The Grand Hyatt Tokyo is a very large property that provided a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. The location isn’t my favorite in Tokyo, but if you can use a suite upgrade and make good use of the lounge either as a Globalist or with a Club Access award, it can be hard to argue with the value. Don’t miss out on the massage chairs in the fitness center locker rooms!
Grand Hyatt Tokyo: Bottom Line Review
The Grand Hyatt Tokyo is a nice hotel fitting of the “Grand” moniker with a huge footprint (and a bunch of restaurants scattered around that we didn’t get to try). It’s got a decent lounge that has an OK breakfast and enough food on the evening happy hour spread to serve as a dinner at least now and then (we tend to eat lunch out and then have something smaller for dinner anyway). The location wouldn’t be my top choice in Tokyo, but we really enjoyed the large room (thanks to a suite upgrade) and relaxing atmosphere. I was very disappointed to only find the high-end Japanese massage chairs in the men’s locker room on our last night. I definitely would have spent more time in there at night if I had realized!
I chose this property because at the time of booking, the Grand Executive Suite, which is classified as a “standard” suite at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, was available for sale at a cash rate. The Grand Executive Suite is 1,000 square feet and accommodates 4 people. A standard room does not accommodate four people, so I first booked a regular room for one or two guests and then called Hyatt to apply one of my suite upgrade awards and add the rest of my family to the room. As a reminder, you can choose a suite upgrade award as a Milestone Reward after you earn 40 elite nights and then you get or can choose them again at each 10-night milestone threshold thereafter. During our dates, this room would have been more than $1,500 per night, so we got a great value using points and the suite upgrade.
If you’re more of a visual person, here’s a reel review:
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I would probably consider this property again for a future trip if a suite were available to apply an upgrade award and if club lounge access mattered to me. That said, without the extra space of a suite, I might rather be a bit more centrally-located the next time we go to Tokyo.
- Price: 25,000 World of Hyatt points per night (we paid for a standard room award and applied a suite upgrade award to upgrade to a suite)
- Value: Solid. Room rates for a standard room were in the ~$500+ range (yielding slightly more than 2c per Hyatt point). More importantly, we got excellent value out of our suite upgrade award. The suite to which we got upgraded was more than $1,500 per night during our dates. If the standard suite had been available for award booking during our dates, it would have cost 40,000 points per night to book the suite, so the suite upgrade award would have saved us 75,000 points in this instance. However, notably, the standard suite was not available to book with points (not as a straight up award stay, nor with cash & points or the LP points upgrade award). However, it was available for a cash booking. The terms of Hyatt suite upgrade awards are that you can apply them if a standard suite is available – that suite does not need to be available using points. Since the Grand Executive Suite was available for cash booking during our dates, I was able to call and apply the suite upgrade.
- Location: Not terrible, but not great. Most common tourist attractions were 20-45 minutes away by either public transit or taxi. The hotel is sort of on the back end of a shopping complex, but I didn’t even realize that until my next-to-last day there because getting to the shopping complex section wasn’t obvious or intuitive to me (there’s a walking path on the 6th floor of the hotel, but I only ended up there wandering around by accident). The hotel says that restaurant delivery people will be turned away (we still ordered out, but a couple of delivery people waited on the sidewalk at the end of the hotel driveway, apparently aware of the rule), but there aren’t a lot of food options in the immediate vicinity apart from eating on-property. The hotel is reasonably close to public transit though, so you can get where you’d like in Tokyo relatively easily.
- Room: Our Diplomat Suite was very nice. The bed was firmer than I’d like, but better than many places I’ve stayed in Japan (the rollaway was more on the plush side if you need a softer mattress!). The suite was very big and well-appointed both from a furniture standpoint and amenity standpoint.
- Parking: I believe they had a parking garage, but we didn’t need it.
- Resort/Destination Fee: Hyatt does not charge one on award stays.
- Internet: Reasonably zippy and good coverage throughout the hotel.
- Service: Excellent. Japan is known for excellent customer service at higher-end hotels and this place meets expectations in that regard. One slight odd note is that I was told at check-in that they could only honor a 1pm late checkout if I wanted to keep the Diplomat Suite to which we had been upgraded. I was told that if I wanted a Globalist 4pm late checkout, I could have to cancel the upgrade and take a standard room. That wasn’t a very big deal, and I understand that it takes time to clean and prep the room for the next guest, but I’ve not run into that at check-in before.
- Turndown service: Nightly, though our kids were sometimes in bed before they came by, so we took extra towels and water but didn’t get the full turndown service most nights.
- Dining:
- Club Lounge: The hotel’s club lounge served breakfast and evening hors d’ oeuvres. For both time periods, most of the available stuff was exactly the same every day, with a couple of rotating dishes (the repetitiveness did get a little old after 5 nights). You’re not likely to walk away from either breakfast or the evening spread stuffed, but you’ll probably be satisfied enough.
