Park Hotel
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Whenever we’re visiting Tokyo we stay at the Park Hotel. The Park Hotel is a western-style hotel that features three restaurants, a cocktail lounge, bakery, business center, and has some great views of the city from the lobby and rooms. Like many hotels in central Tokyo, this one sits atop an office building. The lobby is on the 25th floor, and the rooms are all on the floors above it. The elevator ride offers a rather nice view of the city from the window. The central lobby is filled with art from the showcased artists of the time.
One of the best features of the Park Hotel is its central location within Tokyo. It has direct access to the Shiodome Station beneath the building, the Yurikamome Line station is directly outside the third floor, and it’s a short few minute walk to Shimbashi Station. Just a ten minute walk away is the high-end shopping district of Ginza. In Ginza is definitely worth exploring whether you’re looking for food or a specific shop. The famous Tsukiji Fish Market is just over ten minutes away by foot or is one stop from Shiodome Station. Two streets east is the gorgeous Hamarikyu Gardens. With the adjacent stations, it is extremely easy to get to any spot in Tokyo from this hotel.
Since it is western style, the rooms all have carpet and beds. So there is no taking your shoes off at the entrance or sleeping on a futon on the floor like you would at a traditional ryokan. The building is shaped like a triangle, and the rooms face either Tokyo Tower, Ginza, or Tokyo Bay. We’ve stayed in rooms facing the bay and Tokyo Tower. The bay view also overlooks the Hamarikyu Gardens, but it’s slightly obstructed by the Conrad Tokyo and the office building next to it. The Tokyo Tower room has fantastic views of the tower and on a clear day Mount Fuji can be seen. Each room has a different mural painted on its walls and sometimes they don’t make sense. Our rooms had a single queen bed, TV, desk, refrigerator, safe, and a nice bathroom.
At night the lobby is lit up with projections on the walls of whatever artist or exhibit is on display at that time. That last time we stayed here, there was an exhibit of “Bunch of Fun Things” in the main lobby and 31st floors of the hotel. There was also a different showcase on the 34th floor at that time as well.
When we checked in, we were each given a meal ticket for each day we would be staying there. With the meal ticket we had access to the breakfast buffet in the central lobby every morning. There is also an option to switch out the breakfast buffet voucher for a sushi breakfast voucher at the nearby Sushi Zanmai. The breakfast buffet at the Park Hotel is fantastic! We were shown to our seats each morning and given the choice of tea or coffee. Then, we were able to go pick what we wanted from the plentiful buffet, which offers both western and Japanese breakfast options. For the western options they had cereal, milk, orange juice, pastries, bacon, sausage, eggs, various fruits, and many other foods that can vary from day to day. The Japanese breakfast has miso soup, cooked salmon, rice, Japanese sweet omelette, sweet potato sticks with dipping sauce, and much more. We both would get a mix of both western and Japanese breakfast each morning.
The Park Hotel offers a nice room service menu, but the full menu available only during specific times. We were too tired to go out one night and decided to order room service. Unfortunately, we had gotten back just after the full menu was stop being served. The all-night menu is more limited and has only a dozen or so options. We ordered the shrimp pilaf and an assorted fruit platter. The shrimp pilaf was quite good, and the fruit was surprisingly amazing, though expensive.
The hotel staff are all extremely friendly, helpful, and all speak English quite well. If you can’t find something, they can point you to wherever it is you need. They even provided us with some cold medicine when we couldn’t find any at the nearby Family Mart. When we stay here, we usually have some laundry that we need cleaned. The hotel does offer laundry service, but it can be quite expensive since it is pay-per-article. We were washing too much and didn’t feel like paying roughly 8000 yen, so we used the coin laundry on the floor below us. This option is far cheaper, only 900 yen, but did require us to monitor the machines. Fortunately, the machine is an all-in-one, and once we started it, we just had to return about 90 minutes later.
Overall, the Park Hotel is a great value, and we plan on staying there again. The rooms all have great views, and the complimentary breakfast is far superior to the standard free continental breakfasts that most hotels off back in the US. The cost is actually cheaper than staying at a hotel next to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, but it offers so much more. Its central location with easy access to two different nearby stations and many popular spots within a short walking distance make getting anywhere easy. The Park Hotel is a great choice for those wanting a higher-end accommodation without the cost.
Google Maps Link: Park Hotel
