Tokyo and Kyoto hotels
 

For only the second time in 13 years, FAMILY will visit us in Japan! Hooray! MIL and SIL will come I think in September.

We want to take them to Tokyo and Kyoto as well as show them our hometown and nearby places we know well.

Hotel dilemma though. We'll be getting two rooms, so price matters, but value matters more than straight price. We don't want small or old rooms, and will certainly spend time in the hotel rather than use it just as a place to sleep. We'll pay Peninsula prices if we have to (and actually, their Virtuoso rates are good), but only for Peninsula quality.

I'm hoping to spend less, though. Any recommendations or thoughts?

KimJapan,

As you know from my reports we love to stay in the Hyatt Regency Tokyo. It's NOT The Peninsula but you don't pay the Pen's prices either.

We opt for the "Club King" rooms which give you the Regency Club level room at 35 sq meters with Regency Club privileges. The privileges include as follows from the hotel website:

Enjoy VIP accommodations and exclusive amenities such as the Regency Club lounge offering breakfast, tea service and evening cocktails. Bustling Shinjuku or serene Central Park views complement a 35-sq.-metre room with modern interiors including one king bed and deluxe bath with tub and shower. Enjoy high-speed Internet access, 24-hour room service and private concierge dedicated to your needs.

Rates in Sept are showing at 32,970 yen right now on the Hyatt.com website for the Club level rooms.
The club level rooms as well most of the other rooms have been remodeled recently so are very nice imho. We love the cocktail and canape hours(I think 5pm to 8 pm) and the breakfast is sufficient to get you through the day.

The restaurants and other areas are being remodeled throughout this yr one at a time I think so you may want to watch for this.

We love the new Joules(sp) Spa. The treatment rooms are very "modern Japanese".....well at least in the eyes of this gaijin. Each treatment includes a light snack refreshment at the end.....different.

As I said it's NOT The Pen but you get your moneys worth here.

Aloha!

HT....how is the location of the Grand Hyatt? How do you think the hotel would be overall for our multigeneration group?

Hi Kim --

The Grand Hyatt is in Roppongi Hills, and I think it has a fantastic location. (Note: The Grand Hyatt is <i>not</i> the same hotel as the one in Shinjuku that hawaiiantraveler mentioned.)

The Grand Hyatt is a relatively new hotel, and the room I stayed in was modern and lovely. One big advantage of the GH is being on top of Roppongi Hills shopping and the subway -- all escalators and only a very few steps between the subway and hotel. There are also a bunch of good restaurants in the shopping arcade (the conveyor sushi place was especially welcoming -- not at all as impersonal as some of them).

I misunderstood which Hyatt. So there are 3? Grand, Park and Regency? The Hyatt Regency is across from the Hilton?

Kim,

Yes the Hyatt Regency is next to the Hilton in Shinjuku.

The Grand Hyatt that rizzuto mentions is in Roppongi Hills and is a beautiful place. I have seen and been in the Grand Hyatt before. It is a lot nicer than the Hyatt Regency or even the Park Hyatt(which is up the street from the Hilton and Regency)imho. The neighborhood that surrounds the Grand Hyatt is also rich with restaurants and shops but is very hilly. Expect to do a lot of climbing up and down those hills. I have dual reservations for the last 4 nights in Tokyo this trip in April/May at the Grand Hyatt and the Hyatt Tokyo. Both are in Club King.....I'll probably decide a night or two before we arrive so I can cancel one.

I really like the feel in the Shinjuku property though....

Aloha!

ht, if you stay at the grand hyatt, go to katsukura for outstanding tonkatsu, and its inexpensive, considering the quality of the tonkatsu.

its not in the hotel, but the adjacent building with all the shops and restaurants. all the rice, miso soup and cabbage shreds you can eat. you &quot;create&quot; your own tonkatsu sauce, which will be better than bottled tonkatsu sauces.

Have you or do you know anyone that has stayed at the Peninsula Tokyo? The location looks superb, they have a great choice of connecting rooms...and I love the Peninsula Bangkok.

How about either of the Four Seasons properties? The Marunouchi one is only 57 rooms, so the size is attractive, though lowrise so no view.

We earn Hilton and Marriott points. We've stayed at the Hilton in Shinjuku and it's fine, but not special...price is good though, but executive floor prices put it just &yen;10,000/night less than the Peninsula. The Conrad is more expensive than the Peninsula, though for what reason I can't begin to imagine. Marriott Courtyard Ginza...any rooms other than the tiny ones that come up on their reservations page, or should I just forget that one?

And Kyoto...Granvia, Hyatt, or...?

Kim, I should have also mentioned the Strings Hotel, part of the InterContinental chain. I stayed there just 2 weeks ago, and it might suit you well.

The hotel is in the top 6 floors of an office tower next to Shinagawa station. The lobby (26th floor) is spectacular: a 6-story atrium with a lake garden. You reach the bar and main restaurant by a small bridge over the garden, and the effect is brilliant. Lots of places to sit and enjoy the lobby, as well as the bar.

My room was an odd shape, almost crescent shaped, with a reasonably sized sitting/dining area adjacent to the bed. (This was in addition to the desk/work area that you'd expect in any room.) The bathroom was spacious, with a semi-separate toilet area, a sink, and an area with a shower and a bathtub. Elemis toiletries. I will also say that the staff was plentiful and top-notch. [My room was neither the smallest nor largest available.]

Shinagawa has some advantages. Although the neighborhood itself is not as rich with shopping and restaurants or strolling areas as Roppongi Hills, it does have some restaurants and excellent take-away food outlets. Its most convenient features is access to everywhere else in Tokyo: Shinagawa is on the Yamanote line, and it's also on the Narita Express line.

