Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku, Tokyo

...never stayed in a bad hotel in Tokyo. For this trip I decided I wanted to stay near Shinjuku, so previous hotels were out of the question and my budget is getting smaller all the time. Through a combination of reviews on Tripadvisor, rating on hotels.com and a good listing of hotel rates from lowest to highest there emerged a clear winner, the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku!


==Getting there==

We arrived in Tokyo on ...
...around that area and the hotel is on the street behind the office buildings along the terrace. There are maps along the terrace and if you can locate the post office then the hotel is almost opposite.


For those of you using the Tokyo subway, there are a number of lines stopping at Shinjuku, two of them have an entrance practically on the doorstop of the hotel.


==More about the location==

Being ... more

I'm lucky to have never stayed in a bad hotel in Tokyo. For this trip I decided I wanted to stay near Shinjuku, so previous hotels were out of the question and my budget is getting smaller all the time. Through a combination of reviews on Tripadvisor, rating on hotels.com and a good listing of hotel rates from lowest to highest there emerged a clear winner, the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku!

Getting there

We arrived in Tokyo on the Shinkansen train from Kyoto, switched train lines at Tokyo station and emerged at Shinjuku (one of the major stations in the city). The journey from Tokyo station was easy, it's not hard to get to Shinjuku really as it's such a major station.

If you're arriving at Narita you have a couple of options to get to the hotel, you can take the Narita Express train or there is also a bus which stops right outside the hotel. In my experience the bus can take a very long time, depending on the time of day, the train runs to Shinjuku at varying intervals and takes about 48 minutes if my memory serves me correctly. If there isn't a train to Shinjuku then you can get to Tokyo station from Narita every 30 minutes.

Once at Shinjuku you may struggle to find the right exit, print a decent map with some of the exits from the station marked. If you can navigate your way to what I think is called the 'Southern Terrace', it's quieter around that area and the hotel is on the street behind the office buildings along the terrace. There are maps along the terrace and if you can locate the post office then the hotel is almost opposite.

For those of you using the Tokyo subway, there are a number of lines stopping at Shinjuku, two of them have an entrance practically on the doorstop of the hotel.

More about the location

Being in Shinjuku has the obvious benefits for transportation, but those of a nervous disposition may find the bustle of the station a little intimidating. Shinjuku itself has plenty of the neon glitz that you imagine a trip to Tokyo would contain. Nearby you'll find large shopping centres, many different dining options, arcades, pachinko, bowling, cinema, electronics stores, book stores, department stores, basically all the stuff you would expect in the city.

If you're looking for a coffee or a convenience store, there are many options right by the hotel. There's even a McDonalds if you find yourself awake at 4am and don't want to venture too far looking for that food fix on your first night.

Arrival

We arrived at the hotel rather early, at 11am. They didn't have a room ready for us, they confirmed the type of room that we wanted and our preference for non-smoking and said that they might not be able to guarantee the room to be ready until 2pm. No problem for me, I consider it a bonus if I get to check in early. We left our tiny pieces of luggage and went out to explore the area. There's no shortage of things to see or do, we got back around 3pm, got our room quickly and went straight out again :-)

I try to keep my expectations at a realistic level, but the lobby area gave me some hope that the room would be of a decent quality. Everything has a new look to it, the colours are dark woods and touches of colour in the furniture, it really looked like a more expensive establishment than it is.

The Room

Now I have to apologise at this point, once again I completely failed to take any photos of the room. As much as I liked it, the point of the place was to shower and sleep!

With my excuses out of the way, let me tell you about the room we got. The hotel has 14 floors and we were given a room on the 12th. That's not much reason to get excited though, the view from the room was of the office building next door.

The room itself was small, but not quite as small as I was expecting. The bed was queen size and there was room to walk around one side and the end. At the end of the room was a cluttered desk, wall to wall in front of the window. With the LCD TV, a lamp, box of tissues and a couple of plastic information cards there wasn't much room for anything else.

There were two spare power outlets on the desk, one got occupied by my laptop, the other by the water boiler. If you're bringing a laptop you'll find an ethernet cable in the drawer to connect you to the free internet. It was of a good speed to, I got all my photos online each day to save me the hassle at home later.

As I said, the bed was a queen and very comfortable. The duvet was nice and heavy and each night we slept soundly. I couldn't hear any noise from other rooms or outside. The air conditioning wasn't to intrusive either, you have full control of the fan and temperature so you are not going to suffer an uncomfortable temperature. They provide pyjamas if you want to use them.

If you're bringing some large items of luggage then I'm not sure where you're going to store them. They could go against the wall, but if you want to open them then that might be a problem. Behind the door there was a tiny alcove with a few hangers and a shelf. We used it for storing our shoes and walked around the room in the slippers provided. You'd get a small carry on sized case in there maybe.

The only drinks that were provided with the water boiler were 4 green tea bags. Stop by the convenience store and grab some coffee and paper cups if you need a morning fix, they're priced cheaply enough.

I think the hotel is trying to encourage recycling, but as the two bins under the desk were only labelled in Japanese we had no idea what to put where!

The decor was mainly light colours, a few small pictures on the wall, the carpet was nice and bouncy, making the place feel warm and cosy.

An alarm clock was provided. The TV had a couple of English news channels and pay movies if you desperately want to watch something on the TV.

Bathroom

The bathroom was of the plastc box variety and very clean. My only complaint was that the shower curtain did smell a bit damp, it wasn't mouldy or anything but just had a bit of a smell to it. The bathtub was short, but not so short as to be unusable. The shower was fine but the showerhead didn't go quite as high as I would have liked. I'm not really complaining though, just an observation. The toilet was the Japanese type with buttons that you might be too afraid to use, for spraying water and keeping you clean.

In terms of free goodies there were the staple items for Japanese hotels (in my experience). 2 hairbushes, 2 toothbrushes and toothpaste, 2 razors, 2 shower caps and 4 cotton buds. I think I remembered everything! No soaps or shampoo to take home though, the soap was in a pump by the sink, the shower gel, shampoo and conditioner in large pumps on the edge of the bathtub. They weren't bad quality to be honest but I'm not super fussy about bathroom products.

Although it was a plastic box, it wasn't much smaller than the main room, you won't be stepping out of the shower/bath and tripping over the toilet.

Two large towels, two small and two face cloths were provided and changed every day regardless of whether we hung them up or not. There was no retractable clothes line above the bath, but there is a plastic coat hanger on the shower curtain rail if you are the kind of person that likes to wash clothes in your hotel room. With the enclosed nature of the bathroom I don't think much would get dry in there though.

Facilities

I don't think there was a pool, I've no idea if there are any fitness facilities. There is a restaurant and a bar but I didn't bother to try them. I wouldn't turn up here expecting some kind of resort :-)

Summary

I think the hotel offered excellent value for money, the area isn't cheap to stay in and our rate worked out at around £74 a night. That was for the cheapest basic room, better rooms are available.

The staff were very friendly, the decor modern and new and the location excellent. If you don't mind that the room is a little on the small side this would be an excellent choice in Tokyo.

(also posted on dooyoo) 

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