DoubleJ

Or if you have a late flight into NRT, you could stay at the Hilton Narita Airport that first night, and go into Tokyo early the next day. The Hilton Narita Airport is a Cat 1 and therefore just 10,000 points for an award. One of the best uses of HHonors points out there. That would leave you with enough points remaining for an award stay at the Hilton Tokyo.

Or if you have an early flight leaving NRT on your return, you could use your points to stay at the Tokyo Hilton your first night, and at the Hilton Narita Airport your last night.

nowheretorun

Hello,

I am looking for any experienced people to help with recommendations of how to tour Japan via Hilton hotels. I am a Gold member with over 200K points and looking to use all or most of them on our first week-long trip to Japan this April.

Originally, I had planned to use the GLON2 award for 6 nights at the Hilton Odawara, however, it seems that perhaps it is a bit remote for doing things outside the hotel for 7 days. So now I changed it to the Hilton Osaka on the same award.

My friend and I are going, in our 20's & 30's, and she wants to stay a few days at one place and a few days at another. Obviously, this doesn't help trying to use the GLON2 award.

So I was looking at some options, like Osaka - Nagoya - Odawara, spending a couple of days at each. Another option I was considering was just paying for a couple of nights if I had to at one of the Hiltons.

No plane tickets have been bought yet, so we have the option of flying into Tokyo or Osaka.

Any advice on how to do this, and which hotels would be recommended to stay at for this short time would be greatly appreciated. It is not a goal to see how many hotels we can stay at, but just what is reasonable to see a good portion of Japan, and not get too worn out checking in/out.

Steve

derpelikan

hi,

i would buy a open-jaw ticket.
fly in to tokyo.

you can sent your baggage from tokyo to hilton osaka .

than i would take the NEX (narita express) and go to shinagawa and from shinagawa go to shiodome to the conrad tokyo. you can burn 40K for one award (its cat 6) its the best hotel in tokyo these days.

stay two days in tokyo. after that go to the hilton odawara. get a rental car and go to IZU & hakone beautiful places there. go to an onzen. try to go to mt. fuji, you can go 2km with the car .

take the shinkansen from odawara to nagoya. stopby in nagoya hilton. 1day .

go to osaka hilton (call or email mr. schwandter the gm in advance)

and fly back from osaka to your home country.

by a railpass, its 27800 yen for unlimited shinkansen and JR trains. you will save a lot if you do the trip as i suggested. you can already use the NeX with the railspass.

dp

yoko

Odawara is boring. I hear it is a nice facility, but you'll be missing a lot of must-do's if you spend your entire week in Odawara. It is essentially a sleepy country town. My grandparents lived there.

Must-do's near Osaka include Himeji Castle, and at least a few days in Kyoto (kinkaku-ji, kiyomizu-dera, and gion). Osaka itself isn't that interesting, though.

Must-do's in Tokyo are really hard because everyone has a different idea of what Tokyo is. My ideal itinerary would include odaiba, harajuku/aoyama, and shinjuku. Some like asakusa, and others like roppongi.

While traveling between Osaka and Tokyo, you will want to spend a night in Hakone. You will not need a rental car there, as trains and buses cover all the sites. There are many ryokans with private roten-buro hotsprings, where you can soak without getting intimidated by the locals.

JDiver

Do you have the HHonors American Express? That offers the AXON award, 4 nights at Category 5 or 6 hotels / resorts for 125,000 points (same stay would normally require 140,000 or 160,000 HHonors points.) This allows you a bit more mobility, and there is a lot to see in Japan!

You might walso want to think about an open jaw flight, arriving via NRT / Tokyo, say, and departing from KIX / Osaka. This saves you from backtracking.

I don't know anything about your preferences, but I'd book a stay at Hilton Tokyo, and see some of Tokyo and surrounds - maybe a day trip with great walking to see the incredible temples complex in Nikko, as well as some local stuff.

Kyoto and Nara would be the other place to sightsee, and Hilton Osaka would be your hotel there. Getting there by Shinkansen train would add a dimension to the trip.

I highly recommend getting a general book that has information and photos, like the National Geographic book, or possibly Dorling Kindersley, so you can look and see what kind of things you want to do and see. Japan is small, but incredibly diverse - alps? temples? high tech? night life? You name it, it's there.

derpelikan

in odawara there is almost nothing

so stay in tokyo hilton shinjuku or conrad .
the conrad has a train station near by, you can use the oedo line to go to roppongi hills etc.

you can take the Yurikamome line from conrad tokyo to odaiba and go back with the ship to the park near the conrad.

i am a big fan of the conrad and would never waste my points in the hilton tokyo...

go to akihabara in tokyo, ifyou have time you can go to nikko will take one day! .
shinjuku and shibuya.

