Hotel Review: Hilton Tokyo | Premium King

A solid Hilton elevated by Japanese hospitality.

Tokyo, Japan — Our first trip to Tokyo about five years ago was on a shoestring budget, and we stayed at a smaller business hotel at that time. It suited our needs but was definitely tight for two travelers, looking back on it. This time around I wanted to stay closer to the action in a much nicer place to celebrate our anniversary as well as my birthday.

Through a combination of Hilton credit card award nights, hotel points, and my Hilton Honors Diamond status, we were able to leverage a fantastic stay at the Hilton Tokyo for this celebration trip complete with 2-category upgrade. More later on how we booked this stay.

Dates Stayed: 2023 April 16-22 (6 nights)
Room Type: Premium King (2-category upgrade from originally booked Standard King)
Elite Status: Hilton Diamond
Notables: Convenient to Tokyo’s Shinjuku area with direct access to other tourist areas by subway/train, directly on Airport Limousine Bus route making for easy transfers, excellent Hilton Honors elite recognition including lounge access for Diamond members

Location
The Hilton Tokyo is located in western Tokyo, about a 10-15 minute walk from Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku Station is the world’s busiest transit hub according to the Guinness Book of World Records (!!), making this hotel a prime base for exploring Tokyo and connecting to the rest of Japan.

Additionally, the hotel sits directly atop an entrance to both Nishi-Shinjuku Station (Marunouchi line) and Tochomae Station (Oedo line) giving us other options for subway and local trains. The Airport Limousine Bus stops directly at the hotel’s front door, and there are local bus stops along the road in front as well.

Room Overview
We originally booked a Standard King award room for this trip, but due to my Hilton Honors Diamond status we were upgraded two categories to a Premium King room at check-in (the middle tier being Deluxe). It also probably helped that the hotel staff knew I was celebrating a recent birthday based on a comment our Hilton booking agent made on our reservation. This was the nicest non-suite King room type on the property.

One nice touch by the hotel staff was a small birthday treat waiting for us as we entered the room. The box contained two slices of banana nut loaf cake from the cafe-bakery downstairs and was accompanied by a tin of Hilton house tea blend and a birthday card. It is the attention to small details like this that really elevates a property above its peers.

Upon entering the room, you are greeted by a very spacious (especially by East Asian hotel standards) and impeccably clean room with a white and dark wood theme I’ve come to associate with the subtle elegance of modern Japanese interior design. Traditional sliding shoji panels replace the expected window blinds, letting you know exactly which country you are visiting.

There is copious storage space for clothing and luggage in the form of lacquered wood drawers and closet along one side of the room. There is a safe in the closet. Nightstands on either side of the comfy king bed house power outlets with USB slots as well as their own individual light controls.

There was a glass desk with plenty of space for laptops, snacks, drinks, and other goodies from our days out on the town. A comfortable armchair and ottoman in the corner rounded out the room. Of note, there are room slippers and yukatas (Japanese-style robes) for you to wear in your room if you want, located in the drawer next to the entrance.

During our stay, if we did not want room service on a given day, we could place the “Do Not Disturb” sign on our door, and room service would skip our room that day. Otherwise, they seemed to be coming every day to tidy up the room, replace our towels, and provide some bottled water (a small but appreciated Hilton Honors perk).

Bathroom Overview
What really sets the Premium rooms apart from the Standard and Deluxe rooms at the Hilton Tokyo (aside from size) is the bathroom. In addition to being very roomy, there is a separate shower and Japanese-style soaking tub. Many Japanese people like to shower separately before entering the bath and this set-up emulated that custom. The soaking tub ended up being a luxurious godsend for my body after a long day of adventuring.

Crabtree & Evelyn bath and toiletry products were provided, including dental kits and a haircomb. There was a hairdryer provided that my partner seemed to like enough to look-up its brand. The bidet toilet, a standard for most Japanese restrooms, was particularly nice since it had a heated seat. The toilet also had an amusing little feature where it would make a courtesy flushing sound to mask any unpleasant real ones haha.

Breakfast
There is a breakfast buffet Marble Lounge in the hotel lobby from 6:30AM to 10:30AM and costs about $40-45 USD a person. Hilton Diamond members may take their complimentary breakfast here or in the Executive Lounge upstairs. If you’ve never had breakfast at a large East Asian hotel, you’re in a for a treat. The spread is quite impressive in the morning, there is something for everyone, and it puts the vast majority of US hotel breakfast buffets to shame. I will let the pictures do the talking here.

It was truly difficult to capture the scale of the breakfast buffet offerings at the Marble Lounge. There is a bit of a morning rush right at opening with many people grabbing breakfast before checking-out or starting their day on Tokyo early, but the staff was extremely efficient with seating. Hot coffee and tea were offered immediately upon us reaching our table. The food quality was good and the offerings diverse enough that it was possible to have something new each day if one desired.

Executive Lounge
All Hilton Diamond members and some guests staying in certain rooms have access to the Executive Lounge on one of the upper floors of the hotel which is open for breakfast and left open throughout the day until approximately 9PM for those that just want to pop in for a quick snack/drink or sit down and get some work done.

