In addition to hotels like the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel and the Disney Ambassador Hotel that are directly run by Oriental Land (Tokyo Disney Resort’s owner), there are three categories of third-party operated hotels.
Those labeled Tokyo Disney Resort Official Hotels like the Hilton Tokyo Bay are located around the Bayside Station on the Disney Resort Liner. The other two categories – Tokyo Disney Resort Partner and Good Neighbor Hotels – are located further away from the park but still offer free shuttles.
During one of our recent visits to Tokyo Disneyland, we stayed at one of the Tokyo Disney Resort Partner Hotels – Hotel Emion Tokyo Bay. Continue reading to see what the stay was like.
Getting to the Hotel
Like all other Tokyo Disney Resort Partner Hotels, getting to Hotel Emion Tokyo Bay is easy thanks to a free shuttle that connects the hotel with both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. The shuttle runs regularly throughout the day, generally with at least three buses per hour and with six or seven during busy periods.
The shuttle bus uses stop no. 6 at Disneyland and no. 8 at DisneySea and the ride takes between 15 and 20 minutes. At the hotel, the shuttle bus stops at both Emion Square and Emion Tower. Since both of these have their own reception, make sure to check which one you booked your stay at. During our two stays at this hotel, we stayed at Emion Tower both times.
You can see the latest shuttle bus schedule here.
Hotel Emion Tokyo Bay is also 10 or so minutes away on foot from Shin-Urayasu Station. Just like Maihama Station serving Tokyo Disney Resort, Shin-Urayasu Station is on the JR Keiyo Line.
With that, when coming to the hotel from Tokyo, you have two options: get off at Maihama, walk for a few minutes to the Tokyo Disneyland bus stop, and take the free shuttle bus which will drop you off in front of the hotel, or get off at Shin-Urayasu Station and walk to the hotel.
Unless you want to do something specific in Maihama like visit the Bon Voyage store or Ikspiari shopping mall, then it should be easier just getting off at Shin-Urayasu Station.
Check-in & Lobby
When we arrived just after 6:30PM, check-in was smooth and we got our room keys in no time. With many guests coming to the hotel straight after a day in the park, however, the lobby was very crowded around 10PM and they were calling people by numbers when it was their time to check in.
For those that didn’t have any extra room charges, it was possible to do express check-out by just returning the keys into a box next to the entrance.
In addition to the reception desk, there was also some seating for those waiting for their turn to check in.
With large floor-to-ceiling windows on one side, the reception area, while not large, was nice and had plenty of natural light during the day.
Next to the hotel entrance, there was also a bell desk (on the right side looking from the outside in) and a small kids’ space with soft mats and a TV (on the left side).
There was also a separate room with some more seating in the form of a couple of dining tables with chairs and some benches along one of the walls. The room was also home to another play area with nice large foam building blogs that kids could play with. The room provided a perfect space to wait for the shuttle bus after check-out.
In addition to the seating on the reception floor, there was another space for those that wanted to sit down and relax a bit on the second floor. That area was equipped with some benches and some sofa chairs.
For those that wanted something to drink, a bite to eat, or anything else, there was a Family Mart convenience store open from 7AM to 11AM and 3PM to 11PM. There were also a few vending machines.
Outside the hotel, along a nice patch of lawn, were some more tables. Those seemed to belong to one of the restaurants, though. There were also Easter rabbits… In June.
Separately, there was a smoking corner.
Guest Room
The first time we stayed at the hotel back in 2021, we stayed in a regular room with a double bed. This time around, however, we stayed in a Japanese tatami room as we thought it would be more comfortable since we were staying with our baby daughter.
We stayed in room 303, a short walk from the elevators, down a fairly uninspiring hallway.
Along the hallway was a room with an ice machine and a couple of microwave ovens.
Entering the room, there was a short and narrow hallway leading to its main part. On its left side was a small, narrow closet, and on its right side was the bathroom.
The one thing that I found nice was that the power switch where one usually puts a key card already had a dummy card in it so that the air conditioning would keep running and the power outlets would keep working. There was also something fairly unusual in the closet – a shoe dryer.
The bathroom consisted of three parts. Right behind the door connecting the bathroom to the room was a small area with a sink. There was a good selection of amenities including dental kits, hair bands, a shaving kit, bath tablets, etc.