At the Hyatt Regency Tokyo, they supply complimentary coffee/tea and pastries for Hyatt Gold Passport members. Well worth it!

Kim,

Knowing your on screen persona I don't think the Kyoto Granvia is for you. I love the area in and around Kyoto station with its shopping and restaurants but the Kyoto Granvia, although one of the nicest ones, is still just a JR hotel.

We checked out the Hyatt Kyoto the last time we were there and we are planning a stay there in 2009.

The property is set in a residential neighborhood about a 5 minute taxi from Kyoto station or a 15 minute walk(which is what we did). It's just past Sanjusangendo Temple and across from the Kyoto National Museum.I saw buses running in front of the hotel but I don't recall what lines. The rooms are quite nice and I loved the tranquil atmosphere of the place and its garden area.

We were shown 3 different types of rooms, deluxe king(nice), deluxe balcony,(this is the room we want in '09) and a suite which was beautiful but so was the price. The deluxe balcony room overlooked the garden....just gorgeous!

BTW Hyatt is having a promotion for new members which offers instant Platinum membership for new enrollees of their Goldpassport program. The membership is good for 3 months after signup and if you stay one time within the 3 months you get Platinum membership till 2009.

I know emd stayed at the Kyoto Okura and loved it.....maybe she will turn up soon!

Aloha!

HT, great feedback. My onscreen persona is my offscreen persona as well. While we are perfectly happy in guesthouses and homestays, if we pay for a good hotel, we expect it to be a good hotel. The Granvia is not at all cheap, so if it's &quot;just a JR hotel&quot; then it's not for us.

The Hyatt in Kyoto looks very attractive. Where did you see the Gold Passport promo? That interests me as well. Virtuoso has good rates for the Hyatt in Kyoto...the Deluxe balcony rooms are the ones I like, too.

Kim,

If you go to the hyatt site at

http://www.hyatt.com/hyatt/index.jsp

The add usually pops up at the right.

If not I think this is a direct link

http://tinyurl.com/3ccmbv

Aloha!

Thank you!

Kim:
Everyone has different preferences but imho the Park Hyatt is superior to the Grand Hyatt especially if you also factor in location. The Park Hyatt is pretty stunning with amazing views, cool bar/lounge on the 42nd floor and restaurants and wonderful service. This is the hotel featured in LOST IN TRANSLATION. Also, imho Roppongi Hills is just odd. Sort of just an new, odd mall plopped in the middle of a working class neighborhood. Not a particularly interesting mall either. Sorry. Just my opinion. And the Roppongi location will require more connections to get anywhere in Tokyo. The Park Hyatt is near Shinjuku which in my opinion is more fun and more charming than Roppongi. The Park Hyatt is a pretty good walk from Shinjuku but they do also have a free shuttle that goes quite often.
I have not stayed at the new Four Seasons but it is also in a great location very near the Imperial Palace and not far from Ginza. Marunouchi is an up and coming neighborhood. You will also be right by Tokyo station so it will be so easy to get anywhere within or outside the city from there. I do not know your luxury requirement levels but we also stayed at the Marunouchi hotel on part of our last trip there and thought it was very nice. Not Park Hyatt or Four Seasons level but still nice. It's only a few years old and sits right beside Tokyo station so you can walk from the train you take in from Narita through a short tunnel directly to the hotel. You will also have access to all sorts of food shops that are in the concourse by the station. We grabbed delicious breakfasts there every morning rather than pay for a hotel breakfast and even bought lunch to take with us on day trips. We stayed in a standard double room which was not large but not small for Tokyo - typical European size room. I know they have larger rooms too. And the prices are really reasonable. So it might be worth checking out. Here's the website: http://www.marunouchi-hotel.co.jp/english/index.html

Enjoy!

Kim,

Are you finding cheaper pricing on the Japanese language sites as opposed to the English language sites? Just curious.

Aloha!

For hotels like the Peninsula Tokyo, MO Tokyo...Virtuoso agents have the best prices. English only.

For Hiltons, www.hilton.co.jp has special plans offered that are not available on www.hilton.com. But direct booking on either website is cheaper than any booking site like asiarooms.com. Hyatt's prices seem consistent across languages.

For business hotels, every single one I have checked is cheaper direct than via asiarooms.com, often by a huge amount of money. www.rakuten.com's English version has only a fraction of what is available in Japanese, and is often more expensive than direct booking and/or the rooms offered are run of house, which is a crapshoot. Many business hotels are cheaper in Japanese than English. Tokyu hotels are often the same price in both languages, but not always. APA has great deals in Japanese only. Sunroute, too. Prince hotels, New Otani, Okura....they all offer well priced plans and a wider choice of room type in Japanese.

For ryokan, the prices listed on www.ryokancollection.com are rack rates. Direct booking more often than not has many plans on offer with more included for less money. www.japaneseguesthouses.com does not list exact prices...I expect they get rack rates rather than the special plans, though. Neither website has a fabulous selection, though the ryokancollection.com does list some very luxe places. There are many, many fabulous places that have no English language website and/or are not listed on web booking sites.

Paolo, I do not share your opinion at all about the location convenience of Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt. I find the Grand Hyatt to have an enormously better location than the Park Hyatt:

- The Grand Hyatt is at (literally on top of) the Oedo Line subway station. This is an excellent line -- you are just a very few stops from Ginza or Tsukiji. The Park Hyatt is a long walk from Shinjuku station -- and Shinjuku station itself is something of a mammoth.

- I don't mind Roppongi Hills at all. Decent shopping, and a nice selection of restaurants. And some very pleasant neighborhoods nearby for a nice stroll (Azabu, for example).