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Hotels · Japan

Where to stay in Tokyo

Four Tokyo hotels across three very different bases — Shinjuku, the bay, and the old east side — with the guest complaints stated as plainly as the praise.

  • 4 properties reviewed
  • 3 areas covered
  • 2 head-to-head comparisons
  • Guest sentiment from our hotel data provider

Reviewed by Kaiser Khan · last checked

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We hold no live rates, so nothing on this page quotes a nightly price. This opens the partner’s own Tokyo search, where you can put in your dates and see the real number.

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Should you book this Tokyo stay?

Where to stay in Tokyo — the verdict

Base yourself in Shinjuku unless you have a specific reason not to — it is the busiest interchange in the world and it turns a sprawling city into a twenty-minute one.

Two of the four properties below are within a kilometre of Shinjuku Station on our hotel data provider’s own figures, which is what makes them worth the room size you give up. The bayside option buys you space and a pool and costs you a change of train; the Ryogoku tower buys you the old east side, with Skytree at 1.2 km and the sumo hall at 0.2 km.

Room size is the recurring complaint across every Tokyo property in the sample, not a fault of any one hotel. Three of these four carry "small rooms" in our hotel data provider’s own guest analysis. Budget for a standard Tokyo double being smaller than you expect and the rest of the stay looks a lot better.

None of these pages quotes a nightly rate. We hold no live rates for these properties, and a price baked into a static page is stale within a day — the CTAs go to the partner so you see the real number for your dates.

Best for

  • First-time visitors who want one station to solve most journeys
  • Travellers landing at Haneda or Narita who want a simple rail route in
  • Families who would rather have a pool and space than a central address

Not for

  • Anyone expecting European room sizes — small rooms are the norm here, not a defect
  • Travellers who want to walk everywhere; Tokyo is a train city and the distances are real
  • Late arrivals who have not checked the check-in window: three of these four do not publish a latest arrival time at all

Verdict last reviewed . Rates, refurbishments and management change — re-check anything time-sensitive before booking.

Best Hotels in Tokyo

Tokyo is enormous and the train network is the real hotel amenity. What matters is not how central you are on a map, it is how few changes stand between you and where you are going. These four sit on three different sides of the city on purpose.

4 properties reviewed by our editors · Last checked 6 Aug 2026

Filter Tokyo hotels by price band or trip type
  1. Building at Grand Nikko Tokyo Daiba

    Number 1: Grand Nikko Tokyo Daiba

    5-star hotelUpscaleOdaiba & Tokyo Bay

    A five-star bayside hotel on Odaiba with a pool, a gym and rooms that are properly sized by Tokyo standards. The Rainbow Bridge is 1.3 km away; central Tokyo is a train ride.

    • Swimming pool
    • 1.3 km to the Rainbow Bridge
    • Bay-view rooms
    • Family rooms

    our hotel data provider: 9/10 from 7,127 reviews — as of 11 Jan 2026

    Full review of Grand Nikko Tokyo Daiba
  2. Building at Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku

    Number 2: Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku

    4-star hotelMid-rangeShinjuku

    A four-star on the Yoyogi side of Shinjuku, 0.6 km from the station and the same distance from Shinjuku Gyoen. Soundproofed rooms, and the highest location score of the Tokyo four.

    • 0.6 km to Shinjuku Station
    • Soundproof rooms
    • Wheelchair accessible
    • Currency exchange

    our hotel data provider: 8.6/10 from 16,349 reviews — as of 9 Jan 2026

    Full review of Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku
  3. Building at Hotel Gracery Shinjuku

    Number 3: Hotel Gracery Shinjuku

    4-star hotelMid-rangeShinjuku

    A four-star independent in the middle of Kabukicho, open since 2015, five minutes on foot from JR Shinjuku. Clean and well-run; short on facilities and short on floor space.

    • In Kabukicho
    • Opened 2015
    • Terrace
    • Minimarket on site

    our hotel data provider: 8.4/10 from 15,267 reviews — as of 12 Dec 2025

    Full review of Hotel Gracery Shinjuku
  4. Building at APA Hotel & Resort Ryogoku Ekimae Tower

    Number 4: APA Hotel & Resort Ryogoku Ekimae Tower

    3-star hotelBudgetRyogoku & Sumida

    A three-star APA tower in the sumo district, 0.2 km from the Kokugikan and 1.2 km from Tokyo Skytree. Has an outdoor pool, a gym and a garden, which is unusual at this price.

    • 0.2 km to the Sumo Hall
    • 1.2 km to Tokyo Skytree
    • Outdoor pool
    • Children’s playground

    our hotel data provider: 8.2/10 from 19,863 reviews — as of 8 Dec 2025

    Full review of APA Hotel & Resort Ryogoku Ekimae Tower

Where to stay in Tokyo: best areas by trip type

Pick the area before you pick the property. In Tokyo the walk out of the front door decides more of the trip than the room does.

