4 years ago
My friend and I booked a room for 3 nights at the ...
My friend and I booked a room for 3 nights at the Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku based on high recommendations from Tokyo travel blogs. I was not as enthusiastic about our stay as the blogger had been, though it was good value for the price.
Pros: Excellent location, friendly staff with good English skills, money exchange machine in lobby, comfortable beds, nice shower with good water pressure, decent price. The room size is as expected in Japan and no problem for us.
Cons: No lounging facilities like pool or sauna, bathroom and toilet not as nice as others in similarly ranked Japanese hotels, disappointing amenities in bathroom (used to the exuberant hospitality with nice takeaway toiletries), and most importantly ALMOST NO OUTLETS IN ROOM (had to rig up a laptop strung across room to charge phone overnight - it's 2016, come on people!!!!).
A special note about the room cleaning service: Do NOT request "Eco-Cleaning" unless you read the fine print and do not wish to have your beds made or anything tidied up at all. In the US "eco cleaning" or similar usually denotes that the cleaners will still clean but will not replace your sheets or towels so as to save water and energy. Totally support that and use it all the time at other hotels. However here we failed to read the fine print on the sign and were very surprised to come home to unmade beds and no tidying whatsoever. ALL that "eco-cleaning" includes is changing the trash can bags and emptying ash trays. THAT'S IT. That is not "eco" anything. It's not useful for the environment for my bed to go unmade. If by "eco" you mean "don't clean room at all" then please state so clearly and don't pretend it's for environmentally-friendly reasons. That's what the "do not disturb" sign is for.
Additionally, we were also surprised the next day when we purposefully did not put up the eco-clean sign (lesson learned) yet our used teacups with teabags inside were still left in place by the cleaners and not cleaned or replaced.
Overall I might recommend this hotel to a friend traveling on business or for only 1-2 nights, but for leisure I would look elsewhere in Shinjuku or Roppongi.