Hotel Review – Park Suite At The Park Hyatt Tokyo

The Suite Life At The Park Hyatt Tokyo – A Full Review

Review Overview

During our family vacation this April, we stayed at the Park Hyatt Tokyo in a Park Suite. In 2013 my wife applied for the Hyatt Credit Card while partaking in the Diamond Challenge. Back then, if you were Diamond when applying for the card, the sign up bonus was two free nights in a suite at any property. Unfortunately, that benefit went away and Diamonds now only get the regular bonus of two free nights in a regular room.

The rates for a Park Suite during our two night stay were around $1800 per night while a regular room was going for about $600 including taxes. This is one of Hyatt’s Category 7 hotels which cost 30,000 Gold Passport points per night. Alternatively you can use the two free nights from the Hyatt Credit Card like we did. Note that I have included many photos in the review with an additional 30 photos in the gallery at the end! Enjoy.

Location

The first thing you will notice about the Park Hyatt Tokyo’s location is that it isn’t in the center of the action. I personally think that is a good thing. The hotel is located on one side of Shinjuku Central Park, very close to the Tokyo Metropolitan Buildings. Additionally, the Hyatt Regency Tokyo is located on the other side of the park, making it very convenient to switch hotels if need be.

During our stay, the hotel was running a shuttle to the JR Shinjuku Station every 30 minutes, although it is only a 15 minute walk away. If you are catching the shuttle for the first time from the station, I suggest calling the hotel for directions since there are about 1,000 bus stops and it will be difficult to find where the shuttle stops. Shinjuku Station is one of the largest in Tokyo, meaning you can connect to just about every part of the city from there. In addition to the JR Rail lines, the Tokyo Metro also runs through this area as well.

At night, Shinjuku really comes alive. While the area around the hotel is a little sleepy, over by the rail station things are always buzzing. In addition to a number of fantastic restaurants, you can find just about everything including: adult clubs, arcades, pachinko parlors and even the increasingly popular Robot Restaurant. It is a great area for people watching!

Arrival & Check-In

The hotel is located on the top floors of an office complex which can be confusing when you first arrive. The hotel has a dedicated entrance on the far side of the building, however it isn’t easy to find. If you enter from the park side, follow the signs through the building’s main lobby and you will eventually find the small gift shop setup for the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Near the gift shop there is a small lobby with elevators. Take those to the 41st floor to reach the hotel’s main public areas.

Exiting the elevators on the 41st floor, you will immediately emerge into the hotel’s atrium. This bright area features ample seating along with a bar. Continue down the corridor and you will pass a well stocked library and two of the hotel’s restaurants before finding your way to the check-in area. Check-in is done at individual desks with the hotel’s concierge. We only waited a couple of minutes for check-in and were surprised when we were handed a real physical key to our room!

Room

After check-in we took the real key and headed up to our suite on the 47th floor. As we entered the room, it was clear that the previous occupants had been smoking. What was also clear was that something had been sprayed to try to cover up the smell, but it wasn’t working. I double checked to make sure we were in a non-smoking room and then called down to reception to inform them. A few minutes later one of the hotel’s managers came to the room.

He claimed that the smell was normal and told me that there were no other suites with a king size bed. When I told him that I didn’t want to stay in this particular room, he offered to give us a suite with two twins pushed together. Before we decided, he took us to the room, which was on the 50th floor. Other than having two beds, it was identical and pushing the beds together was a nice solution. Additionally the new room smelled just as it should have. In other words, it wasn’t smoky.

The Park Suites in this hotel are very spacious. You enter the room into a long narrow hallway with the bathroom to the left and a large living room with couch and dining table to the right. Located in between the two is the sparsely decorated bedroom. It is separated from the hallway by Japanese style partitions in lieu of an actual wall. This prevents total privacy, but was not a problem in my opinion. The suites are located on the end of the building meaning that two full sides of the rooms have amazing views of Tokyo.

The suite’s bathroom was very nice with a large soaking tub that had great views of Shinjuku Central Park 50 stories below. The bathroom also featured a decent sized shower and a toilet with one of Japan’s high tech bidets! All of the bathrooms in the Park Hyatt Tokyo have television sets and ours was no different.

The bedroom portion of the suite was large and without a lot of furniture. We found the bed(s) were incredibly comfortable and didn’t want to get up in the morning. In fact, the suite was one of the most comfortable rooms I have ever stayed in. Everything from the decor to the furniture made it feel homey. I can’t stress enough how much I loved the room. (For some reason the green carpet looks bad in photos, however it looks much better in person.)