Izu / Hakone is a must. thats the perfect time to have lunch at the Yama no Hotel (hotel du yama) .
its near moto hakone.

take the nozomi or hikarai train to nagoya. stay one night in nagoya if you like. than move to kyoto . stay in the westin (its a cheap hotel but the new rooms are ok)

next move to osaka and stay there in the great hilton.

dp

sorro

While it's in the opposite direction from Osaka, if you decide to spend some time in Tokyo, a day trip to Nikko is well worth it. Assuming you have the JR All Rail Pass, it's about an hour by shinkansen and then 45 mins on a local train from Tokyo station to get there, but I actually liked it better than Kyoto. Kyoto was nice and all, but there was a lot of big city there. Nikko is very rural and you can walk to all the sights.
Another fun day trip from Tokyo is Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture. Again, there are lots of temples as well as the daibutsu. I prefer spending my time more in the Tokyo area and then jumping down to Kansai for a few days rather than basing out of Kansai and spending a few days in the Kanto area. There's just more to see and do from Tokyo. As far as Hilton properties, I haven't been to the Conrad but it's supposed to be excellent. The Hilton Tokyo in Shinjuku was wonderful and they have a great breakfast buffet if you're Gold/Diamond. If you want a cheaper Tokyo area hotel, the Hilton Narita is 20000 points/night and about an hour from Tokyo station via N'Ex.

mario33

I believe its still 10,000pts/night if you redeem before June06

J0HN

As mentioned above get the Hilton HHonors Amex and use an AXON (125K) for four nights in Tokyo and then stay two nights in Osaka (35K a night unless they have point stretchers) - if you want to fly in and out of NRT/KIX.

I went to Japan a few years ago in April and we did a 6 night award in Tokyo and during the middle we stayed one night in Osaka on points (able to leave majority of stuff in Tokyo and traveled light to Osaka -- keep in mind Japan hotels like to give out more than enough toiletries), and were able to stop in Kyoto for the day.

My suggestion is to plan your trip around what you want to see, not where Hiltons are located. With the age range listed and this being your first trip(and I don't know exactly what you like to do), I would definitely add Tokyo (both Hilton and Conrad) to your list of places to stay (unless it's not available for points).

Definitely get a Japan Rail Pass - ride the Shinkansen (Bullet Train). Go to a baseball game. Drink melon soda. If you don't get lounge access at the Osaka Hilton look forward to the breakfast buffet. If you like Disney, go to Tokyo Disneyland. Get Frommer's Japan book ASAP.

PokerHammy

For Tokyo, I cannot recommend the Conrad enough. It's new, beautiful, elegant, and spacious. It's right next to the rail station and two department stores. It's also within walking distance to the Tsukiji fish market and Ginza. Besides, you'll get the bear and the duckiES!

I haven't stayed at the Hilton Tokyo but it's in a good busy area (Shinjuku) if you'd like to stay late out at night, you won't have to hurry to catch the train which stops service around midnight.

andrzej

I have a res with Hilton Tokyo, thanks to the Expedia/Hilton mistake, for few nights in May. AA just came out with a nice fare, which I was able to grab, but it requires a 6 night stay, so I figured I get 2 stay credits and booked 1 night at the Bay property.

2 questions......

1. How hard/easy is it to get from Hilton Tokyo to the Hilton Tokyo Bay property?

2. How do I get from the Bay property to NRT?

SEA_Tigger

The Friendly Airport Limousine Bus goes between HTB and NRT.

http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/e/time...x_n/tdr_h.html

And I know I took a train between Shinjuku-eki and Tokyo Disneyland back in 1991, so I am sure the train is an option getting from Hilton Tokyo to HTB, but a bus might also be available.

johnndor

The train will likely be your cheapest route, followed by the bus, and taxi $$$ as a last resort.

Canarsie

When I stayed at the Hilton Tokyo Bay property several years ago, I had no problems taking the train to virtually anywhere I wanted to go in Japan, whether I was going to the airport, Lake Chuzenji or Kyoto.

There is a shuttle from the Hilton Tokyo Bay property to the Tokyo Disneyland train station, which can be seen from the property. Unless you have a lot of luggage with you, you can take a 10-minute walk to the train station from the hotel.

The train can be taken into Tokyo where a special train to the airport can be taken, but I forget the details. I remember having no problems, however — even with luggage...

elbidercni

1. To get to Tokyo Bay, as long as you are not traveling with too much luggage the JR line is the best bargin. Get on the free hotel shuttle from the Hilton Tokyo to Shinjuko station. Take the JR from Shinjuko Station to Tokyo Station (there is some walking within the train stations as you make connections, up and down stairs/escalators and long hallways) and switch trains there to Maihama Station (which adjoins the monorail for Disneyland). From there you take a short monorail ride over the second stop (it's just a short circle monorail with only 4 stops -- see http://www.tokyodisneyresort.co.jp/t...fer/index.html for map of the monorail) and get on the Hilton Tokyo Disneyland bus (very cute buses) which basically carries you a few hundred yards to the hotel. All in all not too difficult without too many bags, but if you have luggage it may be more of a pain and you might want to consider a taxi (but $$$$).

2. From the Hilton Tokyo Disneyland to NRT the answer is extremely easy -- the NRT bus. There are buses leaving many times a day which go directly! The bus is really the easiest and cheapest way to get to/from the hotels to the airport. Typical greyhound-type buses.

The JR and subway lines interconnect and it can be difficult to read their maps and get around, but it just takes patience. E-mail me offline if you want a good map that shows them both.

Have fun!