We got a great rate as we booked this hotel only before we got on the plane. Hotels in Japan are very different to hotels in Europe. The rooms are small and 3 or 4 star hotels are very expensive. The Monterey Hanzomon is a modern and stylish hotel with great interior and design. The rooms are still small but very clean.

As a solo traveler on a long trip through Asia, I wanted a place in Tokyo that would serve as a convenient home base for exploring the sights. The Monterey Hanzomon is situated in the middle of the city. It is only on one subway line, so it is a little harder to get to, but if you're used to navigating any kind of public transportation system (like NYC) you'll have absolutely no trouble in Tokyo. The hotel is sleek and stylish, yet welcoming (think W Hotels.) The hallways are decorated in modern, dark tones and feature calming music that instantly whisks you away from the frenetic pace of the city. While the basic rooms are quite small, I don't imagine the average room in Tokyo is much different. The decor inside the rooms is also quite nice, and the most important things are done well: shower pressure is amazing, the toilet has lots of strange buttons (gotta love Japan for that), and there are more free toiletries than you'll know what to do with. There's even BBC on the tele and free Wall Street Journal Asia under your door. It's not a five-star hotel, but they offer some great rates that make this a real bargain for an expensive city like Tokyo. Definitely would return.

We've stayed in a range of high end luxury hotels and super cheap hotels and while this isn't the worst place we've stayed at, it definitely was a bad experience. Tokyo is a great city but it's an easy city to feel lost in considering the limited spoken English and Japanese characters and the last thing you need is a hotel that's unwilling to help. We found the service here to be one of the worst ever. Very few of them spoke English and the instructions they did give were completely thoughtless. For example, we asked them how to catch the airport limousine on departure. They told us where to go but failed to tell us that we had to reserve a seat. Of course, when we got there, the bus seats were sold out and only after someone haggled with the bus driver did we somehow get on. We were especially perturbed by the fact that they called us to demand that we check out immediately and they would be charging us for being late. Of course we realized later that the notice of a 11am checkout was on our desk. However, it was in Japanese. Oh, and we're married and they still put us in a room with 2 single beds. On a side note, the rooms are on average okay. Not worth the $180/nt we paid for the room. We've stayed in better rooms for that price. While this hotel might be nice for locals, this definitely is not a place to stay at if you're not.

My husband and I stayed at the Monterey Hanzomon for 3 nights in June 2008. We paid ?66 a night through lastminute.com which was a real bargain. Our room was reasonable sized, clean, and quiet. The decor was modern with a few nice touches - the flower prints above the headboards and the striped wallpaper of different shades of chocolate and purples in the bathroom showed some effort had gone in to making the room relaxing and homey. The hotel is located literally across the street from the Hanzomon metro station, which makes it a very convenient base for sightseeing or heading out in the evening. It took us about 20 minutes to get to Shinjuku and slightly longer to get to Roppongi - but living in London we are used to a bit of a journey on public transport to get anywhere! And to be honest, in a city the size of Tokyo, you are going to have to get used to travelling to get anywhere! There is not much in the way of nightlife around the hotel, although there are a string of restaurants on the same road as the hotel. We ate at one on our last night there - a kind of fusion bistro - which was actually a really nice change from the bright lights of Shinjuku and Roppongi. It had a lovely neighbourhood feel. There is also a great bakery a few doors up from the hotel which is good for picking up a cheap breakfast on the run. If I found myself in Tokyo again I would certainly stay at the Monterey Hanzomon again. Some recent reviews have criticised the cleanliness of the hotel, but our room was spotlessly clean and so were the public areas. A few reviews have criticised the reception staff - all I can say is that the staff I spoke to were helpful and friendly, even if their english was limited. If you want to be right in the thick of the neon and nightlife this is probably not the right hotel for you. But if you want a decent hotel as a convenient base that won't break the bank, give the Monterey Hanzomon a try.