Even by the high standards of luxury hotels in Japan, the Grand Prince Akasaka is outstanding. Many well-trained, friendly and helpful staff, large and comfortable bedrooms, excellent food - and if you shop around you can find very good room rates: I paid 13,000 yen ++, for a single room. The large buffet breakfast is worth it (2,700 yen), not least for the superlative view from the 40th floor; and you can sit and drink coffee for as long as you wish.

The Grand Prince was everything that I could have asked for during my recent brief Tokyo vacation. It's in a good location, just outside of busy Akasaka, with tons of places to eat and drink, and very close to a subway with good connections all over the city. We happened to be there during cherry blossom week, and outside the hotel is one of the more impressive displays in the city, so there were always people out there shooting photos.

The room was definitely better than expected. It had amazing views, being on the 28th floor. There was a big, comfortable bed, along with a large L-shaped sofa, in a very spacious room. We stayed at another similarly-priced hotel (Sunroute Shinjuku) during our stay that had a room about a third of the size. As a disclaimer, however, we did stay in a capsule hotel the night before checking in, so it may have seemed even bigger than it was.

The front desk staff couldn't have been nicer, and all the hotel seemed to have every amenity that you could ask for. I'd recommend it to anybody!

We miss the Akasaka Prince hotel! We stayed 4 nights in May 2007 and it was one of the best hotels I've stayed at in a while. We had requested a room on a high floor, and the hotel gave us an enormous room on the 35th floor, with a great view. The room had a king size bed with two nightstands, a full couch, a desk and several chairs, a coffee table, and a tv chest, and we still had plenty of room to spread out. The bathroom had a nice deep bathtub, and the hotel provided all sorts of amenities from q-tips, band-aids, headbands, and bath salts to several miniature bottles each of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and body wash. The rooms all have panoramic windows - which was awesome. Although the hotel is in a "business hotel" district and there isn't too much to do in Akasaka, the hotel is a 2-3 minute walk away from Tokyo's extensive Metro, where you can get most anywhere in the city for 160 yen. Plus, there are some excellent restaurants right outside the hotel. I appreciated the express elevator that allowed people in rooms on the 20th-40th floor to zoom on up. The service was great. Our friend joined us in Tokyo and had booked a room at this hotel as well. Although Akasaka Prince had given him a double room for the duration of his stay, upon check out they asked if he was traveling alone, and volunteered to charge him at a significantly cheaper single rate. We booked this hotel on priceline.com for an average of $130 a night, and didn't have any problems. Will stay here again when I visit the fabulous city of Tokyo in the future.

We recently enjoyed our third stay at the Grand Prince Akasaka. On this occasion we had a twin-room on the 38th floor, 3848. It was on the extreme left of the building (which is fan-shaped) and afforded superb views, not least of Fuji-san which gave me a frisson of joy each morning when I pulled back the curtains.

The room was supremely clean and spacious. The single beds could almost be called small doubles. There was a comfortable curved seating-arrangement along by the window, plus a desk, flat-screen tv, dressing-table 'nook' and a coffee-table. I don't 'do' cramped and appreciated the space which was accentuated by the huge picture-windows.

We had a breakfast inclusive rate and each morning enjoyed the extensive buffet offered at the Blue Gardenia restaurant on the 40th floor.

I have two small gripes:

Firstly, the 'air conditioning' in the room only worked as a heater. It was set at 24ºC when we arrived which was way too hot for me so I turned it down to 18ºC, assuming it would cool. Not so. It took 24 hours for me to realise that the only solution was to switch off the heat altogether. I'm almost sure the two triple-rooms I've stayed in at the GP Akasaka in the past had a proper air-conditioning system which allowed us to cool the room, as well as heat it.

Second gripe: On my last day I changed some money at the front desk's currency exchange. 20 mins later they rang to say they couldn't accept Scottish bank notes after all, only Bank of England notes. I was less than amused and suggested their 'GBP' exchange rate was misleading if, in fact, they only accepted English money and not legal British tender in general. Lesson learnt though.

Overall the Grand Prince Akasaka more than meets my needs. I like its location and handy transport links; I like the close proximity of two shrines - the Hie Jinja and Toyokawa Inari - and I like the network of busy streets around the Akasaka-Mitsuke station, full of cafes, convenience stores, pachinko parlours etc.

SnowFalling