Superb Japanese luxury

100   Recommended
April 10, 2017 by

 Map | 7 Reviews | 86% Recommended
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The Prince Gallery Tokyo Kioicho
 Map | 7 Reviews | 86% Recommended

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The Prince Gallery Tokyo is a wonderful addition to SPG and probably the best SPG "city" hotel I've ever stayed at. I was lucky to have booked back when the hotel was a Cat 6, and would have recommended it at that price without hesitation. At Cat 7 prices, it is a pricey award, but if you can afford the points I would still recommend it. If you're paying cash, you of course have more options, including those beyond SPG, but within the SPG and Marriott world in Tokyo (having also stayed at the Westin and Ritz-Carlton), I think this is the best option.

Check In

We arrived on the Airport Limousine Bus, which I would highly recommend if traveling with any amount of luggage at all, simply because Tokyo train stations tend to have lots of stairs which are not fun while lugging bags. Information to/from Narita here: https://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/platform_searches/index/1/281 and to/from Haneda here: https://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/platform_searches/index/6/281

The bus arrives in the sleek underground porte-cochere where we were immediately met by an employee, had our bags whisked away, and were escorted all the way to check-in on the 36th floor. (I find one of the nicest things about Japan's no-tipping culture is being able to let the hotel staff take your bag straight to your room without having to worry whether you have appropriate bills for a tip when it arrives.)

Check-in was efficient and friendly. We were upgraded to a room on the club level, and SPG.com didn't show anything better upon arrival. I was a bit disappointed that our SNA didn't clear, but it was peak cherry blossom season so not all that surprising.

Room

After check-in we were escorted direclty to the room on the 34th floor -- the lobby is on the top floor of the building and rooms are on the few floors below it, which is an odd arrangement that takes a bit of getting used to, but isn't ultimately too different from any other hotel "sky lobby". Rooms are perhaps not quite as big as some of the top Tokyo hotels (the Ritz-Carlton room was bigger), but still perfectly comfortable even for 2 people traveling with a week's worth of luggage, and the design and quality of the finishings was simply dazzling. Everything was of the highest quality and it was clear that a sublimely Japanese level of attention to detail had gone into the design: there was a spot for everything and no inch was wasted. 

(To that point, an earlier reviewer had mentioned not finding a power outlet on the desk; in fact there is one, but like many things in the room, it is hidden under a panel that closes and is so cleanly integrated into the desk you might not even notice it. Spend a few minutes poking around and trying to open things; you'll be surprised what you discover.)

The room nicely integrates technology, with USB power plugs available everywhere you might want them, and they are high-power tablet-charging-appropriate plugs, no less, which most hotels don't bother to offer. Lights and curtains, including an airlock of a blackout curtain, are controlled by a panel of touch buttons or the provided iPad, which can also be used to order room service and other hotel features.

The bathroom is great. No double sink, and the "main" part of the bathroom is maybe a bit cramped for a hotel at this level, but it is made up for with a huge shower/tub area with electrostatic window dimming, a very cool feature. Toilet features a Toto washlet with all the basics, though not the spaceship-level control panel you might see elsewhere (and no way to adjust the seat heating function). 

Views are excellent from every room, thanks to being at the top of a tower. Views to the south are probably the most exciting, with the most skyscrapers, but the lobby and club both also look in that direction so even if your room doesn't face that way you'll have plenty of chances to see that view. The gym faces to the north and east so you can also check out that view from there if you like.

I apologize that I didn't take many pictures, but here's the view from our room at night:

File Apr 11, 9 10 13 AM.jpeg

And the one thing in the room I did take a picture of, which gives a sense of just how beautiful and thoughtful every detail is, is the tea and coffee sets offered in the room (there is also an electric kettle and Nespresso machine in a separate cabinet):

File Apr 11, 9 11 38 AM.jpeg

File Apr 11, 9 12 00 AM.jpeg

Service

We weren't especially "demanding" guests so I didn't have any major complaints with the service, though I can see how there might be areas for a bit of improvement, as other posters have mentioned. But to be clear, this is just a matter of going from 98% perfect to 100% perfect.

Concierge is reachable by email and happy to help with making reservations in advance, a critical task if you hope to dine at any of Tokyo's top restaurants. (Get your requests to them in advance -- like, multiple months in advance.) They arranged a few choice tables for us, the best and hardest-to-get one being dinner at the excellent Sushi Sawada. They are happy to take requests like "could you try to get us reservations at any of these restaurants, for any of the mealtimes during our trip", and they will handle all the rest of the necessary schedule-juggling.

