Where we stayed vs where we should have stayed
This is a story about where we stayed at Haneda Airport versus where we should have stayed. I’ll start first with the background story on how this saga began.
I. Our Travel Situation
Our trip to Japan and Seoul in March did not begin as smoothly as we had hoped. Originally, our flights, which I had booked many months before on Japan Airlines with American Airlines miles, was to commence on March 6th at a little after midnight, with a non-stop flight from JFK to HND. We were supposed to arrive in HND very early on March 7th and connect to a flight to Seoul a few hours later.
Well, shortly before our trip, JAL canceled our flight to Haneda (endearingly called a schedule change). JAL rebooked us on a non-stop flight to Narita (rather than Haneda) one day earlier, but keeping the Seoul flight out of Haneda a day later.
This new plan required us to begin our travel a day earlier, and then travel from Narita to Haneda and stay at a hotel overnight there. Try as I did, JAL would not agree to any further, and more reasonable, changes (such as flying us into HND). So, our choice at this point was to accept this inconvenient and expensive change or cancel the trip altogether.
Using the motto, it’s a journey, we decided to go with the flow.
II. Getting to Haneda
Short of taking a taxi which would have been hugely expensive, we took an Airport Limousine bus from Narita to Haneda Airport. The price was roughly $25 per person, and was door-to-door. A great choice! We were even treated to a beautiful sunset along the way.
III. The Royal Park Hotel at Haneda Airport
Having had good luck with our recent stay at the Anara Airport Hotel at Jakarta Airport, I decided to likewise book a hotel room right at the International Terminal at Haneda Airport, which is where my 8 am flight to Seoul would be leaving from the next morning.
There is a Royal Park Hotel at the International Terminal (Terminal 3) at Haneda, so this seemed like the right choice. The website included pretty pictures of the hotel rooms and described the hotel like this:
Opened in 2014, Royal Park Hotel The Haneda is directly connected to Tokyo Haneda Airport International Terminal. The hotel offers elegantly designed rooms for transit passengers and visitors to Tokyo. All hotel rooms feature comfortable Serta mattresses and free wi-fi internet.
The lobby of the hotel was decent enough. We had made the reservation a few days earlier, and finding hotels in Ota (where Haneda is located) was somewhat confusing. The hotel room was slightly more than $200 for the night, which was definitely more than we wanted to pay, but we felt we had little choice under the circumstances.
The check-in process was fine and we were handed the key.
We got to the room, which although clean, was tiny and looked nothing like the glamorous photos we saw on the hotel website. It was simply atrocious.
I kind of liked the globe-like table, but nothing else.
My favorite was the putrid color of the walls and the artwork, which I found almost laughable. What was this?
The bathroom was small, but clean.
No amenities came with the room. Certainly no breakfast was included.
IV. We Owned the Airport
The only positive to this hotel was its absolute proximity to the airport. After checking in we took a walk back through the airport, which was kind of cool.
We walked over this beautiful wooden bridge which is a replica of the original Nihonbashi Bridge from Japan’s historic Edo Period.
And then we found a little ramen restaurant in the airport, where we ate dinner. It was good.
I even had a whiskey highball, which I subsequently learned is a very popular beverage in Japan.
V. To Summarize
In sum, the positives of the hotel are it’s proximity to the International Terminal at the airport and the fact that it is clean. The negatives are the inflated price, and the old, tiny room with chartreuse walls, poor art and no amenities. I guess if it had cost $90, we would have complained less.
In the next post, I’ll review the hotel where I think we should have stayed.
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
It’s an airport hotel. You pay for the convenience. People just stay there to crash and make the flight the next day. Obviously, there are hotels in Ota but there’s not much in that part of Tokyo except for the Edo Yokocho stuff at Haneda Airport, which is nice. If you were expecting a real “Tokyo Experience” for this last minute stay, you could have stayed in Tokyo proper, but that would have made your morning more hectic. So I don’t think you stayed at a wrong hotel. You just had to lower your expectations.
You had tremendous luck in staying at an authentic Japanese hotel, albeit it modern. The color scheme is beloved in Japan, think green tea. It’s size extravagant and the furnishings (art included) modern Nippon.
I think many of the published electronic or paper travelogues are geared to what the audience expects. Not, what exists on the local. It is fascinating to view how different regions reside. It can be widely different than what we rank as important. Your hotel appears geared to the Asian traveler, a business person. I enjoyed your photos. I lived in Japan for – about six years. I hope in time you can reflect more positively on your stay.