Hotel Review: Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro

Hotel Review: Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro

 

Tokyo is an absolutely massive and sprawling city.  The Tokyo metropolitan area has around 35 million people, which is greater than the entire population of Canada.  The city is served by a complex spider web of light rail, subway, and bus networks.  I'm pretty good at getting around cities and figuring out their public transit systems, but even Tokyo made my head spin sometimes!  So the question remains, where exactly do you stay in such a massive city?  Well, anywhere near a metro station should fit the bill.  Because of Tokyo's sprawling nature, it doesn't really matter where you stay.  You'll always be near something, but far from most things.  I chose to stay near the Ikebukuro Station because its one of the largest and had rooms in the price range I wanted.

Links:

http://www.sakura-hotel-ikebukuro.com/

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1066460-d775810-Reviews-Sakura_Hotel_Ikebukuro-Toshima_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html

 

The Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro offers a nice sweet spot between hostel and hotel.  This is because it is actually 2 buildings.  One has hostel rooms, one has hotel rooms.  I stayed in the hotel side, which I liked because I still had all the benefits of the hostel (full kitchens, social aspect, laundromat, etc.), but the privacy of a hotel.  There's a grocery store just a 2 minute walk from the hotel.  At the end of the day, most grocery stores have ready-made hot meals that you can buy at a heavy discount.  So we'd buy these and heat them up in the hostel building's kitchen.

 

The hotel side was definitely more private, but maintenance was somewhat lacking.  The walls were all scoffed up and the bed was really uncomfortable.  The cafe at the base of the hotel was a great place to socialize and just hang out.  I'm not sure about the quality of the food they serve, because I didn't really see anything that I wanted to eat.  However, for coffee and drinks its fine.  The hotel only has Wi-Fi in the lobby.  They have wired LAN in the rooms, so if you need Wi-Fi bring a miniature travel router.  You can get one on eBay for under $20.

 

I was not really blown away by this hotel.  Its really just a place to sleep in Tokyo for the most part.  I'd recommend it for people who are on a hostel budget, but want the privacy of a hotel.  It's a pretty middle of the road, average, hotel.  Having the kitchen was convenient, but aside from that nothing stood out.