"Not family-friendly — avoid if you have children
We stayed at Hotel Gracery Shinjuku briefly before catching our flight home, and it was honestly the low point of an otherwise incredible Japan trip.
We booked specifically because our 9-year-old is a huge Godzilla fan and we wanted to surprise him with the famous Godzilla head on the building. Sweet idea in theory, but the reality of the location completely overshadowed it.
The hotel sits right in the middle of Kabukicho, which means you’re surrounded by drunks, street prostitution, and genuinely filthy streets (huge rodents roaming around, beer bottles and cigarette butts everywhere) Not what you want when you’re traveling with young children. It felt unsafe and uncomfortable just walking around the area.
As for the room itself — it felt like a run-down motel. Nothing about it justified the price or the Shinjuku address. It was a sharp and disappointing contrast to the rest of our accommodations throughout Japan.
The only reason this doesn’t affect our overall trip memory is because we were there for just a few hours. If we had stayed longer it would have been a much bigger problem.
Save yourself the stress and book somewhere in a cleaner, calmer neighborhood."
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