KOKO HOTEL Ginza 1-chome — Hotel in Tokyo

Quite a nice hotel for the price and reasonably close to transportation. Security was good in that the elevators were keyed to your room card, touch the card to the elevator panel and it automatically selects your floor. If you have no card, you're not going up. It was quite clean, I felt no need to reclean anything, which is not the case in most hotels. There was one desk clerk that we weren't impressed with, nothing major just some lack of concern. The others were all good people. I was annoyed that they didn't have any extra pillows supposedly, (I've worked resorts and hotels, there are always a few extra things squirreled away somewhere) which I need due to back issues, but the clerk did supply us with a bunch of extra towels so I could use that for extra support and it worked ok. On check out they allow you to store your luggage by the front desk, and they actually lock them together with a cable so you don't have to worry about someone else walking off with your stuff. Generally that's not a problem in Tokyo anyway, but it's a nice little extra gesture. The beds were quite comfortable, and my kid (14) was on the fold out and she seemed quite comfortable as well. There are plenty of dining options close by, from McD's to fine dining and a 7/11 across the street.

I had two issues: The bath/shower, while clean, was really annoying because it's tiny and I noticed there was a trench on the floor in front of it leading to a drain. The need it because as soon as you turn on the shower, the way it's mounted there is instantly a river running over the side of the tub onto the floor and into the drain. If you don't have the shower curtain fully closed the shower will spray onto the mirror, sink, etc. making a large wet mess. The laundry facilities are awful, and responsible for a good portion of the 4 stars instead of 5. Cramped into a tiny room (maybe 4' or 1.3m by 10' or 3.3m, with a place to stand being maybe 1/3 of that) on the main floor are two washer/dryer combo machines. They will wash clothes nicely but forget about drying them. It's like there is no exhaust or something and the drum is sealed. they will superheat your clothes but no drying takes place even after an hour and a half. If you have any delicates, don't even think about trying to dry them, they will be destroyed. I actually scalded my hand removing the clothes from the machine. We ended up hanging all the clothes in our room to dry. I'm not kidding, it felt like they were not even spun dry and took two days hanging to be dry enough to wear. Also, you pay for these machines on timers, and if you're not there to get them within even a minute of the cycle ending (there also being nowhere to sit in there) if the staff notices they well take all your laundry out, put it in paper bags and stick it behind the check-in desk. This happened to us on the first load and we were not pleased because our soaked clothes were taken away with no indication as to where they were. I could understand if the machine had been sitting with the cycle ended and no one coming after even 15 minutes or so, but to swoop in immediately is a tad excessive. Especially when there is nowhere to sit where you can see the machines and wait for the cycle to end, you know, like virtually every hotel with laundry facilities has.

Overall that's not really a lot to complain about so I would for sure recommend this hotel. btw, there is a 'hidden' entrance to the Tokyo Metro right across the street by the 7/11. If you go into the walkway under the building there, there are doors into the 'Ginza First Building'. Take the elevator down and you end up in a tunnel that goes to the...

There’s nothing to complain about with regards to the location of this hotel. It’s close to all the shops in Ginza, lots of restaurants and metro stations taking you anywhere in Tokyo.

I do however feel, that this hotel is not as well maintained or up to the standards it is being portrayed as. The room was dirty. Not just a bit of dust on the surfaces - that was there as well - but old dirt everywhere. It did not seem to have had a thorough cleaning in a very long time. The elevator and hallways also were in dire need of a thorough cleaning. Hotel offers to store luggage for its guest before and after check in. This unfortunately means that the entire lobby is at times, absolutely packed with suitcases.

Room must’ve been a former smoking room, as the smell was still noticeable once in a while. TV remote control needed new batteries and wouldn’t work, which meant I couldn’t turn off the tv which would automatically turn on when the main switch was activated. Got new batteries and the remote was still sluggish. Tv had maybe five channels on random numbers. Shower head has one setting; power cleaning. A/C was acting as had it been possessed. Would sometimes adjust itself to 27 degrees celcius even though it had been set at 19. Refrigerator was quite noisy and did not reach proper temperature for storing dairy, etc. I’m guessing maybe 8 degrees celcius. It’s fine for soft drinks but for yogurt and the like, just head to the 7-eleven right across the street when you need jt.

Staff seemed quite uninterested in guests, except for one gentleman who would always greet me. I tried to check in at 2:50 pm. Check in is at 3 pm. and the lady behind the counter told me she would take my information and have me wait in the reception until check in was available. Sat down and waited, and then a bus with maybe 20 tourists arrives, and she starts checking in all of them. I waited for almost an hour, completely unnecessary. After having traveled for 26 hours I really wanted to get settled in my room. She apologized and gave me two bottles of water as compensation.

WiFi is pretty poor. Download speed is good enough for browsing and emails, but upload speeds are basically nonexistent. If you need to offload larger files like photos or videos to cloud services or upload to YouTube, you should consider another solution.

If you’re a smoker you will be delighted to learn that there’s a smoking room. You will be less delighted to find out that it’s the size of a broom closet, poorly ventilated and absolutely filthy as…

I’ve stayed in similar priced hotels in Tokyo that were up to quite a bit higher standards on all aspects. I will probably find another hotel for my next stay in Tokyo.

As other hotels in Tokyo, Koko hotel adds a 200 yen RGO consumption tax on top of your daily rate. This is not unusual for Tokyo but good to know.

For reference I paid 207.425 yen...

The staff was the only good thing about the hotel. They were helpful and very kind. Let you leave your luggage there and accepted our luggage from another hotel. When checking out they helped order a cab for us and did warn that it would be expensive (depending on time and traffic the reception said about 15000 yen but it ended up being just under 30000 yen, we left at 7:45am and taxi took tolls so this high cost could have been circumstantial). The room was dirty, the outside of the hotel looks renovated, modern and sleek, you assume also in Ginza it would have higher standards but the outside is not a reflection of the rooms. I think it advertised that they opened in 2023 but this was probably the least enjoyable hotel we stayed in out of the 6 other hotels we stayed at. The rooms are DATED, there was dust on the bed frame , there is no fitted bed sheet so the sheets move right off to reveal the mattress. The TV is old, was also dirty and wasn't even plugged in, the fridge was also super old and also not plugged in AND also didn't even get cold after leaving it on overnight. There was garbage on the floor, walls visibly scratched up, stains on lamps and tiny black flying bugs in the bathroom. I would kill a few and then another handful would be crawling on Floor, wall or tub. I think it might be coming from the vents. There's no counter space in bathroom, and the rooms are smaller than the standard compact small hotel rooms often found in Tokyo. At least in the small hotels there is space to store luggage under the bed (even if there was space i honestly wouldnt even want to store there considering the state of the room). The cleaners came and made the bed, replaced towels , I think they just do their best but you can only clean so much from a dated old hotel. I didn't even like the air on bc I didn't trust the cleanliness. They did not provide water bottles and indicated that the tap water is safe to drink, however the Faucet leaked and honestly I rather felt uncomfortable in that bathroom anyways. Location is decent, walkable to Tokyo station (15min) but other lines closer that aren't far. 711, Lawsons and Family Mart nearby. The hotel does have a vending machine, ice machine and laundry rooms on main floor. Just pay the extra money and stay elsewhere, it's obvious they just renovated the front and kept whatever deisign the old hotel they took over had. I wasn't looking for anything fancy when booking this hotel, but I had higher standards than this. The black bugs in the bathroom were just gross. You can find other,...