Facilities

The hotel has an aerobics studio, gym and large indoor pool located on the 45th floor. As with every public space in this hotel, all of these areas have amazing views. We only spent one morning of our stay in the gym, but I can honestly say I have never had a better view while working out.

I was also surprised with the sheer size of the pool. During our time there, we never saw more than one person in the pool, which was a shame. Since the pool is indoors, the area can become a little humid, however it wasn’t too much of an issue.

Food & Drink

Since we weren’t Diamond members at the time of our stay, we didn’t eat breakfast at the hotel & otherwise opted not to eat at any of the expensive hotel restaurants. I did venture up to the New York Grill one morning to take photos of their breakfast spread and was thoroughly impressed. Everything looked to be of the highest quality.

This hotel and their New York Bar were made famous by the movie Lost In Translation and thus we decided to visit one night to enjoy the live entertainment and a martini. Believe me at $18 each, one martini per person was enough! Even though it wasn’t cheap, the atmosphere and view were well worth it. It was as if you had left Tokyo and somehow been transplanted back in the United States. A weird dynamic, but one that works.

If you don’t want to spend a ton of money and are Hyatt Diamond, the hotel provides free drinks during happy hour. Unfortunately I have been told that appetizers and food served during this happy hour aren’t complimentary, so if you want to eat be ready to pony up. The food up there is not cheap.

Our only other food and drink experience came on the first day of our stay. As a way to apologize for the room, the hotel sent up a bottle of champagne, mango juice and some strawberries for us along with a hand written note from the manager. This gesture was definitely appreciated and the champagne was very good. Out of curiosity I checked the room service menu and the bottle they brought cost around $150. Not bad.

Entertainment

While there isn’t much to say here, we found the entertainment in the New York Bar to be incredible. They played a great mix of music and the backdrop of night time Tokyo was beyond amazing. The New York Bar generally charges a cover when there is live entertainment, but hotel guests get in free. I’m not sure if they require you to purchase a drink, however I am sure getting something like a bottled water would work. As I mentioned above we ordered martinis which were very good, but expensive.

Value

The Park Hyatt brand is all about small hotels that provide the ultimate luxury and the Park Hyatt Tokyo fits in perfectly with this mantra. I really have nothing bad to say about the hotel. The only negative aspect of our stay was the smell in our initial room, however that was quickly fixed. While I do believe we should have never been given that room in the first place, that is a small complaint and something I am ultimately not willing to hold against the hotel.

My only real issue is this hotel’s cost. With rooms regulalry going for well over $500 per night, I simply don’t believe it is the best use of resources. As someone who would never pay cash, lets look at this from the points perspective. It costs 30,000 points for one night in this hotel. The Hyatt Regency located about two minutes away is only 12,000 points per night and is a fantastic hotel in its own right. Sure the Hyatt Regency isn’t quite as nice, but you get 2 1/2 nights for the price of 1. (I’ll have my review of the Hyatt Regency Tokyo soon.)

This & That

As Platinum members we were eligible for complimentary internet, however that wasn’t required since it is free for everyone. Our room had a strong internet signal and the speed was fast. So many hotels can’t seem to get this right, however the Park Hyatt Tokyo has.

I also want to quickly mention the staff. Their service was amazing and very refined. Additionally, the shuttle was always on time and took only 5 minutes to get to the station, however we walked most of the time.

Review Conclusion

The Park Hyatt Tokyo really lived up to the hype. We booked this hotel almost a year in advance and it was probably my most anticipated hotel stay of the year. Our stay came during a five week trip for me in which I stayed in 26 different hotels. The fact that the Park Hyatt stands out in the blur is a testament of how great the hotel really is.

In the end I am a value minded person and I probably won’t stay in this hotel when returning to Tokyo unless I have a free night certificate. The truth is that the Hyatt Regency is a great hotel and costs less than half as much. That is a fact I have a hard time overlooking. With that said, I really love the Shinjuku area and definitely plan on spending more time there when I return to Tokyo.

To sum it up, staying in this hotel is one of the best uses for Hyatt free night certificates. While you can’t get a suite anymore by applying for the card as a Diamond, the regular rooms are nice and this is a hotel that everyone in the points and miles hobby should stay in at least once.

More Photos

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