Autumn 2025. We – Sam and Danny, Michel and Wille, and Timothy – are travelling to Japan for a quite classic tour of the Land of the Rising Sun. We are flying separately as we used miles. On the planning: Tokyo, Kanazawa, Shirakawa, Osaka, and Expo 2025, Hiroshima, Himeji, Miyajima, Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya, Hakone, and back to Tokyo. Three weeks plus some extra days.

The first hotel of the trip where we would be sleeping all together would be the Pullman Tamachi in Tokyo. Tamachi is a more business oriented area of Tokyo with not much touristy things around, but it has excellent connections to the rest of Tokyo with both JR trains from Tamachi station and metro lines from Mita station.

The Pullman hotel is actually located on the same overpass construction as the JR station, which means you will not have to do any stairs from the station concourse to the hotel. Originally we were looking at a cheaper Ibis Styles in the Ginza area, because Sam complained of too high travel costs. In the end Sam than chose the Pullman as “it looked nicer and more comfortable”, and thus we ended up in the more expensive and posher hotel.

As we arrived in the evening after our inbound flight from Brussels via Doha on Qatar Airways, landing in Narita Airport we had quite a long trek on the Narita Express before arriving at the hotel. when we arrived it was very quiet, with check-in completed in no-time.

What we did notice was that the hotel bars, restaurant and room service ended quite early. Room service was finished at 20:30, while the last bar closed at 22:00, both quite early for a 5 star hotel. Due to our late arrival we couldn’t even make use of our welcome drink on the first night as the bar was already closed. Luckily there was a 7/11 open 24/7 just across the hotel where we could get some sustenance, but it doesn’t feel very 5 star luxury like this.

We received a Room on high floor overlooking the station. It was decorated in a nice modern style and very spacious for Tokyo standards. The big king-size bed was very comfortable and offered power sockets and USB-A sockets at both sides of the bed. What I also liked was the possibility to dim the lights.

The room also had complimentary bottled water, restocked every day, coffee and tea facilities with both a proper cup coffee machine and a proper water kettle to boil hot water for tea. We also got a welcome gift due to my ALL gold status, a bottle of sparkling water and some interesting ginger cookies.

Sam and I had a a bathroom with a toilet, sink and walk-in shower while timothy had reserved more expensive room with a full bath tub. The amenities provided where the typical Pullman brand standard C.O. Bigelow, I actually quite like this scent so I was pleased. They also had most products in big multi-use dispenser bottles but also gave a small box of small amenities to go, which was a nice gesture. Another quirk was that they also provided pyjamas to sleep in, apparently a staple in Japanese hotels.

As we had booked an executive room we had access to the Executive Lounge. The lounge was beautifully decorated in a typical modern and minimalist Japanese style. The limited size and low visitor volume made for a very cosy atmosphere. The lounge also offered views over the train station below, which is always much appreciated.

We did feel that there was cost-cutting in the food an beverage department. “Breakfast” (which they called refreshments) only started at 8:00 and offered only some croissants, if you wanted some yoghurt you could request it and the lounge attendant would fetch it, but nothing else. Contrary to some other hotels that have a very basic breakfast offering in the lounge, they didn’t include access to the main breakfast buffet which felt very stingy.

The afternoon tea also wasn’t overly impressive with just some cookies and two types of desserts.

The evening spread was somewhat better with some more nibbles both cold and warm on offer, but the dessert was the same as for afternoon tea. They did have a nice alcoholic offering during the happy hour, but the offer of soft drinks was small and weirdly chosen. They had plenty of coke zero but regular coke had to be requested. They clearly did massive cost cuts to the lounge and this was very unfortunate as the space really has the bones to have a top notch lounge.

As the breakfast in the lounge was so meagre, we opted to eat at the main breakfast buffet the second morning, fulfilling the wish of management to upsell by having to buy the breakfast buffet. At least the breakfast buffet was very nice, with a big offering and qualitative items. We had a very delicious and filling breakfast.

The hotel also had a nice gym area on the top floor next to the lounge, with all sorts of equipment available. The top floor was also host to the indoor smoking area for the hotel aswell as a rooftop bar for evening drinks. Here we had our welcome drink on the last night of our stay. What I liked was that they had a separate drinks menu for the welcome drinks for All members, making it very clear what you could order, something other hotels could do too.

All in all we had a fine stay at the Pullman Tokyo Tamachi, it is a clean and modern hotel with a convenient location. We were a bit disappointed in the lounge offering as it was clearly cost-cut to the bare minimums. But maybe the era of the nice hotel lounges has been over since the COVID-19 pandemic as we had more disappointing lounge experiences since.

2025 Journey Across Japan

1. Japan’s Superconducting Maglev train breaks world speed record at 603 km/h.
2. Japan’s maglev bullet train delayed to 2035 or later as costs rise to ¥11 trillion.
3. QUESTION | Should you be stressed about travelling to Japan, and fear of missing out?.
4. Brussels Airport to Milan Malpensa with Brussels Airlines, operated by Air Baltic, ft. the 2025 check-in and boarding software hack.
5. REVIEW | Sala Montale Exclusive Lounge and Sala Gae Aulentin Premium Lounge at Milan Malpensa Airport, extra Schengen.
6. REVIEW | All Nippon Airways (ANA), Business Class, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to Tokyo.
7. REVIEW | Toei Animation Museum in Nerima, Tokyo.
8. JAPAN | Tokyo Station, its Character Street and Pokémon Store.
9. REVIEW | Onyado Nono Asakusa Hotel in Tokyo.
10. TOKYO | Asakusa ft. Sensō-ji Temple.
11. JAPAN | The Odoriko train from Tokyo to Ito on Izu Peninsula.
12. PHOTOS & REVIEW | The Izu Teddy Bear Museum in Izu-Kōgen.
13. JAPAN | A visit to Ito on Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture.
14. REVIEW | Japan’s Saphir Odoriko in Premium Green Car from Ito on Izu Peninsula to Tokyo Station.
15. GAY TOKYO | 24 Kaikan in Asakusa (+ Ueno and Shinjuku).
16. TOKYO | Sawara in Chiba Prefecture, ‘Little Edo’ beyond Narita.
17. TOKYO | Omotesandō in Shibuya – AEON Shinonome –  Uniqlo – Muji.
18. PHOTOS | The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei Park.
19. JAPAN | Solo in Tokyo.
20. REVIEW | Brussels Airport The View lounge.
21. REVIEW | Qatar Airways Business Class Brussels to Doha.
22. REVIEW | Qatar Airways Al Mourjan The Garden Business lounge.
23. REVIEW | Qatar Airways Q-Suite Business Class Doha to Tokyo.