Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Review

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Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay is a TDR official hotel within a 5-minute walk of the monorail station serving DisneySea and Disneyland. This resort review features room photos from two rooms in which we’ve stayed at the Sheraton, plus thoughts on the hotel, and our overall recommendation on whether you should stay here.

The Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay is a tale of two hotels. You walk into the lobby, and it’s lavish, modern, and upscale. It feels like a hybrid of a upscale business-class hotel and a high-end family resort. Nicer than the adjacent Hilton Tokyo Bay, which is our favorite hotel at Tokyo Disney Resort.

If you’re lucky enough to be upgraded to one of the new Sheraton Club, Park Wing, or Ocean Dream rooms, this experience continues in your guest room. This redesigned rooms are all quite nice, with sleek and stylish designs. However, most of the rooms are not of this caliber…

Normal guest rooms feel like they are straight out of the early 90s. They have the smell of cigarette smoke caked into the walls, non-descript, and boring decor. Even after the recent refurbishment, they just look a bit too dull.

Take a look for how this juxtaposition plays out in photos, starting with the guest rooms and followed by the common areas and amenities…

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On our first stay at the Sheraton Tokyo Bay, we stayed in a room for 4. For whatever reason, the Japanese hotels that do accept 4 guests in a room (most max out at 2-3) provide 4 separate beds.

These rooms offer coffee, tea, water, and flat screen TV for watching your favorite Japanese game shows after a long day in Tokyo Disneyland or DisneySea.

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They also provide a large table in the middle of the room, and I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s presumed that you’re going to have a board room style meeting or they are trying to accommodate American guests who engage in epic nightly poker tournaments. The table is more of a hassle than anything else.

Make sure you’re a SPG member and book through the Sheraton website to get free WiFi. We did not book directly the first time we stayed here, and it took some persistence to get free WiFi (we have an SPG credit card, so we showed the front desk that, and they gave it to us–otherwise it’s 1,000 yen per day).

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Regardless, the room is bland. In fairness, however, this is pretty common of Japanese hotel rooms, and the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay is not even an outlier among the nearby hotels.

Despite its age, in typical Japanese fashion, the room has been impeccably maintained.

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On the plus side, the bathroom was exceptional. A large and spacious shower room (yep, big enough to be considered its own room, I’d say) and an excellent stash of toiletries.

This area is dated like the rest of the room, but functionally, it was solid.

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On our second stay at the Sheraton Grande, it was just the two of us, and this was our room. Same type of issues with age and blandness, but definitely a better layout with just two beds. These rooms are not awful by any means, but as compared to the alternatives, they’re a bit disappointing.

These are two double “Sheraton Sweet Sleeper Beds,” which I guess is Sheraton’s proprietary bedding system. By American standards, these beds are pretty firm, but still softer than the typical Japanese beds (which tend to be on the firmer side). Think of them as a compromise between the two.

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The bathroom in this room was nice, too, albeit smaller.

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If you’re able to book one without paying much of a premium, the “Ocean Dream” rooms are newer and have a much more engaging style. We have yet to stay in these ourselves (the prices have never been ideal), but look forward to doing so.

The normal rooms versus the ‘enhanced’ rooms make it a challenge to rank the Sheraton in our Hotel Reviews & Rankings for Tokyo Disneyland. We’ve heard from a few people who received a free upgrade to this class of room, and if that happens to you, we’d consider the Sheraton superior to the Hilton. (In case you want to roll the dice on a free upgrade…)

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All of the common areas are modern and extremely nice.

These look like they’re virtually brand new, and my presumption is that the lobby was the first phase of the renovation project.

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There are plenty of areas to sit and relax around the lobby, and there’s a waterfall area that’s a soothing place to sit while enjoying a morning cup of coffee (there’s a coffee shop in the lobby, plus other restaurants).

Beyond that, the lobby offers a Link@Sheraton business center, which has computers for complimentary internet use. There’s also a florist, beauty salon, and shopping promenade adjacent to the lobby. I’m pretty sure the hotel does substantial wedding business, as several of these shops seem aimed squarely at brides. That would explain the florist.

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…and the chapels. (That’s chapels, plural. There are 2 at the hotel.)

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There’s also a Disney Fantasy Store where you can purchase tickets and other various souvenirs. If you’re going during a busy time, it’s worth noting that guests of the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay are guaranteed admission even when the parks are sold out. (Which happens on plenty of weekends.)

I forgot to take photos, but there’s also an area called the Oasis just beyond this in an annex building (which I assume is the future home to the guest room expansion). The Oasis is where the Treasure Island kids play area is located, as well as “Namco Land Game Arcade.” (It’s also where guest laundry is located, which is why I was there.) This area is huge, and kids seemed to be having a blast there.

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There’s also a pool in the Oasis building, but the main draw is the Garden Pool, which is only open seasonally. On our stay at the end of June, it was just preparing to open (at the beginning of July).

It looks awesome, but sadly, we did not get to experience it. On the last day of our stay, it was filled with water, but not yet open…what teases.

Overall, Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay is generally solid, but the standard guest rooms leave something to be desired, especially as compared to the basic rooms at the Hilton Tokyo Bay next door. However, the common areas at the Sheraton look wonderful, as do the enhanced rooms, and the hotel is incredibly rich in terms of amenities. With all of that said, we would only recommend the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay if it’s $20/night (or more) cheaper than the Hilton Tokyo Bay.

If you’re thinking of visiting Japan for the first time and are overwhelmed with planning, definitely check out our Tokyo Disney Resort Planning Guide. It covers much more than the parks, from getting there to WiFi to currency and much, much more. For more photos and an idea of what we did day-by-day during our first visit, read our Tokyo Disney Resort Trip Report.

Your Thoughts

If you’ve stayed at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay, what did you think? Are the lovely common areas and robust amenities enough to convince you to stay here, or are the rooms too big of a disappointment? Thinking about staying here? Other thoughts or questions? Share in the comments below!

21 Responses to “Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Review”
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