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Cerulean Tower - Great views, great hotel

If you can, try and stay at the cerulean tower hotel in Shibuya. It is the tallest building around and the bar is on the top floor (40 stories), which gives supurb views across Tokyo.

The rooms are also very good and the staff could not be more friendly or attentive.

Claska

The best hotel in Tokyo.

Perfect place to stay in Tokyo... BUREAU/B-SITE

If u need to stay mid to longterm in Tokyo a serviced apartment might be better than a hotel or else. The Apartments are perfectly located at main Yamanote locations and are almost luxurious, if that's what your after. My first stay was in Bureau Shinagawa and it was a dream :)

BUREAU is more for business people and B-SITE attracts a younger clientele but has very nice facilities and even better locations. I am NOT affiliated with this firm, just a big fan. Minimum stay is 2-4 weeks i think...add up 30 days of hotels and make the math..

View with a Room - Cerulean Tower

Cerulean Tower Tokyu Hotel is a 5 star hotel which looms over the other buildings in the hip district of Shibuya in downtown west Tokyo.

The guest bedrooms take up the top half of the Cerulean Tower building, from the 19th to the 40th floor. Other floors are given over to shops, businesses, conference rooms, theatres and restaurants.

MY TIPS:
Getting lost:
A great benefit of staying at the Cerulean Tower is its sheer height! If you leave the hotel and wander off into the side streets of Shibuya and get lost (this is easily done!) - don't panic. Tilt your head to the skyline and do a 360 degreee swivel and you eye will eventually meet the top of the Cerulean and help you get your bearings back. I did this on several occassions until I grew bore familiar with the area.

MUST SEE!
The bar at the top of the tower with it's panoramic views from Tokyo Bay right round to Mount Fuji is a "must see" during your stay at Cerulean Tower. Imagine what the film set would look like if "Lost in Translation" met "BladeRunner". That's exactly the feeling you get when you sit in the bar on the 40th floor of the Cerlulean Tower hotel looking out over the Tokyo skyline at night.
When you press the number 40 in the lift your stomach will leave you for a moment and met you again as the doors open on the 40th floor. A doorman greets you and will escort you into the bar, asking if you'd like to sit at a table or at the long bar itself. If you're after the views then I'd recommend sitting at the bar. The bar itself takes up around a third of the 40th floor with glass windows on all sides. It's dimly lit at night (the oak tables shimmer in the candle light) but despite it's size, feels very intimate.

Where to Stay

If you are in the mood for some old school time, I highly recommend you stay at Homeikan, it's a old style Japanese guest house. Great price, really comfortable, and excellent for pictures! (and for buying yakatas)

Good hotel w/ 100Mbit, great breakfast, well connected, near Haneda

Check out the Hotel Sunroute Shinagawa Seaside which is just a hop from Haneda Airport and with good connections to all areas of Tokyo and Yokohama. Small hotel rooms, but with computer and 100Mbit connection included. Good breakfast menu included if you book correctly.

Take a look at the Japan-only Hotel Sunroute group to find business style hotels.

The Toyoko Inn chain is an excellent choice for travelers on a budget. Most hotels have singles for around 5800 yen and with the member's card you can get a discount rate for stays that fall on a holiday or a Sunday. Hotels have ethernet ports in the rooms (yay for free internet!) and free breakfast in the morning. Nothing fancy, but if you want to keep your costs down especially due to the recent strengthening of the yen, you can't go wrong.

What is also great about the chain is that they are located in many parts of the country. Nothing to write home about but for the budget-conscious it is the way to go.

http://www.toyoko-inn.com

Only real drawback is the locales that some of the hotels are located in. By that, I mean that many that I have stayed at are next to red light district-like areas and can seem shady. Japan in general is a safe country, but if you aren't wanting to be around these areas I would recommend a bit of investigation before choosing your hotel. In Tokyo, I recommend the following:

Asakusa Senzoku - a bit of a walk to public transportation, but close to Kaminari-no-Mon
Korakuen Bunkyokuyakusho-mae - great access to Tokyo Metro lines, and a short walk from Tokyo Dome
Shinagawa-eki Takanawa-guchi - next to the hustle and bustle of Shinagawa Station surrounded by nice restaurants

One final note-worthy benefit for folks who don't know Japanese is that you can book reservations (without credit card) online in English.

I stayed at The Westin Tokyo located in Ebisu. It was a fantastic hotel, although very expensive. However, it is a part of the Starwood Preferred Guest hotel group, so if you are a member of that it can really help. We were on the 21st floor and had a gorgeous view of the Tokyo Tower and Rainbow Bridge. The staff were incredibly friendly and the buffet breakfast was delicious and a superb way to start the day. It is about a 15 minute covered moving walkway walk from Yebisu Garden Place to Ebisu station where you can pick up the JR Yamanote line and the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line, plus it only takes about 15 minutes by taxi to get to the Roppongi or Ginza areas. The concierge always recommended excellent places to eat and I suggest listening to him or her.

If you're on a budget, consider:

Weekly Mansion Tokyo
http://www.wmt-tokyo.com/asakusa/roomrates.html

New Koyo
http://www.newkoyo.com/prices.html

and
Sakura
http://www.sakura-hotel.co.jp/sakura-hotel_rates.html

We just stayed a week in Tokyo - the first night we stayed in the Cerulean tower, which had a great view and is a very nice hotel, however it's a bit pricey compared to other hotels in the area. One nice thing is that there are shuttle buses that go direct from the airport to the hotel basement drop off point.

After our first night, we moved to the Granbell hotel, which is a great little boutique hotel just about 2 blocks away (5 min. walk). This one is a pretty decent hotel - we just got the cheapest room for 2 people - the room is pretty small, a bit smaller than the Cerulean, but since we were out running around all day it didn't bother us much. The bathroom was interesting as it was a glass enclosed area with a curtain to pull for privacy (note that the door was also glass and you could hear everything, so if you are squeamish about hearing toilet noises, turn up the music or something ;)).

Anyway, to sum up: Cerulean: Nice but expensive.

Granbell: Very good value as it's a nice hotel, fantastic location, and much less than the Cerulean.

I'm a fan of Tokyu Stay -- they give you a nice price break if you stay more than a week and there's usually an almost-new washer/drier combo unit in the room. It's nice to only pack 5 days worth of clothes for a two-week trip. The Tokyu Stay Aoyama Premier has stunning views if you get a room on the 25th floor and it's a 1-2 minute walk to the Gaienmae station on Ginza sen.