The only complaint with the concierge -- and again, going from 98% to 100% here -- would be that while they were extremely responsive in advance, there was no mention of our bookings having been made upon arrival at the hotel. By contrast the Marriott Miyako Osaka, which is solidly a step down the hotel quality ladder, did the same and then also provided an envelope at check-in recapping all of our reservations with handy maps, Japanese and English names and addresses, and pictures of the entrance (since many restaurants are not clearly signed in English) for each place. It would be a great enhancement if the Prince Gallery did the same.

Club lounge

The Club Lounge is on the 34th floor, two levels below the lobby. Main services are breakfast, which includes hot and cold options and eggs cooked to order; afternoon tea, which is mostly sweets and pastries; and evening snacks, which includes salads, cheeses, and some sweets.

An earlier post shows the club lounge opening hours, though it should be noted they were consistently open later than the hours posted: the evening food is advertised as only 5:00-7:00, but was always available in our experience until 8pm or later. Breakfast is listed as ending at 10am but was generally still out at 10:30 or so.

The food area is not huge but they fit in a good selection, in part by offering only a small amount of each item, but with attentive and frequent refills. There is a refrigerator with drinks available throughout the day, including beer and sake, and then self-pour wine and liquor is also available in the evenings. The liquor selection was good and a few steps above what you might normally expect in a hotel lounge, though the one disappointment was no Japanese whisky.

The lounge itself is on the small side, but the hotel is not huge (only a few floors, though quite a few rooms on each floor), and we never had trouble finding a table during any of the meal services.

Other features

The gym is on the small side for a luxury hotel but reasonably well-equipped. All equipment is the very latest, unsurprisingly. An attendant staffs the gym throughout most of the day, and you may awkwardly commit an all-too-easy Japanese faux pas: for example, I was asked to remove my shoes on the stretching mats. 

A more significant restriction to be aware of, my husband has visible tattoos on his forearms and was asked to wear a loaner track jacket while working out so as not to offend any Japanese guests.

The lobby and dramatic central bar are beautifully designed and boast choice views. Elevators throughout the hotel are gorgeous and the quietest and smoothest I've ever encountered. I really can't say enough about the design and build quality of this hotel.

Location

The hotel is next to the Akasake-Mitsuke/Nagatacho station which hosts 5 different subway lines, so it's fairly easy to get around, though with Tokyo as big as it is, some destinations will still require a transfer.

One tricky thing is that the subway complex is set up in a confusing way, so that there are multiple entrances which are close to the hotel, which lead to very different parts of the station. Exit 7 is probably the very closest, but it is only efficient if coming from the Hanzomon line. Exit D is good to and from the Ginza and Marunouchi lines, Exit 9a is the best to and from the Namboku line, and if you happen to be on the Yurakucho line, exit 5 is probably the easiest. 

Here's a picture I took of the map in the station showing the vairous lines and exits, which hopefully helps make some sense of that confusion. The hotel is in the center horizontally, and a bit above the center vertically:

File Apr 11, 9 03 28 AM.jpeg

To get to the area around exits 7 and D, you take the elevator to the second floor porte-cochere and go down the escalator to the first floor, and then straight ahead past Dean & Deluca and to the left over the canal. Getting to the other exits is more complicated, though we didn't have much use for the other subway lines, either. But be aware that the signage for the Metro in the ground floor shopping center of the complex seems to mostly point you to exit 9a, which as you can see from the map, unless you are going to the Namboku line, is by far the worst way to get into and out of the station complex (you have to go all the way from one end of that platform to the other to get to any other part of the station, and then along the entire length of the Hanzomon platform if you want to get from there to the Ginza and Marunouchi lines).

 

As for the immediate area around the hotel, there is a small shopping center of sorts in the building with some shops and restaurants, including a convenience store, a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and a Dean & Deluca cafe. There are a lot of government buildings in the area, and you could walk to some attractions like the Imperial Palace. We didn't end up spending much time in the area other than at the hotel, but any tourist trip to Tokyo will involve a lot of time in transit to far-flung corners of the city anyway, so I think this location is as good as any, and provides better Metro access than most.

 

Further to the matter of traveling with luggage, if you are visiting Tokyo and other cities in Japan, I highly recommend using a luggage transfer service as most Japanese trains have very little luggage storage space, not to mention most Metro and train stations require lots of dragging lugage up and down stairs. The hotel bell desk can arrange it for you, and transferring to an Osaka hotel cost only about 1,500 yen (less than US$15 currently) per suitcase. Delivery is next day, so you just need to bring an overnight bag with you on the train to use for your first night at the next hotel (or last night at the current hotel).

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