Tokyo at a glance

Best area for families:
Odaiba & Tokyo Bay — best area for families in Tokyo
Best area for couples:
Odaiba & Tokyo Bay — best area for couples in Tokyo
Best area for nightlife:
Shinjuku — best area for nightlife in Tokyo
Best area for business travel:
Shinjuku — best area for business travel in Tokyo
Best area on a budget:
Ryogoku & Sumida — best area on a budget in Tokyo
Best area for a first visit:
Shinjuku — best area for a first visit in Tokyo

Shinjuku

Typical nightly rate: Mid-range four-star territory, with a wide spread either side per night

Best for first-time visitors · nightlife · business trips

The transport centre of gravity. Shinjuku Station connects more lines than anywhere else in Japan, and the area around it runs from the Gyoen gardens in the south to the neon of Kabukicho in the north-east.

Trade-off: Shinjuku Station is genuinely confusing — allow extra time for your first few journeys, and pick your exit before you go underground.

Getting around: JR Yamanote, Chuo, Odakyu, Keio and four subway lines meet here, plus the Narita Express and the airport limousine buses.

Close to: Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Meiji Jingu, Kabukicho, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

  • Best rail links
  • Open late
  • Walkable at night

See 2 hotels in Shinjuku

Odaiba & Tokyo Bay

Typical nightly rate: Upscale, but usually less than the equivalent room in central Tokyo per night

Best for families · couples

The reclaimed bayfront: wide pavements, waterfront parks, big hotels with actual space in the rooms, and the Rainbow Bridge lit up across the water.

Trade-off: It is separated from the rest of the city by water, and our hotel data provider’s own guest analysis for the property here flags exactly that — "location far from attractions".

Getting around: The Yurikamome monorail and the Rinkai line connect Odaiba to the city; expect one change to reach most central destinations.

Close to: Rainbow Bridge, DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, teamLab Planets TOKYO, Tokyo Tower across the bay

  • Bay views
  • Larger rooms
  • Pool

See 1 hotel in Odaiba & Tokyo Bay

Ryogoku & Sumida

Typical nightly rate: The cheapest of these three areas per night

Best for tight budgets

Sumo country on the east bank: the Kokugikan hall, the Edo-Tokyo museum, and Tokyo Skytree just over a kilometre north. The cheapest base of the three and the most local-feeling.

Trade-off: The nightlife and the shopping are elsewhere — this is a quiet residential district that happens to have two major attractions in it.

Getting around: Ryogoku is on the JR Sobu line and the Toei Oedo subway; Asakusa is two kilometres north and Ueno is a short ride away.

Close to: Tokyo Skytree, Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall), Edo-Tokyo Museum, Sensō-ji

  • Old Tokyo
  • Near Skytree
  • Sumo district

See 1 hotel in Ryogoku & Sumida

The full guide

Read the full Tokyo guide

IC cards, rail passes, what a day costs, when to go and which districts are worth your time — the long-form guide behind these hotel picks.

Read the full Tokyo guide

Straight comparisons

Hand-picked pairs, not every possible pair. Each of these exists because it is a decision readers in Tokyo genuinely have to make.

Popular Tokyo searches

Tokyo hotels — common questions

Which area of Tokyo is best for a first visit?
Shinjuku. It is the busiest rail interchange in the world, which means most of your journeys are one train rather than two, and the area itself has enough food and nightlife that you never have to travel for dinner. The trade-off is that Shinjuku Station is famously hard to navigate for the first day or two.
Are Tokyo hotel rooms really that small?
Generally, yes, and it is the single most common complaint in the guest data across every property we sampled. Three of the four hotels on this page carry a room-size complaint in our hotel data provider’s own guest analysis. Bayside and resort properties are the exception — they were built with more space per room.
Should I stay near Haneda or Narita instead of in the city?
Only for a very early departure. Both airports have good rail links into central Tokyo, so an airport hotel costs you a commute on every day of your trip to save one transfer at the end of it. If your flight is before about 08:00, an airport-side room is worth it.
Is Odaiba too far out to be a good base?
It depends on what you came for. It is genuinely separated from the rest of the city by water and our hotel data provider’s guest analysis for the property there names "location far from attractions" as a recurring complaint. What you get in exchange is bigger rooms, a pool and a bay view, which is a fair trade for a family and a poor one for a four-day sightseeing trip.
Why do you show a guest score but no stars in Google results?
The scores belong to the supplier, not to us. Google’s review-snippet guidance says not to aggregate ratings from other websites and that ratings must come directly from your own users, and we host no first-party hotel reviews. So we show the supplier’s number visibly, with its source and the date it was captured, and we never emit it as structured data.