- Other restaurants: The hotel had a number of other restaurants, including both cafe-style and what appeared to be higher-end dining. We didn’t eat at the hotel beyond the club lounge, so I can’t comment about them apart from saying that they looked quite nice.
- Spa: There is one, but we didn’t indulge in any treatments. There is a nice pool and hot tub. Children’s hours at the pool end at 7pm (I only ended up in this area once or twice and I didn’t see any families here either time).
- Fitness Room: Decently large with plenty of machines and weights to satisfy many. They had a Power Plate machine if that’s your thing. However, whether you work out or not, it’s worth a visit to the locker rooms. In the men’s locker room, there were 5 or 6 nice Japanese massage chairs. The buttons are entirely in Japanese, but it was easy enough to figure out which ones to hit for a pre-programmed massage routine. I assume that the women’s locker room must have the same, but I don’t know for sure. The chairs were excellent!
- Hyatt Globalist Benefits:
- Room Upgrade: I had applied a suite upgrade award to confirm a Grand Executive Suite at the time of booking, but we got a further upgrade to a Diplomat Suite at check-in (I first noticed it in the app on the day of arrival when I went to check-in online and then it was mentioned at the desk). Based on the online room description, I believe that the Diplomat Suite was about the same size as the Grand Executive Suite, with some upgraded finishings (and perhaps a corner layout). It was very spacious for a city like Tokyo and it was quite comfortable.
- Free Breakfast: Served in the club lounge.
- Club Lounge: The hotel’s club lounge served breakfast and evening hors d’ oeuvres. For both time periods, most of the available stuff was exactly the same every day, with a couple of rotating dishes (the repetitiveness did get a little old after 5 nights). You’re not likely to walk away from either breakfast or the evening spread stuffed, but you’ll probably be satisfied enough. My wife absolutely loved the chardonnay they serve in the evenings (wish we had taken a picture to see if we could get it at home).
- Late Checkout: Only offered until 1pm if we wanted to keep the Diplomat Suite to which we’d been upgraded. If we wanted the 4pm Globalist benefit, we were told that we’d have to take a standard room.
- Welcome Amenity: There was a bottle of Bordeaux, fresh fruit, and some Japanese snacks in our room waiting for us on arrival. I was impressed!
- Would I stay again? I would if I could apply a suite upgrade and if the lounge mattered to me (and it usually does). That said, if I were staying in a standard room without lounge access, I’d probably rather be in an area with a bit more action.
Pros
- Great use of a suite upgrade
- Good club lounge
- Excellent service
- Nice escape from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo
Cons
- Location isn’t ideal (public transit isn’t far, but it is a bit of a walk, and the immediate area has high-end shops, but not much of what you may associate with busier areas of Tokyo)
- House rules indicate that delivery drivers will be turned away (presumably for security reasons?). We still ordered from Uber Eats a couple of times, but we had to meet a couple of delivery drivers at the end of the hotel driveway.
- Club lounge offering was kind of repetitive.
Image Gallery
Note that the hotel has a very dark vibe overall, so please excuse the fact that photos aren’t as bright as other places.
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I live five minutes from this hotel.
“there aren’t a lot of food options in the immediate vicinity apart from eating on-property”
What?
Actually the problem is too many great places to eat!
10x What!!?? I don’t think the author ventured outside of the GH. There are tons of great places to eat in the immediate vicinity. Bricolage (bakery and breakfast) 1 minute walk, Butagumi tonkatsu 5 minute walk, both killer eats. The walk from the GH to Roppongi station alone has so many good places to eat.
I would choose this location over Ginza
or Shibuya. It’s a really nice hotel and the staff would absolutely have directed
you to the nearby train and many nearby restaurants.
I was upgraded to a suite at the Hyatt Centric Ginza last year, but had to wait until after 5 pm to get in, because of the late checkout they gave to the previous guest, I assume another Globalist. So I think the policy of 1pm checkout for the suite is a good policy.
Completely disagree about the location. It’s attached to Roppongi Hills which may be a mall like place but has the mori art museum, plenty of restaurants and is literally on top of the subway station. Sure if you only want to go to Shibuya and Shinjuku you could do better but Roppongi Hills is a very accommodating neighborhood if you know how to use the subway and or appreciate walking a city.
I think if you don’t do your homework on the area it’s easy not to notice the mall has train station. I stayed at this property and didn’t figure it until like day 3 lol.
I am wondering if you will do an overview of your trip. It seems interesting based on what you shared on instagram.