There were then doors on the left and right sides of this area. The door on the left led to the shower room with a large bathtub and the door on the right to the toilet. In the shower room, basic amenities – shampoo, conditioner, body soap – by Pola were available.
The main part of the room consisted of a space with six tatami mats where futons were already waiting for us when we got to the room and a narrow space with wooden flooring around that.
There were also two sets of pajamas on the futons.
On the wooden flooring part of the room were a Japanese-style coffee table (this would be placed on the tatami parts during the day), a cabinet, and a TV.
Inside the cabinet were a small refrigerator, an electric kettle, some cups, and packs of coffee and green tea.
Inside the TV stand’s drawer was an extension cord and a cellphone charger. Those were very nice to have and I wish more hotels provided them – especially extension cords in older rooms with limited and inconveniently placed power outlets – by default.
There was also a small safe under the TV stand.
Lastly, there was also a traditional Japanese closet with an extra futon, bedding, etc. Extra pajamas of various sizes and children’s toothbrushes and slippers were available in front of the hotel’s public bath on the second floor.
The room’s window offered a view of the parking lot and some nearby buildings – nothing exciting.
Hohoemi no Yu Public Bath and Massages
One of the draws of Hotel Emion Tokyo Bay is its public bath with a hot spring. As mentioned in the previous section, it was on the second floor. With this being a typical Japanese public bath where people bathe naked, it had men’s and women’s sections.
In addition to an indoor bath and jet pool, there was also a nice outdoor bath (rotenburo).
Using the public bath wasn’t free but it was well worth the extra fee. It cost 800 yen (5.5 dollars) per entry with discounted entry available during certain hours and discounted one-night (i.e. one entry at night and one in the morning) and two-night tickets available too.
The bath was open from 5PM until 1AM and from 6AM until 10AM.
Separately, body and foot massages were available between 7PM and 2AM.
Dining
There were two restaurants directly at the hotel.
On the first floor was lala Italiana where a variety of pasta and other Italian dishes were available together with an appetizer buffet. This is the restaurant that also had some outdoor seating, which I briefly mentioned earlier in this review. When we stayed at the hotel, Lala Italiana was open daily from 11:30AM to 3:00PM for lunch and from 5:30PM to 10:00PM for dinner.
The other restaurant in the hotel was Kai. This was a Japanese restaurant that was open daily for dinner from 5:30PM to 10:00PM. On weekend and holidays, it was also open for lunch from 11:30AM to 3:00PM.
Breakfast
With Kai being on the 22nd floor, it offered some excellent views. While we didn’t visit it for lunch or dinner, we were served breakfast there. Perhaps we were lucky since some of the documentation showed breakfast as being served on the first floor and there were also some people having breakfast in the Italian restaurant.
In addition to regular tables, Kai also had a counter and even an outdoor terrace with an amazing view of the Tokyo skyline.
As for the breakfast itself, both the selection and the quality were good.
Starting with cold drinks, there was ice tea, barley tea, ice coffee, grapefruit juice, apple juice, and orange juice. Hot drinks included coffee, green tea, roasted tea, and black tea.
Going through the food selection, there were a few types of bread and pastries. To go with those, orange marmalade, blueberry jam, strawberry jam, and honey were available in addition to butter.
Then there was a salad bar with a variety of vegetables and dressings. There was also a table with potato salad, a variety of fruits, some jelly, yogurts, and smoked salmon.
Some cereals were available too.
Warm Western items included corn soup, sausages, bacon, pasta, French fries, and scrambled eggs.
There was even tomato rice for those that wanted to top it with scrambled eggs to make the Japanese dish “omurice.”
Japanese items included a variety of pickles and appetizers, miso soup, ochazuke (rice with soup), grilled fish, and countless other dishes.
Lastly, there were some desserts in the form of matcha pound cake, daifuku, and warabi mochi.
Hotel Emion Tokyo Bay Summary
All in all, we really enjoyed our stay at Hotel Emion Tokyo Bay. While nothing fancy, the room was large enough, the bathroom was spacious and clean, and the public bath was nice to relax in after a long day in Disneyland even at the extra cost. Additionally, not only was the breakfast great in itself but it was made even better thanks to the great views from the restaurant.
While the hotel cannot, of course, rival the Disney hotels or the hotels near Bayside Station, it is our top choice when we want a relatively cheap place to stay (the night cost us about 125 dollars) that’s easily accessible from the parks.
