Hilton Tokyo Bay Review
Hilton Tokyo Bay is Tokyo Disney Resort “Official Hotel,” meaning that it’s an on-property hotel. This Hilton is located within a few hundred yards of the monorail. Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, and the ocean are all within view of the Hilton Tokyo Bay, meaning that just about every guest room has a great view. Hilton Tokyo Bay is a less-expensive alternative to the Disney-branded hotels at Tokyo Disney Resort: Hotel MiraCosta, Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, and Disney’s Ambassador Hotel.
This was the first hotel at which we stayed on Tokyo Disney Resort property, and it remains one of our favorites. Originally, we based our decision to stay here on hours of research and combing various trip reports and other locations for information. After our first night in downtown Tokyo, where our room was the size of a large closet, I was prepared for the worst with the Hilton Tokyo Bay, at least in terms of room size.
I was pleasantly surprised when we opened the door and found a room that was more spacious than a typical hotel room. Definitely larger than even any standard Deluxe tier room at a Walt Disney World resort hotel. We were upgraded at check-in to the Celebrio Select rooms, which was a room with modern, retro-futuristic stylization.
There are other categories of rooms, including a “Happy Magic” category, which is themed to a fairytale forest to appeal to kids. For this review, we’ll take a look at the Celebrio rooms…
These rooms were designed by acclaimed Tokyo interior designer Asao Nakayama of the W Design International (ironically, known as “WDI” in Japan), and debuted a couple of years ago. The rooms had a predominantly white look, with aqua and black accents to give it a very clean and crisp aesthetic.
The rooms also have a lot of curved lines and colored lighting that guests can control to help change the mood. Just about everything lit up, from the headboard of the bed, to the underside of ledges, to edge accents throughout the room. If you look closely at the reflection in the mirror of the bathroom photo below, you’ll notice some of this mood lighting in the shower.
As someone who is impressed by bright objects, I thought these were awesome touches, and were my favorite aspects of the room. In seriousness, though, I really do like dynamic lighting like this and also Googie/futurist architecture and design, so I definitely have a bias towards this style of room. I’m not sure whether this review would be quite so glowing if we stayed in a standard room.
The beds were incredibly nice, with high quality bedding and great pillows. There were docks for iPhones (including the iPhone 5) that enable music to be played throughout the room, even in the shower. Televisions were flat, LCD displays, that featured a number of all-Japanese stations, including Tokyo Disney Resort TV (again, only in Japanese…but if you go, this station is a must-watch for its humorous Duffy segments).
The room also included a fridge, magazines, and other amenities. The toilet was a standard Japanese “smart toilet,” complete with heated seat and numerous other “features” that I won’t delve into! 😉 Overall, it was a very nice room.
Sarah was most impressed by the view of the ocean and Mt. Fuji in the distance, and she spent a lot of time on that aqua chair in the corner of the room in the distance.
Rooms across the have have views of Cinderella Castle that are better the best room at Disney’s Contemporary Resort would have. While I liked our ocean view, I would have preferred the Castle view! Based on orientation and layout, I assume most rooms have either Cinderella Castle/Mount Prometheus views or ocean views, but I could be wrong on that.
As was the case with everywhere we stayed in Japan, the staff at the Hilton Tokyo Bay was great. I had several late nights and early mornings, and I was always greeted by someone each time I left or arrived who was eager to find out if I needed any assistance or anything for the room.
The hotel also had a coffee shop and restaurant where breakfast was served (this was included, although we never ate here). Likewise, the hotel had numerous other amenities we did not use, such as a pool and conference rooms. You can read about those amenities on its website. In addition to monorail transportation to the parks, there were also official Disney buses that provided transportation from the hotel (the monorail was more convenient to get to the parks).
Bringing the comparison back to Walt Disney World, I’d rate this room above anything we’ve experienced at Walt Disney World, and we’ve stayed at just about every hotel there. Obviously, this room lacks any Disney motifs, so if that kind of thing is important to you, one of the three hotels mentioned above is a better option.
However, it does has its own very distinct theme, as mentioned here, and it almost reminded me of something Stanley Kubrick might dream up for a set in one of his films. The room screamed ‘modern Tokyo’ to me, and I thought the design was very fun.
Given the size and quality of its rooms, plus the location of the Hilton Tokyo Bay on the monorail loop, I think its fair to compare this hotel to a Walt Disney World Deluxe hotel. The biggest difference besides the lack of Disney branding is the lack of Disney pricing. We paid about $150/night, which is around half of what we typically pay at a Walt Disney World Deluxe resort-hotel. This is the big reason why we’ve said that a Tokyo Disney Resort trip might not be more expensive than a Walt Disney World vacation if you’re used to staying in Deluxe resorts (while the airfare will be more, this cheaper room might compensate for that).
We have noticed that prices for these rooms fluctuates substantially. The day before we booked our stay, prices on every booking site (including Hilton.com) were around $150/night. (Update: we’ve since stayed at Hilton Tokyo Bay many times, and consider a good price to be under $160/night.)