Those with Executive Lounge access may choose to have breakfast here instead of downstairs at the Marble Lounge restaurant. The Executive Lounge breakfast selection is a little smaller than that offered downstairs, but it is significantly quieter and more relaxing. My partner and I had the majority of our breakfasts here to avoid the hustle and bustle of the downstairs restaurant.

Outside of breakfast hours, the lounge is a nice quiet space to work or relax in with various snacks and beverages, including beer and coffee, on offer throughout the day. In the early evening, there is little reception with more substantial snacks and hors d’oeuvres (basically enough to be a light dinner) and a variety of drinks including wine and liquors. There was a Japanese plum wine (umeshu) offered one evening that I really enjoyed and hope to find locally.

Other Dining Options
In addition to the Marble Lounge restaurant and the Executive Lounge discussed above, the Hilton Tokyo is host to a multitude of other restaurants for many palates. For more details about each restaurant, you can visit the Hilton Tokyo dining website here.

Dynasty is a Chinese-inspired restaurant that offers Peking duck and variations on traditional dim sum dishes. Junisoh is a traditional Japanese restaurant specializing in sushi, teppanyaki grill, and kaiseki cuisine.

For Western fare, there’s Metropolitan Grill with the standard burgers and steaks, but it also plays host to afternoon dessert bar that seemed very popular during our stay. St. George’s Bar is an English pub venue for beer, mixed drinks, and live music. If you want to sit down for a drink before heading out on the town, Zatta is a cocktail lounge that also has live music and light bites.

Amenities
As one of the flagship Shinjuku hotels, the Hilton Tokyo hosts a very diverse mix of clientele and has many amenities on-site to support them all. There is a concierge desk right next to the main lobby entrance. They were incredibly helpful with making our Aiport Limousine bus reservation for our departure day. They are able to assist with tasks that require a Japanese translator such as making restaurant reservations ahead of time by phone.

There are various banquet spaces for weddings and meetings that may be booked ahead of time. Additional there is a business center for any business travelers needing print service or computer access. Additionally, there a well-stocked gym and swimming pool on-site. If desired, there were massage services offered as well adjacent to the fitness center.

On the fourth floor, there is an outdoor terrace hosting two tennis courts for when the weather is nice. My partner and I unfortunately did not partake in any of these as we spent most of our time out in the city.

Airport Limousine Bus
I wanted to comment about the Airport Limousine Bus service somewhere in this post – it is, in my opinion, a heavily underrated option for getting from Tokyo Narita and Tokyo Haneda Airports to central Tokyo. There is a published list of stops from each airport and the Hilton Tokyo is one of them, making airport transfer directly to the hotel a breeze.

I plan to make a dedicated post about this service at some point in the future, but for now just know it is a viable and significantly more efficient (and probably cheaper) option for getting to this hotel versus navigating the trains and subways. For more information about the Tokyo Airport Limousine Service, you can check out their website here.

We booked our tickets through the third-party Klook Travel website and were able to get a bundled discount alongside tickets for other Tokyo attractions. If you’re interested in booking the Airport Limousine Bus service through Klook, you can receive a $5 USD promotion code off your first booking by using this affiliate link, thank you in advance: Klook Travel.

How We Booked and Got Upgraded
We originally booked a Standard King room with the help of two free night certificates earned from my American Express Hilton co-branded credit cards (more on that below) and approximately 275,000 Hilton Honors points. The going cash rate for a Standard King at that time was about $350 per night. If weigh the free nights and total points evenly, we got just slightly more than 0.5 cents per Hilton point, which is fair. If we exclude the two free nights, we actually got about 0.7 cents per point which is pretty good. Either way you calculate it, we essentially got this stay for free as a result of normal credit card spending.

I hold top-tier Hilton Diamond status as a result of having an American Express Hilton Aspire card which likely contributed to our room upgrade from King Standard to King Premium (bypassing the mid-tier King Deluxe). Additionally, our Hilton booking agent left a comment to the hotel staff that we were celebrating a birthday as well as an anniversary which also likely played a factor. If we do our value calculations with this 2-tier upgrade, we actually got somewhere between 0.7-0.9 cents per points, a screaming deal.

See the end of this post for more information about how you can earn and leverage Hilton status for your own stays by way of co-branded American Express credit cards.

Final Thoughts
We had an incredible and comfortable stay to the point of wanting to return to this specific hotel on our future trips to Tokyo. The hotel was clean and conveniently located, and the staff were professional, friendly, and helpful. This is the standard against which other Hilton hotels should be measured and we will be coming back.

Hotel Website
https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/tyohitw-hilton-tokyo/

American Express Hilton Credit Cards
For US-based readers, American Express offers a whole suite of co-branded Hilton credit cards, from the no-fee Hilton Honors card offering Silver status all the way up to the top-tier Aspire premium card offering Diamond status.

If you are interested in signing up for one of these co-branded Hilton cards to jumpstart your status with Hilton, enrich your Hilton stays, and leverage it for future hotel stays like the one in this post, you can read more about each card and apply through the following affiliate link: American Express Hilton Honors cards. We receive a small referral bonus if you use our link, thank you in advance!