Asakusa Tobu Hotel — Hotel in Tokyo

Located at the other end of Shibuya. Takes around 20 to 30 mins metro travel to other metropolitan places. Convenient location to Asakusa and Ginza metro lines, practically just across the street or around the corner. Asakusa is an amazing location to stay in. Good area for sunny and rainy days. Lots of food and shopping around the hotel.

Hotel staff speaks fluent English and are professional and polite during both our check in and check out. The whole process is smooth and pleasant. Do expect the lobby to be busy during the day everyday.

We got the comfort twin room at the 6th floor and it is big enough for us to fully open 2 large check in size luggage. The space is much appreciated especially when we stayed for a week. Love that the shower & toilet area is separated too. However, the bathroom is still the traditional sit and shower style even though you can still opt to stand, but what I meant is that the dry area would therefore be the room's walkway and there is no place to put clothes in the shower area. Bathtub is also available and useful to soothe sore body & feet from an entire day of walking.

Cleanliness is amazing as I presumed this is not a brand new hotel. Everything is exceptionally well maintained and sparkling clean except for the ventilation above the toilet bowl, it was covered in dust. The only thing lacking is probably the insufficient amount of hangers, hooks and storage areas for clothes. The ones provided are very basic, just enough for all our coats/jackets. Amenities provided at the lobby are also very basic such as comb, toothbrush etc.

The housekeeping instruction schedule is written in quite a complicated manner. It took me awhile to study it, basically they could have just sidenote that on which days only there would be bedsheet change and floor cleaning. Housekeeping did amazing job everyday throughout our stay. Kudos to them.

There is a serious lack of washing machines, only 3 washing machines on each of the 7th & 11 th floor of which it is pretty much occupied throughout the entire day til midnight. You can view the vacancy of it through your own hotel room TV. However, I do find it annoying though that some guest uses 2 out of 3 machines and then don't come and collect their clothes on time. I waited for 15 mins for the owner to collect their clothes eventhough it had already finished washing and drying when I arrived at the laundry room. There is a sign that says hotel staff will collect the clothes if collection time exceeded 20minutes and you will have to collect from them at the front desk after. I find it too nice & lenient of the hotel to put up such a forgiving policy. If it were up to me I would put a fine warning of ¥3000 for late collection to ensure guest shows up and collect their laundry in time so that others could actually use it.

We did not try the breakfast, but it seems to be popular as surrounding restaurants only opens at 11am mostly. There are McDonald, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks, 7-11 and family mart downstairs within a minute walk. The hotel is also covered in the vicinity of airport/hotel luggage delivery services called Airporter by Japan airlines JAL.

Overall, I would recommend this hotel as we did very much enjoyed our stay and find the location conveniently accessible to many places. Just maybe bring more clothes or go Uniqlo 2...

We really loved this hotel - not only is it really close to the Asakusa main train station which serves two rail lines, it is also near one of our favourite temples - Senso-Ji (I believe it is the oldest in Tokyo) We arrived from Haneda airport which based on our experiences was better transport links than Narita. |It is in a great location with local restaurants nearby, and with some key landmarks near too like the temple, Nakamise-dori and the Skytree to name a few. |So we arrived around 8pm - and the staff were really helpful and friendly, they also took delivery for a portable wifi router for us (which i really recommend Ninja or PuruPuru are the main ones). Check in process was really easy, and the hotel lobby, lifts, hallways etc were all spotless, and really nice on the eye too. There were good signage up too for key information. We then went to our room which was on the 8th floor and overlooked some of Nakamise-dori, the room was small BUT we knew this (we wanted a place to lay our head so we only booked a double room - but with 2 cases for 11 days it was a squeeze) Again it was really modern, clean and when stepping in you have a hanging space (not a wardrobe), with some slippers, and complementary items. The toilet is one of the fancy japanese ones that do all the bidet, air and everything, this is in a separate room. in the next room was the bathroom, which for us was a shower, with a stool (you shower first sat on the stool to clean yourself then you get in the bath to soak) and one of the lovely japanese baths that are REALLY deep (I love these a lot) |Next to the bathroom at the end of the hall was the bedroom, which was well lit, lots of lights, and good connectivity to power points/USB's etc and everything was working fine. We never had to contact reception for anything either. The room had air condition too, and a window that you could open (in line with health and safety rules so you can open a few inches) They gave us complementary sealed bottled water every day, and the room had a TV and a fridge too - really great because there is a 7Eleven and Family Mart Konbini (Convenience) store really close by - great for a few beverages! |We did not have any food at the hotel or use any other facilities so we cannot comment on those. |The area is really safe, and we were walking around Asakusa at 4am and we felt safe - the hotel is easy to spot and the reception desk is always manned just in case you need anything. |The bedroom has a tablet control for things like the lights and the house keeping services - which is really cool! |The check out process was so smooth too - rather than go to reception there is an automatic machine for check out that will literally take you a minute to do as well - perfect when you are in a rush. |I will be honest, we will definitely come back here to stay, it is a lovely hotel, perfect for sightseeing on a busy city break holiday with fantastic...

Located right across Kaminarimon, it’s one of those hotels whose entrance you’d miss if you don’t pay attention. The lobby Is located behind 2 sliding doors, and most of the front space is taken by a bank.

As with most hotels of this class nowadays, there are self check in/out kiosks. But if you’re like me, and prefer to test your Japanese, I checked in at the reception. Mind you, they speak perfectly fluent English too, so don’t worry. At the end of the check in process, they explain to you the different levels of cleaning that is done (so you get to choose. But for hygiene reasons, they’ll still come in to clean after 3 nights whether you want it or not. It’s clearly stated on the same information card found in the room). The receptionist will also explain to you with the help of an information card, when the restaurant is usually busiest at breakfast. I do love this bit of information because you can decide whether you want to sleep in like everyone else and wait in line for breakfast.

The room is of contemporary style (not the tired decor of the Showa era from more expensive hotels in other parts of the country), and typically of hotels in Tokyo (unless you pay much more), it’s small. As you can see in the photo, there isn’t much room between the end of the bed and the TV, but there’s enough at the side for a coffee table and a chair. I did my packing at that area.

Breakfast wise, the hotel offers a mix of western and Japanese cuisine. But if you’re a fan of Japanese curry rice, you’ll be disappointed because they don’t offer it here. The spacing between tables are comfortable enough with going elbow to elbow as compared to another hotel in the area that I’d stayed in previously.

There’s a coin laundry facility with 3 washer + dryers. I didn’t get a look to see if you can get the staff to help if someone chucked their laundry into the machine in the morning, locked the machine door with a code and then went out for the day. I’ve encountered this on numerous occasions during my stays in Tokyo. Very inconsiderate

Staff wise, as I’d mentioned, the ones I’d encountered are comfortable with English. Pre-Olympics, English wasn’t so commonly spoken but post-Olympics, after the huge effort by the government to train relevant staff, it’s more commonly used to varying levels of proficiency. When push comes to shove, keep your cool, use simple words, remember that you’re a guest in the country. A sense of humour and big smiles gets you a long way....