Hotel Changtee Tokyo — Hotel in Tokyo

I very rarely have to rate things below 4 stars, so it is a shame that I have to on this occasion. We booked into this hotel for our last two nights in Japan, and were disappointed from the moment we stepped in. The first impression we got was of suitcases littering the lobby and other guests scattered around, eating noodles and wearing next to nothing (not necessarily the hotel's fault, but it gave a bad vibe). The lady on reception spoke very good English and was very helpful, no complaints about the staff whatsoever. After she checked us in and gave us our key, we went up to the 3rd floor but couldn't get into our room. Rather than forcing the door or risking snapping the key, we went back down to ask for assistance, which the lady on reception was very happy to offer. It turned out the door was just a little too big for the frame, so we needed to hold the handle down and throw all of our weight on to it to open it, which she assisted us with. Not the best start, but not the worst complaint.||The room and bathroom were tiny, but again not a huge complaint and pretty standard in budget Tokyo hotels. The fixtures were pretty shoddy and old. There was a hold in the wardrobe door, our window opened out onto a smoking balcony, the railing of which hit into our window when opened (potentially disastrous), and the room and bathroom were tired and quite dirty. The bed was uncomfortable and the pillows were crinkly and weird, like they were stuffed with plastic bags(!).||The area also felt a little tired and a little rough by Tokyo standards. It's the only place in Japan where we experienced drunken shouting (which we heard throughout the night) and felt at all unsafe as tourists. Perhaps we were in an unfortunate room, but we heard lots of noise from the street below both nights. The road wasn't main but it saw a lot of foot traffic, so we heard people talking on the phone, arguing, laughing, and being generally noisy. Which, again, is not the fault of the hotel, but still something to note. In addition, though, we were woke up on our first morning at about half 7 by two members of staff speaking very loudly in the corridor outside our room (unfortunately our room was very close to the lift, smoking balcony, and the area where the cleaning supplies were kept and accessed by staff).||One positive I will mention is that the Wi-Fi was excellent and reliable, which is always a huge help in foreign countries and when wanting to plan days out and, in our case, a route back to the airport. The local stations (Ikebukuro metro station and Ikebukuro JR station) were very convenient (although very very busy) and had lots of lines running through them. We particularly enjoyed travelling on the JR Yamanote line which ran as a ring around Tokyo, covering Harajuku, Akihabara, Tokyo Station, Ueno etc, so really handy line to know about (especially if you are planning on getting the JR pass, which we do recommend).||All in all, we were disappointed with this hotel and glad we only had to spend two...

I very rarely have to rate things below 4 stars, so it is a shame that I have to on this occasion. We booked into this hotel for our last two nights in Japan, and were disappointed from the moment we stepped in. The first impression we got was of suitcases littering the lobby and other guests scattered around, eating noodles and wearing next to nothing (not necessarily the hotel's fault, but it gave a bad vibe). The lady on reception spoke very good English and was very helpful, no complaints about the staff whatsoever. After she checked us in and gave us our key, we went up to the 3rd floor but couldn't get into our room. Rather than forcing the door or risking snapping the key, we went back down to ask for assistance, which the lady on reception was very happy to offer. It turned out the door was just a little too big for the frame, so we needed to hold the handle down and throw all of our weight on to it to open it, which she assisted us with. Not the best start, but not the worst complaint.||The room and bathroom were tiny, but again not a huge complaint and pretty standard in budget Tokyo hotels. The fixtures were pretty shoddy and old. There was a hold in the wardrobe door, our window opened out onto a smoking balcony, the railing of which hit into our window when opened (potentially disastrous), and the room and bathroom were tired and quite dirty. The bed was uncomfortable and the pillows were crinkly and weird, like they were stuffed with plastic bags(!).||The area also felt a little tired and a little rough by Tokyo standards. It's the only place in Japan where we experienced drunken shouting (which we heard throughout the night) and felt at all unsafe as tourists. Perhaps we were in an unfortunate room, but we heard lots of noise from the street below both nights. The road wasn't main but it saw a lot of foot traffic, so we heard people talking on the phone, arguing, laughing, and being generally noisy. Which, again, is not the fault of the hotel, but still something to note. In addition, though, we were woke up on our first morning at about half 7 by two members of staff speaking very loudly in the corridor outside our room (unfortunately our room was very close to the lift, smoking balcony, and the area where the cleaning supplies were kept and accessed by staff).||One positive I will mention is that the Wi-Fi was excellent and reliable, which is always a huge help in foreign countries and when wanting to plan days out and, in our case, a route back to the airport. The local stations (Ikebukuro metro station and Ikebukuro JR station) were very convenient (although very very busy) and had lots of lines running through them. We particularly enjoyed travelling on the JR Yamanote line which ran as a ring around Tokyo, covering Harajuku, Akihabara, Tokyo Station, Ueno etc, so really handy line to know about (especially if you are planning on getting the JR pass, which we do recommend).||All in all, we were disappointed with this hotel and glad we only had to spend two...

Hotel Changtee is a compact hotel in a quiet-ish part of Ikebukuro. It is a short walk to the JR station, there are plenty of restaurants around the area, so location is perfect and relatively downtown. The hotel room itself is compact, but has its own washroom and tub/shower. One sleeps on a futon on a tatami mat. If it's your first time doing this, enjoy the experience. The air conditioner is required in the summer months, there are instructions however they changed the manufacturer of the remote so we had to Google translated instructions, after that it worked fine. There is a large overhead light, also with a remote, but the instructions were in the hotel's booklet. The room was made every day, it was clean, and there were slippers provided. There isn't a lot of room for luggage storage in the room, but we didn't plan to spend much time indoors anyway. For two adults and a teenage traveller, it was just the right size and just what we needed to start our trip. Finally, the front desk staff are conversant in English, we had no check-in issues, and the staff were very helpful...