Best hotel in Tokyo as far as......

I have been researching hotels for our trip to Tokyo next year. My husband and I are going to be in Tokyo for 2 weeks. We plan on taking some day trips out and about, but we want to just have one room in Tokyo. Does anyone know what the best hotel is as far as price combined with room size?

We are looking at spending up to 150.00 a night (American dollars)

I have heard alot of people saying that rooms are too small at quite a few hotels. It is just so hard to know. Some personal knowledge would be wonderful.

Thanks so much!

Well, this is something I have spent way too many hours of my life doing: trying to find the best balance of room size, cost, and location for an inexpensive hotel for two in Tokyo. It is true that most double occupancy rooms for under 18,000 yen are quite small, and it can be maddeningly difficult to get information on room dimensions, especially in English. You might check out Japanican.com if you haven't already done so. Even if you don't use it to book the actual room, it is one of the few English sites that gives a lot of hotel room dimensions, and you can get some sense of whether a hotel's basic rooms are smaller than 15 square meters (very cramped for two adults, in my opinion), around 20 square meters (my comfort minimum) or in the 25-30 square meter range (hard to find in your price range). When you are looking for a "home base" room, you do want a little more space. Of course, you have to be careful what room size you are actually getting when you book.

Another important consideration if you are using a hotel as a base for day trips is location. If you are walking distance from a hub station where you can catch trains to most of your day trip destinations, it is really a whole lot easier than being in a place where you have to take one or more subway trains before you even get to your main train. Hotels in inconvenient locations are often cheaper, but you waste precious hours of your vacation time commuting.

Be wary of some business hotel chains such as Toyoko Inn and Super Hotel that don't want you to go back to your room during the day. They have good prices on clean (although tiny) rooms, but the daytime lockout policy can be a drawback. If you are sure that you will be away all day every day, it's no problem, but if you want to kick back and relax at some point, it can be a real bummer. Such restrictions don't exist in the U.S., and people aren't aware of them. Discovering this catch on the day when you have a cold or a headache and just want to lie down for a while is not very pleasant.

I have been researching the question for years now and haven't found any single perfect solution. Every time, I end up going through the process again. I think you just have to shop around. Sometimes I have gotten good deals on tourist hotels (international chains) that put decent-sized rooms into the price range of around 15,000 yen. I'm afraid these are generally through Japanese-language web sites, though. Sometimes I stay at Hotel Villa Fontaine (kind of an upper tier business hotel chain; most of their rooms are very small but there are some exceptions). Villa Fontaine is not a bad compromise. The locations are not ideal but not too bad, either.

I have never tried Tokyu Stay, but they look kind of nice. They have kitchenettes and laundry facilities. Also, I have seen some good things about Oakwood Apartments Shinjuku lately. They might fall in your price range. (It will help that you are relatively long term.) Never stayed there myself but it looks appealing. Good location.

I was hoping some other people might respond and I could get some new ideas! It sounds like "weekly mansions" (short-term apartment rentals) are becoming more numerous and easier to book, and I may eventually go that route so I'd like to hear from people about that.

My husband and I are upping the price we are going to spend on a room to 200 a night. See if that helps. Thanks so much! Would be great to hear from other people.

Upping the limit to $200 will certainly help, although I wouldn't give up on finding something decent for less than that.

We never spend more than 15,000 yen but sometimes we have to settle for a room that is either quite small or else a little grungy. There are a whole lot more options starting at around the 20,000 yen mark.

Hope you have a great trip.

The best hotel within 150 USD/night, in my opinion, is the Grand Prince Akasaka. The room is big and the location is superb. The New Otani is quite good, also. The Century Southern Tower and Keio Plaza are also good and convenient, though rooms are a bit small at the Century... If you can get a room at the Cerulean Tower in Shibuya for 200 USD, you should go for it. It's an excellent choice.

Thanks for the tip about the daytime lockout! We never knew anything about it. We will definately try to shy away from those. Thanks for some ideas. I checked out some of the hotels and they are really nice. We are trying to decide weather we want to book our trip on our own (i.e. through a flight and hotel website) or have a travel agent help us.

*sigh* So many choices. lol Glad I am starting this early.

My wife and I are going to Tokyo for the first time in July. I decided to not even stress over finding the best bargain/location. We're staying at Tokyo Dome Hotel in Bunkyouku for $217 a night. It's a bit more money but very convenient to the things we will be doing. I don't know how convenient it is to ''typical'' Tokyo sightseeing (we have friends in Bunkyouku). Plus, with the falling US dollar, I thought I should lock into a price before the room went to $300 a night.

You may want to check this site, it contains info from 150 less or up, look into it's left column.


http://www.holidaycityjapan.com/tokyo25/index.html

That is a great website! Lots of great information. I am so glad for all of this help.