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If you’re visiting Tokyo you may be shocked how expensive hotels are now.
The tourist surge has counteracted the weaker yen and social media means everyone has been visiting Japan, or talking about it, for the past few years. However, there is a hidden affordable gem with lots of space. The Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay.
During my trip, this was basically the only full-service Marriott I could find for under $200 a night. ( I paid around USD $150, and as a Platinum member, that included free breakfast buffet for two, free access to their Japanese bath, free access to the (nice) lounge with dinner and alcohol. I’ve also stayed at the AC Hotel Tokyo Ginza, Courtyard Tokyo Ginza, Moxy Tokyo Kinshicho and Four Points Flex, and the Sheraton just feels much more spacious, and has way more amenities. There is another Sheraton Hotel in Tokyo, but the price of this one is about half, or less, that Sheraton. (See our comparison of the Moxy Kinshicho and the Four Points Flex here.)
The catch is that the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay it isn’t really in Tokyo. It is at Tokyo Disney Resort, technically in Chiba Prefecture.
But depending on what you actually want from a hotel, it’s a great option even if you don’t care about Disneyland. (And if you do care about Disneyland, it’s a fantastic option).
So, let’s talk about it.
Huge rooms, especially for families
The immediate difference is space. The standard rooms start at around 36 square meters, which is enormous compared with somewhere like the Moxy Kinshicho or Four Points Flex. You can also get ocean views or views toward Disneyland or DisneySea.
If I had small kids, I would absolutely choose the Sheraton over the Moxy or, especially, the Four Points Flex. The rooms are huge and it seems like every room has two huge beds. I had two queen or king beds in my room, and looking at the bed options, I saw rooms with even more beds available.
This is a family hotel, and if you have a large family, it would be awesome to stay here.
There is even a Japanese bath
There is a gender-segregated Japanese bath called My-You.
As a Platinum member, I was given free access—at least twice during my stay—so this was actually a pretty good elite benefit.
I didn’t personally like it because you MUST be naked. There is literally a sign saying no swimwear, and I did not want to be naked there.
So I didn’t use it.
But for people who don’t mind that, it is a genuinely nice feature. After walking around Disneyland all day, I can absolutely understand the appeal of sitting in a Japanese bath and sauna.
Breakfast and the Club Lounge
There are multiple breakfast buffets at the Sheraton.
The Grand Café is the huge, impressive-looking main restaurant, but as a Platinum member I had breakfast in a somewhat less grand space called the Galleria Cafe. The breakfast itself was still huge and awesome. A gallery with most, but not all, of the food is below.
I was told that the only real difference was the space itself, rather than the menu. So you still get a massive breakfast buffet. You just aren’t sitting in the grandest breakfast room in the hotel.
The Sheraton Club Lounge is also a genuinely good Platinum benefit. The lounge is on the top floor and has great views over Tokyo Bay and Disney. I was told that you have to choose a time to go to the lounge. There is an earlier session, and then a 7:30–9:00 PM session which is basically an adults hour.
I got there around 8:30 on my first night which was a problem, sort of.
There was still food sitting there, but they told me I couldn’t take any because the food service was over.
That seemed too strict to me.
Anyway, I still got a couple of drinks, which I mostly just sipped so I could try some whiskies I’d never had before.
If you want food, go earlier in the evening.
If you mainly want somewhere to have a couple of drinks, sit around and look at the view, the lounge is great.
Pool and Gym: The Sheraton is great
The Sheraton Grande has a great pool and gym, but access to the outside pool is paid, even for hotel guests. The indoor pool was fine, but very full with families with children. The gym, by contrast. was essentially empty.
One of the best benefits is the Disney ticket
A crucial benefit of this hotel is that you get paper tickets, which you don’t get at Disneyland Tokyo anymore.
That makes this a great way to get a classic keepsake.
I still have my Tokyo Disney ticket from when I visited in the late 1990s as a kid, so I actually really liked getting a physical ticket again.
The other benefit is potentially much more important. The hotel assured me that Sheraton Grande had its own allocation of tickets and said it was “not possible” for them to sell out of tickets, even if Disney itself was sold out. I don’t know if that’s true in the strong sense—where it is really not possible for Sheraton to sell out—or if the employee was just reassuring me that it was extremely unlikely.
But in any case, that is a good benefit that comes from staying at the hotel.
If you are going to Disneyland and are a Marriott member, I would 100% choose this hotel.
The Hilton has a better convenience store
The nearby Hilton has a Lawson which appears to be open 24 hours. The Sheraton Grande does not have a full-service convenience store inside the hotel. It has a moderately complete option which, to my surprise, sells cigarettes, but lacks some toiletries or health products I would have expected it to sell.
It sounds like an extremely minor advantage for the Hilton until you need something late at night.Then a 24-hour Lawson inside your hotel sounds pretty good. Anyway, it’s only a 10 minute walk.
