My recommendation if you want to stay in the city of Tokyo

ChrisFL

Disney/Universal Fan and MALE
Joined
Aug 8, 2000
If you're looking for a simple, straight-forward way to enjoy the highlights of Tokyo, I wanted to share what I always do when I go...

I've been to Japan 5 times, and I always stay in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo. It is on the water, west of Odaiba and Tokyo Disney Resort area.

There is a large Shinagawa train station that is adjacent to Haneda Airport (There are two airports in Tokyo, though the bigger one, Narita is about an hour outside of the city). If you can get a ticket to Haneda, it will save you time and money, though Narita has an Airport Express (NEX) train that travels directly to Shinagawa and is a beautiful trip through the countryside.

It is on the Yamanote Train line which is the main train line that circles Tokyo and hits nearly every major area that you'd want to visit: Akihabara, Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Imperial Palace and others.

The station is also one of only two in Tokyo that has the Shinkansen Bullet Train, if you're planning to travel to other parts of Japan.

I personally stay at the Shinagawa Prince Resort, it's very nice but not too expensive, has lots of activities in the resort itself, including an aquarium and dolphin show, movie theater, bowling alley, indoor driving range, lots of shopping, several nice restaurants and is near familiar places like McDonald's, TGI Fridays and Outback if you really miss "western" meals while you're there. There's also a 7-11 right outside where you can use the ATM (for western credit cards) and lots of great, fresh and inexpensive food options (trust me, Japan's convenience stores have amazingly good food for low cost!)

It's also directly across the street from the west exit of the train station.

I will say it does take a couple of transfers to get to Tokyo Disney Resort, so plan for an hour or so to get there, but if you plan to visit the city for most of your trip, I hope this helps :)
 
If you're looking for a simple, straight-forward way to enjoy the highlights of Tokyo, I wanted to share what I always do when I go...

I've been to Japan 5 times, and I always stay in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo. It is on the water, west of Odaiba and Tokyo Disney Resort area.

There is a large Shinagawa train station that is adjacent to Haneda Airport (There are two airports in Tokyo, though the bigger one, Narita is about an hour outside of the city). If you can get a ticket to Haneda, it will save you time and money, though Narita has an Airport Express (NEX) train that travels directly to Shinagawa and is a beautiful trip through the countryside.

It is on the Yamanote Train line which is the main train line that circles Tokyo and hits nearly every major area that you'd want to visit: Akihabara, Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Imperial Palace and others.

The station is also one of only two in Tokyo that has the Shinkansen Bullet Train, if you're planning to travel to other parts of Japan.

I personally stay at the Shinagawa Prince Resort, it's very nice but not too expensive, has lots of activities in the resort itself, including an aquarium and dolphin show, movie theater, bowling alley, indoor driving range, lots of shopping, several nice restaurants and is near familiar places like McDonald's, TGI Fridays and Outback if you really miss "western" meals while you're there. There's also a 7-11 right outside where you can use the ATM (for western credit cards) and lots of great, fresh and inexpensive food options (trust me, Japan's convenience stores have amazingly good food for low cost!)

It's also directly across the street from the west exit of the train station.

I will say it does take a couple of transfers to get to Tokyo Disney Resort, so plan for an hour or so to get there, but if you plan to visit the city for most of your trip, I hope this helps :)
Thank you for this post! We are going next May and are spending 4-5 days in Tokyo before/after doing Disney so it's really great to read your input about an area to stay in in the city. We want to do Airbnb, but now I will highly consider that area when I go to look at places to rent! Thanks!
 
Thank you for this post! We are going next May and are spending 4-5 days in Tokyo before/after doing Disney so it's really great to read your input about an area to stay in in the city. We want to do Airbnb, but now I will highly consider that area when I go to look at places to rent! Thanks!
Airbnb is going to be illegal (or highly regulated) in a lot of areas here after June 15th. Be very careful about what you book & make sure the owners know about the new regulations going into effect so that you don't run into any problems when you arrive.
 
Airbnb is going to be illegal (or highly regulated) in a lot of areas here after June 15th. Be very careful about what you book & make sure the owners know about the new regulations going into effect so that you don't run into any problems when you arrive.
Wait what? Why would it be illegal?
 


Wait what? Why would it be illegal?
The government has decided to more heavily regulate Airbnb & other home sharing services. Publicly, they say that the reason is to provide safer & more reliable accommodations for tourists, particularly with the Olympics coming in 2020, but the real reason is that they do not want tourists coming in & disrupting life for the people who live in/around buildings that would have been used as temporary rentals. To that end, many of the regulations (which are different in every single area) involve rules such as "no rentals on weekdays" and there is a universal ban on operating any kind of transient lodging more than 180 days per year, unless the owner applies for & receives a permit to do so.

