COCOSHUKU AKASAKA Premium

The area is pleasant and there are lots of restaurants nearby. The hotel felt safe, and checking in and out on the iPads was easy. There’s a yakiniku restaurant right across from the hotel, though, and the BBQ smell got very strong every night. It came into my room, which was unpleasant and gave me a headache.

The hotel is close to the station and surrounded by places to eat. We really liked our room and all the amenities; it was a lovely space. There are handy washers and dryers on the top floor, along with extra supplies in case you run out. Everything at check-in and checkout is handled without staff, and we never saw an employee during our stay. The rooms were well insulated, too. We never heard our neighbors.

It was convenient and mostly pleasant, but I’d set expectations closer to a very nice hostel with private rooms than a four-star hotel. The metro is a couple of minutes away, and our room was spacious for Tokyo and nicely equipped. We were on a higher floor, which helped; lower rooms could be noisy since the building sits on a busy nightlife street. There’s no safe in the room, no housekeeping unless you pay extra to request it, and ours was quite dusty. There’s also no way to have an iron and ironing board brought to the room; you have to take things to the shared laundry area. With no staff on site, urgent problems could be hard to sort out unless you have a SIM that can call local numbers. They did respond fairly quickly by email, though.

We spent a week here with our kids, aged 13 and 9, and would come back. Our fifth-floor room was clean and nice, and we kept quiet. The subway is conveniently close, and there’s a washer and dryer for clothes. Weeknights in the area had a bit of a party feel, though the people seemed like friendly businesspeople. Weekends were pretty quiet.