The Barn Tokyo — Hotel in Tokyo

Very bad sound isolation would be the reason to avoid this place. They make a big deal of telling you to take quiet footsteps, and the whole hotel is no-shoes, you leave them in a locker at reception and wear slippers up to your room. But we still heard clomping steps from the floor above us and neighboring rooms tvs. It seems the building was just built poorly. I wore earplugs and ran the white noise machine I travel with and could still hear and feel footsteps at night.

Nice enough aesthetics, it’s more boutique style and smaller hotel. Room was bigger than we expected. Location was nice in a quieter neighborhood with easy access to trains and convenience stores. Some nearby areas are seedy though with “hourly” hotels so be mindful when walking by the nearby station tracks.

Bed is an ikea foam mattress, so it’s ok for western standards; it’s thankfully not rock hard but does sleep warm.

Linens are minimal. No top sheet??? and one thin duvet which didn’t feel like enough in winter. Pillows were thankfully fiber fill and not feather, but one was so rock solid it actually hurt my face to sleep on.

Bed frame creaked a lot when tossing and turning in the night, so I wonder if it’s also just cheap ikea.

Bathroom is fine with toilet and shower in an enclosed room while the sink is in the actual bedroom. Water pressure seemed fine but shower head is small and less adjustable than other hotels we stayed in. There are a few towel hooks.

Issue: the lighting at that sink is not bright enough to see your face or do makeup, and the mirror is so far back that I struggled to lean in to see myself.

No full length mirror in the room though there’s plenty of space to install one.

Issue: there’s no closet in the room, just three wall hooks with some hangers. You can’t easily hang multiple garments from one hook since they’re only an inch deep or so. There’s plenty of room to install a better clothes hanging system, so the hotel should do that.

They provide bananas and low quality pastries and coffee for free in the mornings.

No laundry but they will wash and dry a small bag for you for 2000 yen.

Sleep is the biggest factor for a hotel and the sound issue is not easily fixed so I wouldn’t return. But they could easily improve the bed, linens, lighting, mirrors, and clothes hangers to improve...

We stayed at The Barn Tokyo for 5 nights in late December. It was our first trip as a family of 3 to Japan and we had only the hotel reviews to guide us, so we were a bit nervous. We shouldn’t have been. The hotel is lovely. The rooms and bathrooms look brand new. They were sparkling clean with not a spot of dirt. The bed linens and towels were crisp white and very clean. I generally don’t like hotel rooms with carpet and usually never remove my slippers. The carpets in The Barn rooms are low-pile and look and smell new. The rooms come with shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and toothbrushes. In terms of location: we were happily surprised. The hotel is less than 5 minutes walk to Uguisudani station on the JR line and about a 15-minute walk to Ueno station. It takes about 30 minutes by train to Shibuya, for example. There are restaurants and shops on the main street as well as a cute little laundromat if you’re staying for a while and want to wash clothes (I recommend the washer/dryer combination machine for 1000 yen, less than $10 USD). As everyone else has said in the reviews, the hotel owner is lovely and welcomed us warmly even when we arrived from the airport by train at 10pm. A couple of things to note: you have to remove your shoes at the hotel entrance but slippers are provided. The walls are a bit thin so you can hear your neighbors going in and out of their rooms. It’s a boutique hotel, not a B&B so there are only bananas, tea, coffee and small donuts provided in the lobby in the mornings. You’ll need to go out for meals. All in all, our stay was great. I would highly recommend the hotel for anyone...

Had an amazing stay at this hotel for 5 days! All staff members are incredibly welcoming and friendly - probably the most warming people we’ve encountered with on our trip. They were very attentive and always made sure we were comfortable with our stay every day. The room was “small” but it is actually the normal standard in Japan - or if anything, actually slightly bigger. It was impeccably clean and with daily room cleaning service offered. New towels and bed sheets are provided every 4 days although there are plenty of extra towels given in the room so it was enough to last our entire stay. A small complimentary breakfast of coffee and breads are also provided everyday. We really appreciated the TV with complimentary Netflix & Youtube. Something so simple that you would expect the least from a hotel but this was lacking in the other hotels we stayed with prior.

A very convenient location with a quiet neighbourhood to escape the chaos of larger cities at the end of the day. Multiple convenience stores within 2 minutes of walking and a large supermarket within 5 minutes. The closest train station is less than 4 minutes away and goes to major locations like Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harajuku all on 1 line. Nippori station is also only 1 stop away which has straight access to the airport. A bonus is there’s a Don Quijote also nearby next to the train station! It’s not as big as the ones in major cities but enough to do some of your gift and souvenir shopping.

Thank you for accommodating and providing us with your best service. This was a very lovely end to our...