Originally Posted by idaud

I have a planned 4 night Tokyo stay the last week of October/first week of November and am a little confused on where to stay. Caveat that I'm posting this prior to reading the thread but plan on doing so later today and would appreciate your views anyway.

I’m travelling with the family and so this is a leisure trip and we have our 7 year old son with us also.

Prior to Tokyo, we would have stayed in Raffles Makati in Manila and Amanpulo as part of the same trip to give you all some context.

Four Seasons tends to be my default option with occasional Aman splurges (that are sometimes worth it and sometimes not depending on the property. Amanpulo I’m sincerely hoping is worth it!). I don’t mind trying other groups as long as the service and facilities are worth diverting for in that particular location.

In terms of my personal preferences for a city hotel, I like being in an area where walking out of the lobby into the locale allows you to walk the block and get a feel of the city and has a café culture and/or opportunities to people watch and get a feel and appreciation of the city without having to do anything. I guess the locale is important to me rather than the convenience of the location.

I’ve narrowed down my options as follows based on the opinions of others and the sense I get from the little research I have done and would appreciate your comments/suggestions/even corrections:

Four Seasons
+Relative low number of guest rooms
+Overall stand out reviews mainly relating to service levels

Q How is the spa and the facilities? This tends to be important to me as well

-No pool
-Limited F&B options (not a deal breaker in Tokyo I guess)
-Expensive for my dates (on par with Aman)
-Limited public areas/lobby in which to hang out whilst at the hotel.


A note on this last comment which is relevant is that I like my city hotels to be places where there is a buzz of activity ideally – not so much a swarm but a degree of atmosphere that captures the feel of that particular city or is at least a little bit lively with comings and goings. An example I could point to was in Delhi, India where I preferred the Leela over the then Aman because of the atmosphere even though the latter was superior in almost every other way.

Four Seasons seems to be more of a haven than a destination which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but maybe too austere for Tokyo? If the locale was good this might compensate

MO
+Abundance of atmosphere and public spaces to hang out
+Looks like great F&B options
+Good spa facilities
+Most economic option on my travel dates by some 15,000-20,000 Yen

Q Is the service level way below that of Four Seasons at this property? I expect it to be less personalised because of the difference in the number of rooms but would it still be considered good service

-No pool here either and so I guess the question is how necessary is the pool given that we would have just back from a beach holiday and that we are in Tokyo and therefore presumably other distractions that make up for the pool.


Aman
+Probably best rooms/overall design based on my taste
+A pool and a nice one at that
+Spa looks good and I would expect it to be up to par in terms of quality of treatments

-Hit and miss reviews on service levels here
-less well located than others two options based on my preferences ie atmosphere and walkability factor rather than convenience?
-Probably the most expensive option here albeit that it looks on par with the Four Seasons on my particular travel dates

Should I be considering Andaz or others based on what I’ve posted? I’m open to suggestions…