If you can’t find a good price at Hilton Tokyo Bay, there are several other “official” hotels in the area (we recommend one of these hotels, not a hotel in downtown Tokyo, as the commute will be around 45 minutes, and you definitely want to be at the parks before rope drop).
Overall, I don’t think I can praise Hilton Tokyo Bay enough. When we initially booked, I was disappointed that Hotel MiraCosta was out of our price range, but after staying in this room and then seeing the smaller rooms of the MiraCosta, that disappointed faded. Price not being an issue I’d still stay at Hotel MiraCosta just because the whole thing is so ornate and distinctly Disney, but the Hilton Tokyo Bay was certainly nothing like any non-Disney hotel you can imagine in the United States. Only the Swan and Dolphin at Walt Disney World are even close to comparable. Those of you used to staying at Good Neighbor hotels at Disneyland will definitely be pleasantly surprised by 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 have stayed at the Hilton Tokyo Bay or any hotel at Tokyo Disney Resort, we’d love to hear about your experience with your hotel (including your room category)! Do you plan on staying at Hilton Tokyo Bay? Have any additional questions? Hearing from you is half the fun, so please share in the comments!
This is probably a dumb question, but I can’t find an answer online anywhere. For a family of four, there is a Twin Bed and a King Bed option on the Hilton website. I understand for the Twin Bed room there will be four beds in the room if you book for four people. But what about the King Bed option? Will there be two king beds, or a king and two twins? Thanks for your help.
Just booked this hotel for my May 2020 trip! It was Travelocity’s deal of the day, so I just went for it! Might as well stay somewhere nice for my first ever out of country vacation! And my mom feels much better about me traveling alone when I stay on-property.
I really appreciate all the information you have on visiting Tokyo Disney. I’m seeing prices around $200-250 for this hotel for travel in early December–is it best to wait a bit longer to book? Thanks!
Hi Melissa,
I thought I would give some advice in case Tom doesn’t reply. I see that he arrived in Kyoto a couple of days ago just before I left there.
I have just checked into the Hilton today. I booked my room in late January and managed to get it for around US$120pn. I found that it made a huge difference depending on which and how many days you want to book. For me it was coming up a lot cheaper if I booked 4 or more days during the week. It was a lot more expensive booking on weekends or for less than 4 days. It also varied from week to week. So if you are flexible, try checking dates across a few different weeks.
You won’t regret booking this hotel. It is one of the nicest hotels I have stayed at. Got a free upgrade to a Celebrio room too. I guess this must be fairly common during the low season.
Good luck,
Mike
Hi Tom,
Thanks for this thoughtful review! I live by your guides when travelling to a new park.
Question about this hotel — we will be four adults looking to stay in a room and Expedia is telling me that the double twin rooms would accommodate four adults. In your experience, were the “twin” beds big enough for two adults to sleep in?
When you book a room for 4, they add two more beds to it.
Hi Tom
I’m planning a trip with our 4 and 5 year old to Tokyo. How far is this hotel from Tokyo itself? Was wondering if we could just stay here for 5 nights and do the park plus Tokyo and maybe do two nights at Disney sea before we head off to Kyoto ?
Hi Tom.. thank you for your very informative review on the Hilton Tokyo Bay! I am in the process planning a Tokyo Disney trip for my family for next June 2019. It will be for me and my husband and my two teenage daughters. I had a question about the bed sizes in the rooms. – We prefer at least a queen-size in American standards to share.
– Are the beds in the rooms twin size only? From pictures would you recommend the bunk bed family rooms for the 4 of us? –
– Also is this hotel close to DisneySea also? I’d like to stay in one hotel and go to both parks for convenience sake.
– Lastly which airport is closest to the parks?
Thank you for your help!
Hi there,
My daughter and is booked in Hilton Tokyo Bay which is closer to Disneyland where she will celebrate her birthday. I hope there will be a complimentary upgrade for us since we will stay for 5-nights.
My concern is, how difficult to use the train going to Hamamatsucho bus terminal? Most of the meeting point for tours are far in Hilton Tokyo Bay, will you still recommend to stay in this Hotel?
We have another booking in Tokyo Prince Hotel but I am still undecided the good thing is guaranteed pass available in Hilton to Disneyland.
Please advice.
Thank you and regards,
Is there any early access to Disney parks staying at this hotel?
Can anyone explain the sizes of the Japanese hotel beds? The Miracosta says twin but they look like double or queen sized. We are a family of 5 – it looks like 2 rooms at Disney hotel but maybe one at Hilton Toyko Bay?
That sounds so great. We’re planning our first trip to Japan, we have two children, one with autism. We’re just getting quotes/prices from travel agents now. We initially requested the Hyatt in Tokyo but they’re booked out for when we want to travel (Jan 2016). So we’re still looking for accommodation in Tokyo for three or four days we want to base ourselves there. But we’ve requested the Hilton Tokyo Bay for its proximity to Disneyland and ease of getting to and from the park with the kids. Thanks so much for the info, its really been very helpful!!