Tokyo was our first stop in Japan and we knew we would be tired from the long trip. It was also our longest stop, as we were spending 5 nights there. So we felt like it was important to have a pretty nice hotel for this leg of the trip.
Hotel Villa Fontaine Grand Tokyo Roppongi has recently renovated, good-sized rooms (by Tokyo standards). They have three different sized rooms: deluxe 40 sq m, twin 30 sq m, and a smaller 20 sq m twin. We booked two of the middle sized rooms, and each had two beds and a sofa. The rooms worked well for both the adults and the kids and we appreciated the newer furnishings and bathrooms and the cleanliness of the rooms and hotel overall.
We chose the rate with included breakfast, which was provided by the attached restaurant, BLT Steak. They offered a buffet with both Western and Japanese breakfast items. The food was good but we ate there 5 days in a row and the menu was exactly the same every day so we were a little tired of it by the end. But we appreciated the ease of getting breakfast downstairs each morning and the overall quality of the food.
We had mixed feelings on the location of the hotel. It was located directly above the Roppongi-itchōme Station, although it took us a day or two to learn how to navigate to the exit of the station that was next to the hotel. (The rest of the exits let you out on the other side of the street and there was no place to cross to get to the hotel.) The station is served by the Namboku Line (N) which is not necessarily the best line for sight seeing. We had to transfer pretty much everywhere we went but the trains were so easy and efficient that it wasn’t a huge deal. Ultimately we found that the proximity of the hotel to a station was more important than the line in the station itself.
The hotel is located in a business district, which had its pluses and minuses. The neighborhood was very safe, clean and quiet, which was great. But part of the reason it was quiet was because it cleared out after the workday ended, and as a result there weren’t a ton of dining options nearby. The restaurants and convenience stores in the nearby office complexes by and large were not open in the evenings, which made dinners difficult at the end of long days. We had pizza twice from Pizzakaya, which was excellent but not exactly an authentic Japanese dining experience.
Overall we really liked this hotel. It was clean and comfortable and the staff were friendly and helpful. The rooms were newer and a good size. The proximity to the train station was amazing. But I don’t think I’d stay here again because of the overall location. Finding places to eat was a stressor for us on a lot of this trip and this was one of the hardest places for us to find a suitable (and open) restaurant. I would rather stay in a busier part of the city where there are multiple dining options (from restaurants to street food to fast food to convenience stores) to make eating out easier for us.