See this thread: https://www.disboards.com/threads/psa-japanese-airbnb-laws-are-changing-after-june-15-2018.3685218/
 
The government has decided to more heavily regulate Airbnb & other home sharing services. Publicly, they say that the reason is to provide safer & more reliable accommodations for tourists, particularly with the Olympics coming in 2020, but the real reason is that they do not want tourists coming in & disrupting life for the people who live in/around buildings that would have been used as temporary rentals. To that end, many of the regulations (which are different in every single area) involve rules such as "no rentals on weekdays" and there is a universal ban on operating any kind of transient lodging more than 180 days per year, unless the owner applies for & receives a permit to do so.

See this thread: https://www.disboards.com/threads/psa-japanese-airbnb-laws-are-changing-after-june-15-2018.3685218/
So will we be able to use Airbnb at all?
 


So will we be able to use Airbnb at all?

I wouldn't try. In Japan, the law is the law. It's not like America where people will try and skirt the rules and just pay a fine if they're caught. The last time I was in Tokyo there was a malfunctioning crosswalk signal in Shinjuku near the Lumine department store. After a few minutes there was a large build up of pedestrians on the sidewalk. Instead of crossing when it was obviously our turn, the crowd waited and waited. Then everybody walked a block to the next crosswalk and crossed there instead. It was the strangest, yet most admirable thing I've seen. I wish everyone had that much respect for rules!
 
I wouldn't try. In Japan, the law is the law. It's not like America where people will try and skirt the rules and just pay a fine if they're caught. The last time I was in Tokyo there was a malfunctioning crosswalk signal in Shinjuku near the Lumine department store. After a few minutes there was a large build up of pedestrians on the sidewalk. Instead of crossing when it was obviously our turn, the crowd waited and waited. Then everybody walked a block to the next crosswalk and crossed there instead. It was the strangest, yet most admirable thing I've seen. I wish everyone had that much respect for rules!
It sounds like you can still use Airbnb as long as the host has the hotel license. I really don't want to stay in hotels...
 
Thank you for this post! We are going next May and are spending 4-5 days in Tokyo before/after doing Disney so it's really great to read your input about an area to stay in in the city. We want to do Airbnb, but now I will highly consider that area when I go to look at places to rent! Thanks!

Shinagawa is very popular with the convention crowd and is the major transportation hub for the southern half of Tokyo, but is not the best place to stay if you're planning on spending a lot of time at TDR. You would have to take the Yamanote line to Tokyo station and then make the infamously long walk to transfer to the Keiyo line. If you want a budget or moderately priced hotel that's convenient to both Tokyo and TDR, I would suggest a hotel near Hatchabori station. (Kayabacho is okay, too. It's about a five minute walk to Hatchabori station.) Hatchabori is on the Keiyo line so it offers you direct access to TDR. But if you're planning on spending more time in Tokyo than TDR, I would suggest something near Ueno station because it's just a few stops from Hatchabori, it serves many other lines, and it's near a couple of attractions.
 
Shinagawa is very popular with the convention crowd and is the major transportation hub for the southern half of Tokyo, but is not the best place to stay if you're planning on spending a lot of time at TDR. You would have to take the Yamanote line to Tokyo station and then make the infamously long walk to transfer to the Keiyo line. If you want a budget or moderately priced hotel that's convenient to both Tokyo and TDR, I would suggest a hotel near Hatchabori station. (Kayabacho is okay, too. It's about a five minute walk to Hatchabori station.) Hatchabori is on the Keiyo line so it offers you direct access to TDR. But if you're planning on spending more time in Tokyo than TDR, I would suggest something near Ueno station because it's just a few stops from Hatchabori, it serves many other lines, and it's near a couple of attractions.
We will be doing a hotel near TDR and will spend another 4-5 days in the city so we would plan on staying at two different spots. I did find a reliable, government registered Airbnb in Shibuya. https://www.airbnb.com/z/q/515051798
 
We stayed one night at the Yokohama Prince in between Hokane and the DLR. It was nice and not too expensive, but we were on the 33rd floor and there was an earthquake that night. Is the Shinagawa Prince that tall?
 
We went last year on a bit of a budget. It was our first time in Japan. We stayed at the Oriental Hotel Tokyo Bay. It was literally connected to the Shin-Urayasu Station. We found the location ideal for exploring Tokyo Disneyland. It was also easy enough to get into Tokyo for seeing the city.

It was one stop from the Tokyo Disney station. No transfers. Super easy. Trains came every 2-3 minutes and the journey took about 2 minutes. The hotel also had a free shuttle. We used that a couple of nights when we were exhausted and wanted to sit down. The shuttle took less than 10 minutes.
 
We stayed one night at the Yokohama Prince in between Hokane and the DLR. It was nice and not too expensive, but we were on the 33rd floor and there was an earthquake that night. Is the Shinagawa Prince that tall?

There's a few towers that are part of the hotel, I think they're about 20 something floors
 

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