Introduction
We had stayed at the Park Hyatt and Andaz already in Japan. However, because we were traveling with non-miles and points friends, I had to go on the cheap. Points wise, for 12K Hyatt points, this was the ‘cheapest nicest points’ hotel room. I was a Discoverist and emailed the GM ahead of time to see if status really matters or not in getting an upgrade. We did NOT get a suite, but there were no suite rooms on cash stays available, so I’m going to look at the glass half empty and say it was due to availability. He did upgrade us to a nicer room. You see, I had booked 2 rooms – one using my account as Discoverist and one from wife’s account as Discoverist as well. The only difference I believe was I had a King room and she booked 2 twins. The GM upgraded us to a nicer room that had a walk in shower, separate toilet room, and a warm bidet whereas my friends got a basic reason and a cold ass bidet. Also, the other reason I know he got us a nicer room was because we stayed one night at the end of our stay and the 2nd time, I didn’t send an email and got the same basic room as my friends (no heated bidet or walk in shower like the first time.) Moral – emailing the GM does matter!
Getting to hotel
We landed in HND and took the metro into the city. While on the metro, I told my wife, “Man, even with just our carry-ons, we should have taken the bus instead.” She goes, “What was the price difference?” Me – “About $6 a person.” Her – “I’m not talking to you anymore.” Trust me – don’t be cheap and just pay the extra $6 to take the limousine bus so you get a direct shot to your hotel (yes, the bus literally stops at the front door of the hotel – also another reason why we stayed there on our last night – because the bus to the airport was so convenient.)
Checkin
Without any status, nothing to report here. Just a normal checkin.
Wifi
It was fine; no big issues. Think it was just open access.
Room
Like I said, our room was sorta “normal.” I was expecting the worse, but it was decent.
Breakfast
None here since you know, no status. Haha. There’s a 7-11 downstairs that we bought some rice balls to eat as ‘breakfast’ to hold us over until brunch/lunch.
Lounge
I hear the happy hour is nice from my Globalist friends. Man, non-status SUCKS!
Conclusion
The hotel is fine. It feels like a big ‘convention’ hotel and seeing as how flight crew stay here as well, it also feels like an ‘airport hotel.’ It’s convenient in that there is a metro stop downstairs (unfortunately you do have to walk outside to access it – wouldn’t have been a problem but it was raining quite a bit when we were there.) It’s also about a 10 minute walk to Shinjuku. We did walk past the Hyatt Place in Ginza, and I was a bit jealous of not staying there. I found that we were traveling to the East side of Tokyo more this time, so Ginza would have been more convenient.
If you have Globalist or can get GOH, definitely stay at the PH or Andaz. If you are low on points, have no status, or just want a bed, the HR wasn’t awful. I mean, we stayed here for 5 nights and it wasn’t horrendous. By the way, they do have a free shuttle that runs every 20 minutes to Shinjuku, which we used a few times.
Pictures
