Hotel Route-Inn Tokyo Ikebukuro — Hotel in Tokyo

Looking for an inexpensive hotel to stay in Tokyo in December I stumbled upon this one. Everything looked fine at the first glance: reasonable price, convenient location, interesting neighbourhood and a lot of positive reviews on the 'net. And indeed, finding the hotel was an easy task even though I've never been around the place before. Getting to the Ark Hotel Tokyo Ikebukuro takes less than a 10 minutes afoot from the JR Ikebukuro Station, accessible from Yamanote and Saikyo lines, or from the Higashi-Ikebukuro Metro Station (Yurakucho line), that means that you'll always find an optimal route to almost any place in Tokyo and around you may ever want to visit. The area itself is a pretty busy district full of bars, cafés, convenient stores, night clubs, shopping malls and office buildings. You'll definitely find it interesting to explore.||||Checking in and out was easy and convenient. Staff at the reception was extremely friendly and spoke enough English to answer all my basic questions about staying in the hotel. The hotel itself looks rather old and worn-out a bit but everything is absolutely clean and functional.||||My smoking semi-double room on the 7th floor was as small as a room in an average 3 stars Tokyo hotel could be. On the other hand, it was spacious enough to comfortably place my not numerous luggage. The only drawback I can note was the absence of a wardrobe, so I had to put my outer clothing on the coat-rack near the mirror. The air conditioner had just 4 positions and I didn't quite get how it works in detail, I just set it in the "middle" position when it got too cold and it became much warmer in a few minutes. It seems that heating or cooling is automatically selected depending on the temperature outside.||||The bed was pretty wide for a single person and not too hard. I found it really comfortable though I suspect some may want a softer mattress and bigger pillow.||||The bathroom was quite standard for similar hotels. The toilet-set was absolutely standard as well and had everything one may need on the trip. The bathtub was short but deep so I could enjoy bathing really well.||||Considering the amenities, they provide enough of them to meet all your basic needs and more. On the room's table you'll find a TV set, a charger for mobile devices with various connectors, a kettle, a glass, a cup and a complementary set of 2 bags of delicious Japanese tea. There's also a fridge and a cloth steamer in the room. Every room is provided with pretty fast wi-fi and cable internet connection. I had absolutely no problems with it.||||The room cleaning is carried out every day provided that you are not staying in the hotel during cleaning hours, I guess. They would change your bed-sheets, towels and dump your trash||||There's one inconvenience I have to mention separately. The room door has very poor noise insulation and you'll hear every sound in the corridor pretty well. It's not the problem most of the time but if you like sleeping long in the morning, be prepared that you'll be awaken by the noise the cleaning staff and guests make.||||And there's also one thing one may find inconvenient. The door locks on my floor were traditional, not a card-operated ones, and I was required to leave my keys at the reception every time I left the hotel.||||On the whole, the hotel has left a nice impression and I can definitely recommend it for all unpretentious travellers who value simplicity and convenience...

Knowing Tokyo like the back of my hands, I chose to stay in the Ikebukuro area again for this short 4 day trip. I arrived at Haneda airport and boarded the airport limousine heading for ikebukuro, I advise you to get off at Prince hotel sunshine city, which is only a 5 minutes walk away. The location is almost perfect, it is 5 mins from limousine bus stop, 10 mins from sunshine city, and 10-15 mins from JR station and major department store. I have stayed in Hotel Metropolitan, and Tokyustay ikebukuro and some other shinjuku hotels, and I am surprised to say this cheap 3 star hotel really deserve my 4 stars rating. The receptionist is friendly and helpful, although at first entry, you see the old fashioned Japanese style lobby and is hit by old fashioned toilet freshners smell. The room key is the old fashioned, key with huge keychain and then we stayed in 6/F. It is important to request NON SMOKING if you are a non-smoker like us ( our room had NO smoking smell anyway so don't worry), cos I can imagine the smokers' room would have a strong smell for non-smoker to handle given the aged hotel. The room is quite spacious for tokyo standard, it is clean despite our floor is the eco-friendly type where they only have room service every 3 days. That was totally fine with us, we take the trash out to the door daily and they put fresh towels and toiletries in a bag every day at your door. On the 3rd day, they did clean our room which was great. I only paid 190 USD for about 4 days in a twin bed room.. price wise it is phenomenally cheap ( after suffering from PTSD from dirty 3 stars hotels in the States) ! Leaving airport is equally easy, we bought ticket at Prince hotel sunshine 1 day earlier ( this is highly recommended as tickets DO get sold out, lesson learnt in the hard way in my previous trips!!! ). I would recommend this hotel to budget travellers like me or those unpretentious frequent travellers to Japan, esp those landing at Haneda. I would stay here...

It’s conveniently located near Sunshine City and some good restaurants surrounding it. It’s not a few minutes of walk in both Higashi Ikebukuro and Ikebukuro Station.

The staff are great and very hospitable. The lobby is clean and neat. The included breakfast was also a good addition to the experience.

I rated this low because of the condition of the room. As soon as we got into the room, it smelt terribly of cigarette smoke. It was supposed to be a non smoking room. I guess that sign was just placed there to be convenient. So I had to turn on their air purifier, but that was a bad choice because it also smelled of cigarettes. No choice but to not use that.

It was poorly ventilated. And there was too much dust. It made me sick in just one night of staying in. I woke up with severe sore throat, I kept sneezing. There was too much dust in their centralized air conditioner. My things also gathered dust. It was really visible on my shirts.

I did try to open the window to ventilate.

I did save a bit of money from other hotels but I honestly suggest to stay away instead because I spent that money on buying medications, fabreeze, lint rollers and other things that can improve my stay. So I ended up spending too much because of the dirty room.

Funny thing is that, I go out without mask, and return inside the room wearing one. The dust and dirt is really that bad.

Tldr; Just book a...