Booking tip: U.S. Rakuten users can earn cash back when booking Marriott hotels through Rakuten. The rate changes, so check the current offer before booking. Right now, Marriott.com is offering 3% cash back through Rakuten.
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Rakuten rates and signup offers change. If you sign up through my referral link and make a qualifying purchase, I may also receive a referral bonus.
Is the Sheraton too far from Tokyo?
This is the main downside, but I think it is easy to exaggerate. Once you’re at Maihama Station, it is about 20 minutes into central Tokyo.
The annoying part is getting from the hotel to Maihama. You can take the Disney Resort Line, which runs in a loop, or use hotel transportation. It takes some time to queue for a bus or to walk to the Disney train and wait for that.
But it isn’t as though you’re staying two hours outside Tokyo. You can also taxi directly to Tokyo Station. I got a quote of around $60 and roughly 30 minutes for the trip.
The geography is also surprisingly good for Haneda. Thanks to the bridges across Tokyo Bay, the hotel is actually fairly close to the airport by road. The problem is cost. Uber quoted me around $99. So the Sheraton is close to Haneda, but only really if you taxi.
Sheraton Grande vs Hilton Tokyo Bay
I didn’t stay at the Hilton, but I did go inside, and it seemed slightly more modern than the Sheraton.
The biggest obvious practical advantage is the Lawson inside the facility. Otherwise, these hotels are competing for basically the same customer: someone who wants a large Western-style resort hotel near Disney without paying official Disney Hotel prices.
If you’re not specifically trying to earn Marriott nights or points, I would compare the Hilton and Sheraton on your dates. But if you’re a Platinum Elite at Marriott, its hard to believe the Hilton will be competitive given how many benefits you get.
Sheraton Grande vs Tokyo Disneyland Hotel
I also visited the lobby of the official Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, which is much closer to Disneyland. Check out shots of the hotel in the gallery above.
It is directly opposite the entrance gates. Guests at this hotel also get 15 minutes of early entry to the park, which is huge if you are a superman. The place also feels like a Disney hotel, for better or worse. You are dripping in the Disney aesthetic.
Good for superfans, particularly families with children, but probably unnecessary for moderate fans or someone looking for a deal.
Speaking of a deal, the Disney hotel is apparently very expensive. Around my trip, rates were commonly around ¥90,000+ per night, which puts it in roughly the $600-a-night universe rather than the $150 USD range where I was finding the Sheraton.
So yeah, I mean the Sheraton was 1/4th of the price. Unless you’re looking for the ultimate Disney experience and have the resources to get it, The Sheraton is just the much better deal.
Elite benefits:
Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador Elites get benefits. The difference is that Platinums get two choices per day, while Titaniums get three, and Ambassadors get four. Platinum and above also get a special check in.
Which affordable Marriott should you choose in Tokyo?
If you are going to Disneyland and are a Marriott member, 100% choose the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. If you are okay exploring Tokyo all day, but want to sleep and wake up somewhere nice and spacious, choose the Sheraton Grande.
If you don’t care where you sleep and just want something clean, go with the Four Points Flex. If you want something bigger than the tiny Four Points Flex rooms but don’t want to trek all the way out to Maihama, the Moxy Kinshicho is a great choice.
But I also think the location disadvantage of the Sheraton can be exaggerated. It isn’t like you are choosing between the Tokyo Edition and the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. You are probably choosing between a few more affordable hotels, and most of them are a little bit out of the way.
Moxy Kinshicho isn’t in Ginza. Once you add getting through Tokyo Station, taking the train to Kinshicho and walking to the hotel, it might take 20 or 25 minutes to get there anyway.
The Four Points Flex hotels aren’t generally sitting in Tokyo’s most desirable tourist districts either. Ueno is arguably the exception if you actually want to be in Ueno, while Four Points Flex Shibuya West is only one stop away from Shibuya. So it isn’t really an exact apples-to-apples thing. You are probably choosing between a few affordable hotels, and most of them involve some kind of compromise.
If you were going to spend 20 minutes sitting at the Moxy Kinshicho scrolling Instagram anyway, it’s actually totally fine to spend those 20 minutes sitting on the train instead. And if you have travel time anyway, it is not like all of that train time is somehow being created by choosing the Sheraton.
If you want to come back to a hotel, enjoy a lounge, relax a lot, have a huge room and don’t mind some time on the subway, Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay is a great option.
More Tokyo Hotel Reviews
Planning a trip to Tokyo? Check out our other hotel reviews:
- Moxy Tokyo Kinshicho Review: One of Tokyo’s Best Affordable Marriotts
- Four Points Flex Tokyo Higashi Kanda Review: Cheap, Clean and Tiny
- Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Review: Great for Disney, Good for Tokyo
- MESM Tokyo, Autograph Collection Review
- Moxy Kinshicho vs. Four Points Flex: Tokyo Budget Marriott Comparison
- Watch our short look at the MESM Tokyo on YouTube
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