Shinagawa Prince Hotel: A Review

This major Tokyo hotel boasts some awesome attractions; however, the rooms and service leave a lot to be desired.

Going into Tokyo, I knew the rooms were going to be small. No big deal. Heads up for all visitors to Japan, your rooms will be smaller than you're used to. Sadly, these "upscale" rooms looked like they hadn't been refurnished since the hotel was built. The bed linens and wall hangings were tacky and overly colorful. To make matters worse, the beds were rock hard, and please note these were Western style beds in the room, not Japanese. When the room was booked, this certainly wasn't the image I saw. If I'd seen a picture of our room, I probably would have thought twice about booking. Additionally, the bathroom was also exceedingly small. I was just happy I'm a fairly small individual. I'm sure a bigger person would have had trouble using such a narrow and low-fitted shower head. Additionally, the rooms and bathrooms weren't really all that clean.

Aside from room appearance the staff wasn't very helpful. When I arrived I found the English speaking ability to be extremely limited. It was very hard to communicate, even with my knowledge of conversational Japanese. To make matters more complicated, my room reservation was messed up and I had to stand and wait nearly twenty minutes to get it all cleared up, only to get a phone call the next day about it. Needless to say, a stressful phone call about your hotel room, possible extra costs, and needing to see the front desk right away, is not at all what a visitor wants to hear. This continued several days, and was finally worked out on the fourth. I spoke to the front desk in the morning and then headed out to see the city each day, so the upside is that they were flexible and understanding in working with our schedule.

Alright, enough of the bad. This hotel certainly does have a lot of great things to offer. For one, the hotel is situated right across the street from a major subway station. The Yamanote line, accessible from there, will take a tourist just about anywhere they need to go. Furthermore, nightspots like Shinjuku and Shibuya are only a couple stops away!

Also across the street is a major market selling freshly prepared foods ranging from desserts and pastries to bentos filled with all sorts of authentic Japanese cuisine. There are also a number of restaurants, some very quick and delicious, surrounding the subway station.

On the hotel side of the street there is also a ramen house, a McDonalds (if you really want to do that to yourself on a Japanese vacation), a beer garden, and several cafes where you can get lunch or dinner. There are also a number of attractions within the hotel such as a bowling alley, a swimming pool, a cinema, and a rather impressive aquarium fully equipped with a dolphin and seal show, a small indoor roller-coaster, and carousel. There is also seal petting, but sadly enough you have to be able to speak and understand Japanese to engage in that activity. Understandably so, but a little disappointing nonetheless.

All in all, I give the Shinagawa Prince Hotel a 3 ½ out of 5, deducting points for the room that I had no idea was going to look like that, and for the service which left me frustrated and stress for four days. Would I stay here again? Probably not. Location is great, and the aquarium was loads of fun, but there are other great hotels with the same great location, and the aquarium is open to the public. I would certainly visit the aquarium again, but I'd rather get another hotel that is sure to get my reservation right, and that will meet the expectations I had when booking it.