APA Hotel Tokyo Itabashi Ekimae Review

APA-branded hotels are a familiar sight across Japan. It’s yet another short-transit business hotel that’s also very popular with travelers who don’t need a posh room or services.

This time around, my wife and I stayed at the APA Hotel in the Itabashi ward of metropolitan Tokyo.

Though this hotel is in a very quiet neighborhood, there is a JR train station just a short 3 minute walk from the hotel doors. From there, you can hop on the train and in 2 stops you’re in all the action of the Shinjuku district.

Like lots of 2 or 3 star business hotels in Japan, the APA Itabashi is a basic no-frills hotel. Services are always good in my opinion in any Japanese hotel. Hotel staff are always friendly and quick to assist guests.

But this hotel has no swimming pool or gym. It’s common for these types of hotels. There is free Wi-Fi, which to me is way more important.

I mentioned that the Itabashi area is very quiet. It’s mostly a residential area. But there are many restaurants. We arrived late at night, and after we checked in at the APA Itabashi.

We walked a few minutes out to the main road just opposite Itabashi JR station and found a ramen restaurant.

I forgot to take a pic of the restaurant. If you’re in front of the train station, just look straight, and you should find it. So if you’ve arrived at the hotel around 9 pm and everything else is closed, go give them a try.

There is a McDonald’s near the station too, and as I recall, it opened pretty late.

There’s also an Italian restaurant right across from the hotel. They serve large servings of all kinds of spaghetti and decent pizza. It’s a lively restaurant with super friendly staff.

My wife and I were there during Halloween, and we played some sort of guess the weight of the pumpkin game. We lost. But we still got a piece of candy. It was a really fun place with good grub.

I took pics, but because the interior was very dark, the shots came out poorly.

So the rooms at the APA Itabashi are small. Okay, that’s not a shocker. It’s not a complaint as I am quite used to it. Their small double bedrooms are 12 square meters.

It is what it is because most hotels in Japan in the $125 and under price range cost that much. There’s a small desk with a wide screen TV that nearly takes up the entire table space. A small fridge plus a hot water kettle with bags of Japanese green tea.

And our room is clean. Though the bed sagged in the middle, my wife and I still slept fine. Sightseeing and walking around exploring is the best sleep medicine.

I booked the room through Agoda and paid $120 USD per night.

But I just checked Agoda as I wrote this post and saw pics of the APA Itabashi and noticed that the hotel looks renovated.

The hotel lobby looked totally different than the time I was last there. And just doing a random price check, I saw that a small double bedroom costs around $90 USD for July with taxes included.

Too bad I’m not planning on going to Tokyo then.

I like this hotel a lot. Taking a stroll through a cool October night through the hotel’s neighborhood was nice. And because the train station was so near, we could hit a lot of the major tourist destinations easily.

APA Itabashi is easily one of the easiest hotels for me to recommend to anyone looking to visit Tokyo.

It was a $10 USD mistake since we had to hop on a taxi to take us to APA Itabashi, which was only a 5 minute taxi ride.)

(Just a quick note. There are many APA hotels all over Japan. So be sure you have the right address for the hotel. The first night we arrived in Tokyo, we checked in at the wrong hotel.

Read reviews and find discounts for APA Hotel Tokyo Itabashi Ekimae on Agoda.com