I always disliked the idea of staying at an Airport hotel and if we could avoid it, we would. If it was feasible my preference used to be trying to coordinate travel that such a stop wouldn't be necessary, and to just get all of the travel over and done with.
On our last few trips to Japan it has been a necessity going both ways, largely because of poor availability of connecting flights within the ideal window. That window I would suggest is around 2-4 hours after your first flight is due to land. Anything less and things start getting tight if there are delays, anything more, and well, there are better things to do and more restful places to be than an airport terminal.
Fortunately, Narita has a wealth of Hotel options surrounding the Airport. Most are similar, but today I will tell you a bit about the one we stay at. It may seem like a mundane topic for some, but at the same time this may be useful for Travelers to Japan to know what to expect.
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| Hotel Nikko Narita |
Hotel Nikko Narita
Hotel Nikko Narita is a rather large hotel with 11 floors and 720 rooms. It is not untypical of hotels in the area, and a look around the green surrounds that encircle the airport will yield a number of similarly looking buildings popping up across your view.
We had stayed at a much cheaper hotel that was closer to the airport years ago and that was well and truly a business hotel with basic amenities and at a lower cost. That sort of place is not really what you want or need after a long flight. The beds and pillows tend to be awful too so if you value sleep, stay somewhere nice. The other hotels, Hotel Nikko included, are a bit more upper class to cater for holiday makers as well as discerning businessmen.
Bus Services
Hotels providing shuttle services are not uncommon in many parts of the world, and it is no different for Hotels in the vicinity of Narita Airport. Simply exiting the airport terminal brings you to the bus stops and you just need to find the bus stop number related to your hotel. If you don't have the info already from your hotel's website then there are timetable boards dotted around. For example, Hotel Nikko's bus information is here
For Hotel Nikko Narita, most of the time the buses are running twice per hour and up to three times per hour, so you rarely have long to wait standing around with your luggage. The bus is comfortable and clean and is more like a Coach than a Bus. The Driver loads all of your luggage into the hold and away you go. It takes around 10 minutes to get to the Hotel and upon arrival, staff will unload your luggage for you. A concierge will then offer to take your luggage up to your room whilst you check in. Standard stuff and all executed efficiently without fuss.
Rooms
When heading into Japan from New Zealand the flight arrives around 6pm, and with the massive delays I had getting through immigration it was probably after 8pm by the time we got to the room. We begrudgingly had to be on the bus at 5.30am the next morning to head back to the airport so it really was one of those efficient stays where you could not care less about the room so long as it's clean and the pillows don't feel like they are full of rocks.
You can view all the available room varieties here
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| Comfort Double King Room at Hotel Nikko Narita |
The above room, a 'Comfort Double King Room' was what we had the on our inbound stay. It was very well appointed, nice, modern and clean with a great use of space. Smart usage of space always fascinates me in small spaces, Tiny homes especially as it makes me realise how poor space is often utilised when you have an abundance of it. I'll stop myself there lest I go off on a tangent though.
The Bathroom surprisingly was sized more like you would have at home, very spacious. Most hotel bathrooms in Japan seem like a single moulded cube that would be more at home on a boat rather than in a hotel.
The bed posed a problem for us with a Baby, we figured due to the short stay (literally only to sleep) it would be fine. It was, but still a pain as you don't want them rolling off onto the floor. So whilst we arrived very late, tired and cranky with a Baby well past her bedtime, getting to bed took even longer as one of us had to stay on the bed at all times for safety reasons, and we couldn't go to sleep until both of us made it into bed with a Baby safely wedged between us. The next morning was simply up and out, no breakfast, just onto the bus, dropped off at Terminal 2 and a long walk to Terminal 3 (the shuttle bus does not go to Terminal 3)
The cost of the Comfort Double King room for 1 night was $139.52 NZD (approx. $83 USD)
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| Japanese style Family Room at Hotel Nikko Narita |
Our return stay when heading back to New Zealand was much longer at a day and a half, and as such we booked a nicer and more spacious room; the 'Japanese style Family Room' pictured above. I loved the style and layout of this room, it was like a Ryokan crossed with a Business Hotel. You enter into the Genkan area and step up (after removing shoes) into the room with Tatami floors. Moving into the room you have a table and chairs with a 'pit' - a sunken area so you can sit at the table normally, otherwise everyone would be bumping their heads on the ceiling due to the raised floor.
