Review: Hilton Tokyo Narita Airport

No picture of the Teaching of Buddha book they place alongside the Gideons Bible? 🙂

I stayed there during an IRROP a few months ago. The wired Internet in the room did now work at all, and the desk informed me it was a hotel-wide problem. The only thing working was the WiFi in the lobby, and that was quite slow. Even the pilots from my UA flight who were staying there were complaining!

Halloween decorations at the buffet? Who knew it is a universal holiday!

The Hello Kitty umbrella in the hotel employee's car was a fitting start to the next leg of your journey. 😉

Lucky
We stayed there a few months ago and the breakfast experience was better than the Shinjuku Hilton for my kids.
Wifi was slow and quite variable with lots of dead zones.
That said, the service was good.

I stayed there during a DONE4 last year. The hotel was reasonably pleasant, staff were friendly and I ended up buying a yukata to take home.

If I had to transit NRT again I wouldn't have a problem staying there.

I always enjoy your posts but the Peter Thomas Roth "deluxe dental kit" is hilarious. A fellow Hilton Diamond, I haven't seen these in the US. Assume it was a toothbrush and tiny toothpaste tube and not, like, a Sonicare and whitening kit? LOL

@Jeffrey the "deluxe dental kit" is toothbrush and toothpaste. I got two of them every day for 8 days in SIN. I have guest toothbrushes for months now....

Having visited the Hilton Narita and the ANA Crowne Plaza Narita, I still prefer the ANA Crowne Plaza Narita Airport Hotel which is just down the road. Their breakfast is much better and no sense of a hospital!

I'm just so curious... How do they they manage (if they do) the liability implications of hotel staff driving guests in personal cars. Not to mention the added peril of driving in inclement weather.

I found that avoiding Western chains was - for the most part - key to getting a good yet inexpensive place to stay in Japan, when I visited there at the end of February/Beginning of March last year. I also found that you don't need anything more than a 3* hotel in order to get great accommodations. There are lots of Japanese hotel chains, including Dormy Inns, which are excellent.

Take Kyoto for example - While the Ritz and Hyatt in Kyoto were going for around $800 USD/night, I found an absolutely amazing 3* place called Hotel Anteroom (very highly rated on TripAdvisor) for less than $50 USD/night, and it absolutely blew me away. Granted it was not the Ritz, it was for a single room, didn't have so many amenities, and perhaps the location was *slightly* out of the way (but still walkable from the train station) it somewhat resembled (and was definitely as good as) a W Hotel. This place could easily pass for 4* if it had more amenities. I suppose one could stay at the Ritz or Hyatt if they've got money (or points) to burn, but really, you don't have to.

On the other hand, in Tokyo, I found an AMAZING Choice property (Comfort Hotel Tokyo Kanda) for about $85 USD/night, and that was for a twin room, single occupancy (recommended if you can get it!). Basic but very clean, and very quiet. The free breakfast was also much better than what you'd find in North American Comfort Inns too.

Now...for Narita, if you're a single traveller that needs a relatively basic place to crash near Narita and don't have status that will get you a free breakfast, take a look at the Narita View Hotel. Often, for around $50 USD (not including breakfast) one can get a single room there. I didn't try it, but apparently their breakfast is expensive yet extensive - though it might still be best to grab something at 7-11 at Narita for breakfast before you go if you don't eat much. It's definitely not the most modern hotel, but it was clean enough, and I got a free upgrade from a single room to a twin room without even asking! I didn't get a renovated room, but it was absolutely fine for 1 night. The hot spring (Onsen) was a very nice touch (even if you had to pay to get in).

Another notable hotel was the Beppu Station Hotel in Beppu, where I decided to take a side trip to because I couldn't get a hotel room in Kagoshima that night due to a marathon, and the place I'd purchased my JR Pass from suggested it when I mentioned I wanted to visit a hot spring town while I was in Japan. OK, now this place was a bit old (more so than the Narita View), the single room was 85 square feet (yep, you read that right!), and there was no such thing as a non-smoking room (at least the windows opened wide), but at $37 USD (no breakfast included - but it was available for an extra cost) on a Saturday night it was an incredible value compared to everything else - and most places seemed to be full. Yes...it was clean, AND it had an Onsen for guest use (again, old, but FREE!). I just needed a place to crash, and it more than served its purpose. I also liked that it was pretty well right next to the train station - as the name suggests.

In terms of the bathroom amenities, most hotels in the US don't have toothbrushes in the bathrooms. However, there was one at every single hotel I visited. On the other hand, you typically don't get small bottles of shampoo et al - these are in refillable bottles. In the $37 place in Beppu, they even had really good Shiseido bath products. Couldn't believe it!

In closing, do your research on TripAdvisor and Booking.com (as well as double checking with the hotel's website, if they have one)

You might find some great places to stay in Japan that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

‘Complicated shower’, puhleeze. Water flow, water temp, valve to select handheld or fixed nozzle... Two separate taps below for the bath.

That is a very basic toilet by Toto/Japanese standards. I had one in a new 5-star property in Tokyo some years ago that had a remote control and opened and closed the lid as you approached it, automflushed and closed the lid. $10,000 to buy in the US.

That was the first and only hotel I ever stayed in where room amenities included a built in nail polish dryer. I love Japan...