be 100% required if it was just me, but for this rushed mother-daughter trip that's not priority b/c DD might not want to do that anyhow.
Ah, OP, if you love carousels (hey, some Disney peeps do!) one other thing we might add to our trip, if I can squeeze it in, is a couple hours just to visit a small old-style amusement park in Toshima that has an incredible 3 ring carousel built in Germany and used in Coney Island for years. The rest of the park, based on its website, reminds me of some of our old US historic amusement parks, but we'd just be paying the $10 or so each to go in just to see the carousel El Dorado and then another $3 each to ride it. As a bonus, the train going out to that area is a neat design. But that's all we'd do out in Toshima. Then we'd go back to Shibuya/Shinjuku/Ikebukuro shopping or whatever. Yes, we're going to Japan for amusement parks lol. It's going to be way too short a trip.

 

[Haley R]

Well, I def don't want to hijack this thread, but the OP and I are doing lots of the same stuff! Long story short, I hated rescheduling from April to June b/c it's going to be just lovely weather in April and I know June is iffy. kbmartin, I'm jealous! But at least we leave by mid-June b/c the ticket prices sort of forced me into not staying too late! Flights departing Japan after 6/16 were too much pricer vs. our original tix for me to justify (b/c of airline hub shuffling or the Olympics nearing, idk.) So as much as I hate the shortness of our trip, at least we aren't staying into the worst of summer. It'll be worse when we arrive back in the US probably, but at least then I can hole up in the A/C w/o missing anything. Maybe I'll even sit under a fan and write a trip report.
As for the Hilton -- well, I haven't yet decided on our TDR area hotel, so we might end up in the Hilton Tokyo Bay. That plus Port Vita near USJ will mean 5 nights of "nice" semi-western style hotels, and probably 5 nights of sleeping in Western beds.
So for our 2 Tokyo nights I'm leaning toward something like the Dormy Inn Express in Asakusa (DD thinks late night "free" ramen is a selling point, and they at least have a decent bath area, though iirc they don't have true Japanese-style rooms, just sort of Western-Japanese rooms or Western). Or Andon Ryokan (I love the story behind it, but it's going to be all gaijin). Or Edo Sakura (horrid no cancel policy and a bit more than I really want to pay esp. without cancellation options -- but gorgeous tatami rooms AND daily tea ceremony.) Also considering Onyado Nono Asakusa and Family Inn Saiko in Toshima, etc.
So, I don't think OP and I are looking for the same thing in our Tokyo hotel. I don't have height to worry about bed-wise, and my #1 wish is Japanese style bedding and hopefully nice smelling tatami mats -- possibly some tiny bit of Japanese cultural activity such as the tea ceremony convenient in house. Maybe an onsen/sento. The bath would be 100% required if it was just me, but for this rushed mother-daughter trip that's not priority b/c DD might not want to do that anyhow.
Ah, OP, if you love carousels (hey, some Disney peeps do!) one other thing we might add to our trip, if I can squeeze it in, is a couple hours just to visit a small old-style amusement park in Toshima that has an incredible 3 ring carousel built in Germany and used in Coney Island for years. The rest of the park, based on its website, reminds me of some of our old US historic amusement parks, but we'd just be paying the $10 or so each to go in just to see the carousel El Dorado and then another $3 each to ride it. As a bonus, the train going out to that area is a neat design. But that's all we'd do out in Toshima. Then we'd go back to Shibuya/Shinjuku/Ikebukuro shopping or whatever. Yes, we're going to Japan for amusement parks lol. It's going to be way too short a trip.

We were there until June 15 this year and it was pleasantly nice outside. Kyoto was much hotter than Tokyo but we might’ve lucked out on our Tokyo weather. We were in japan for 3 weeks and it only rained two different days