Beyond that to the beds and we had four futons laid out on the floor over a large area. It made the room feel so much more spacious than having a conventional bed, and it provided a large safe area for our little Girl to crawl around. Sleeping was trouble free as well - A baby can't fall on the floor if they are already on the floor!
Although this room was larger than the previous one, interestingly the bathroom was the typical small one I alluded to earlier. No big deal but for some reason the light switch for the bathroom was on the outside of the door and on wrong side of the door - to turn off the light you have to exit the bathroom, and completely close the door. Bizarre given the attention to detail in room design everywhere else.
I really liked this room, the airy and spacious feel made it a pleasant place to relax for the best part of a day whilst we waited for our evening flight, I would certainly recommend this room style.
The cost of the Japanese Family Style room room for 1 night was $369.49 NZD (approx. $220 USD) though I most note it includes a hefty 50% surcharge as we extended checkout until 5pm.
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| The view from our room |
A word on Airconditioning. Oh my. Basically there is none. There is a dial on the wall where you can adjust power only, and yes when you turn it up you can hear more noise coming through the vents but I swear it is just blowing air with no actual air-conditioning. These hotel rooms are warm. This wasn't even in a warm period and it was still on the too-warm side to our liking, but we coped. I can understand why they do it - Japan gets extremely hot, particularly in summer and I could imagine that 720 rooms all turning their rooms into blissful iceboxes would be enough to bankrupt the hotel. You can open the windows a bit but it's not going to help much.
Facilities
I just found the above video that does a much better job at showing you everything I've been talking about so far. The Hotel has some very useful facilities and I can't tell you about all of them as we have not needed to use them. A full list is here, and from reading this I discovered there is even a hair salon!
The single most useful facility on site is the presence of a Lawson convenience store. It's smaller than a typical Conbini but still has everything you may need including being able to buy things for dinner if you are budget conscious and want to avoid the restaurants, or simply don't have time. We did just that on the inbound stay, and also grabbed something for breakfast too as the next flight was very early and we had no time to eat somewhere.
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| Outside view of the Hotel and the Serena Restaurant |
There are a few restaurants on site though, all rather nice too. In our stays here we have only used the ground floor places. The Coffee lounge does a great BLT burger and fries meal (and most importantly also serves Beer) and you can even get it takeaway to eat (and drink your beer) back in your room, which is exactly what we did. Serena is the large and spacious ground floor restaurant where you can get breakfast, a buffet affair. I'm always disappointed with breakfast buffets and that is because I simply don't/can't eat a whole lot for breakfast. Serena has such a good spread available across a few different styles - there's everything from pastries and cereals, to bacon and eggs, to rice and miso soup so you really are spoiled for choice and that irks me because I cannot eat it all.
The ground floor restaurant backs onto the nice gardens which you can walk around. An underrated activity if you feel like you have been stuck indoors for a while, which you probably have. Being Springtime there were cherry blossoms and there is even a pool, though this time of year it was green and at night it sounds like there are a thousand frogs sitting in it.
With a Baby going to sleep around 6pm, sitting in silence with the lights out for a few hours in a hotel room is not conducive to one's sanity. Luckily there are some nice lounges to relax in, one of which is the Internet Cafe one, which is basically a cozy area with seats and couches and 2 computer desks. I happily spent a few hours lounging here scrolling on my phone whilst drinking beer.
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| Cherry Blossoms and Red Maples are a beautiful combination |
In Closing
Airport hotels are not the most exhilarating topic, but if you are travelling to Japan and entering via Narita airport and have a long transit time or a flight arriving late in the evening then you may end up staying at an airport Hotel such as Hotel Nikko. In that case, I hope this has been insightful and useful for you!