Nick, can you do a post on what to do when suite upgrades aren’t showing up as available, but the standard suite rooms ARE available for cash purchase (like how to get the concierge to get it applied)? On more than one occasion, at certain properties that like to play games (like Bahamar and now I’m seeing it at Park Hyatt Aviara) the standard suites WILL be available for cash, but never available to apply an SUA. When I call the globalist line, the concierge’s say there’s nothing they can do. It’s super frustrating…Thanks for any insight you can provide and as always, great post!
glad you liked it and got the upgrade but I got squat except lounge breakfast staying on points with an “upgrade.” The lounge breakfast is NOT the full buffet.
I far preferred the Conrad using FHR for location, value, and treatment of Diamond using Aspire status.
Cash rate was $283 at Conrad though, far below usual
I liked it well enough, but I’d also prefer the Conrad if not for the suite (and especially for far better breakfast). I did note the lounge being just OK (and in the Instagram reel, the word I used to describe the lounge was “meh”). It was fine, but as you say nothing like a full buffet. It was sufficient. Truth be told, after 5 nights at Lux Belle Mare, we probably all needed a few days of a breakfast that wasn’t a 2hr affair.
Is it a pull out couch, or they provided roll away beds for the kids? Just curious as the pictures only show the king.
Unfortunately, no pull-out couch. They brought a rollaway upon request. Our kids are young (3 and 6 at the time of the stay), so they alternated with one in the bed with us and one on the rollaway each night (I actually traded and ended up on the rollaway one night because I found it to be more comfortable!).
Nick, I’m a big fan, but I’ve gotta call a spade a spade here and tell you there’s nothing luxurious about three people having to share a bed. You’re one occupant away from the scene of poor Charlie Bucket’s four grandparents sleeping head to toe.
Take it from someone whose two boys are six years older than yours: at your kids’ ages, do yourself a favor and get a 2+ bedroom vacation rental. Having at least two separate bedrooms plus a common area makes for a much more relaxing vacation than any single hotel suite, no matter how luxurious it is. If you insist on using points, cash out some MR for the stay. Now that my kids are older, we get 2 rooms if we’re staying at a hotel, but still usually prefer very highly rated vacation rentals (4.95+ on Airbnb, for instance). Save the aspirational hotel stays for when you can leave the kids with the grandparents, or when they’re old enough to have their own hotel room.
One of my fave hotels in Tokyo. Always been in an Exec Suite with certificates but never Diplomat Suite so great to see!
Am I correct in saying that the Executive Suite is about the same size, just with slightly different furniture? That’s what it looked like when I saw pictures or a Youtube video.
Similar size yes but the Diplomat Suite has better views. The Exec Suite is overlooking the side streets and other side to Mt Fuji. The massage chairs in the men’s locker room are amazing. I’ve taken many a nap on those and the hot tubs were to die for. Heading back with family in April to introduce son to Tokyo and Japanese culture.
Any recommendations on where to take a 6 year old for dinner or other Tokyo tips for kids? We will do PH Kyoto after this and then off to HK.
nice review!
small typo but a photo caption is “Both my won and I loved sitting in the window ” believe that should be son?
Thanks, fixed.
Hi! Curious what property you would choose if you didn’t have a suite upgrade?
Purely for location relative to other stuff (I haven’t stayed at either), I’d have probably tried either the Hyatt Centric Ginza or the Hyatt House Shibuya. We’ve also stayed at the Conrad Tokyo before (a Hilton property) and I preferred that location.
Like I said, I haven’t been to either of those other Hyatt properties before, and it looks like the Hyatt Centric in Ginza is also mostly surrounded by designer shopping, but it would have been a shorter ride to get to other places we wanted to go. The Hyatt House Shibuya might have made more sense given the ability to probably just stroll around the neighborhood for entertainment for the kids.
All that said, Tokyo is big, so it’s hard to pick the “perfect” place to stay since you’re going to be far from something no matter what.
The reason I stayed at the Grand Hyatt was that it was close to the outdoor baseball stadium (1.8 mi ) where the Tokyo Swallows played. It was worth it to catch part of a game with the stadium location reminding me of Wrigley, and kind of funny as it was jersey nite and the jerseys are in English.
I lasted 3 innings , which is as much as I can stand of anything other than game 7 of the playoffs.
I’m not sure why I had to spend 30,000 points, but given the size of the standard room I’d have paid cash elsewhere
Nick, there are other descriptions you could use rather than repeating “hustle and bustle” 5 times throughout.
There certainly are, thanks for the feedback! That said, it looks like it was 3 times, not 5, with the first in the introduction and the second not until the pros and cons bullet points at the end of the post, not exactly “throughout” as I read it. Still, I had it in both the “pros” and “cons” bullet points — I appreciate the feedback so I could remove one instance. Thanks!
“Caution: Don’t Feed The Trolls”
Thomas,do you really need to nitpick?