My wife and I spent Christmas at the New Otani. (We were in Tokyo visiting our son who lives there.
We liked the hotel. It was very full Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. (lots of young Japanese couples seem to treat themselves to a few nights at the Otani over Christmas).
As others have written the hotel is HUGE so avail yourself of the hotel map when you book in.
The food in the main restaurants is way too expensive but used to get a taxi into Roppongi at night ( about a 1000 yen) or get a train ( station 5/10 minute walk away ) to where our son lives in
Kichijoji which had literally 100's of restaurants at reasonable prices.
If you just want a reasonably priced meal at hotel then go to the Aux Bacchanales (go out of Tower exit, turn left and its about a minute away)
[--]
Good lunch for about a 1000 yen.
Also both the main and tower sections of hotel have 3 floors of shops and restaurants ( you have to get escalator or elevator down to the shopping areas.) You can find coffee bar, pizza etc at normal rates.
Just avoid the hotels 'showcase 'restaurants, far too expensive.
We had some drinks in the Bar Capri one night and I ask for some rice crackers. 6 were prented, each in its own wrapper.
I thought it was like most bars where they give you peanuts or whatever to nibble on for free.
I noticed on the bill that the 6 crackers cost 520 yen ,about 40 pence a cracker !
The staff are helpful and friendly, the hotel, the room are spotless, .. but the main reason for staying is the 400 year old garden .. breathtakingly beautiful . Each morning if you have breakfast in the garden court restaurant yoy can look out on to the garden.
There is also a lovely art gallery.
If you intend staying at the New Otani then go on the site and sign up to the New Otani club (its free).
It gives you a few freebies (free entrance to art gallery, no service charge for breakfast etc.) so its worth joining.
To sum up, we loved the hotel and will stay there again, we will not be ordering any rice crackers though !

My husband and I traveled to Tokyo just after Christmas together with some friends of ours. We chose this hotel because the rate was very reasonable (under USD200/night… we booked the room through the hotel’s website a month before our trip).

The hotel is located right next (3 minute walk from hotel room) to Akasaka Mitsuke metro station and a 10 minute walk to a JR station. This meant we were only 3 or 4 stations away from Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza and Akihabara. The best part about this hotel is it was built in the 1960’s so you don’t have to worry about getting lost because everyone knows where it is

If you’re a United Airlines Mileage Plus 1K member you can get a free room upgrade. The guy who checked us in ignored this offer but after much “wrangling” he gave us an upgrade to a “deluxe” tower room for 4 out of 5 nights. I must admit he was pretty rude about it and made us feel like we were begging for the upgrade.

The “deluxe” room is double the size of a regular standard room, complete with a large living room area. Our room was clean, with a huge bathroom. The room reminded me of the 1970’s because of the dark color scheme they used on the sofas and carpet. You could tell the hotel has been around for years (fair wear & tear) but everything was clean and they gave us an ample supply of Kanebo shampoo, conditioner and shower gel.

I tried the in-room massage (JPY6300 for 50 minutes) and didn’t like it but maybe I’m not used to Japanese massages.

We had dinner at Nadaman on our last night and had a very pleasant kaiseki dinner. The service was very good but I still don’t understand why they prefer to serve the men first in Japan!

We took the airport limousine bus to the airport (the first departure of the day at 6:20am) which took us directly to Narita airport.

Most people at the hotel spoke English (some spoke very good English) but we had to speak to a few people to get a reasonable answer if we had a complicated question.

I recommend this hotel.

The New Otani in Tokyo is huge. It consists of two towers, the new and the old tower. I stayed in the old tower because there was a huge price difference between the two. My single, king, room was a corner so it was large and spacious. No complaints regarding the room. The things that I do not like is that they charged me 300 yen ($3) for each toll-free call I made from my room (calling card). This is the first and only hotel that I have encountered this. I ordered room service once when I arrived (tired and exhausted), it was decent, hit the spot, but was about $30 for a fried chicken dinner. If you want to use the pool and facilities expect to pay extra for those $20-$30 per day... ouch. The location is great, right in the center of Tokyo, but there are also hundreds of other that are too. For the price and the service fees this hotel is very over rated and over priced. There are many more newer, trendier, and more personable hotels in Tokyo for the same price.

The New Otani is made up of two towers: the original 1964 Olympics tower (which looks austere) and a round-edged white tower built more recently. They are connected by a long corridor and the entire hotel sits on a 10-acre garden that has a small waterfall. (Actually it is a big waterfall if I were to have it but it's a small waterfall as waterfalls go.) The garden is worth a visit. It is intended for the leisurely stroll. There is a teahouse although that was closed when I was there.

The executive room I had was very pleasant. The king bed was king indeed. The room was big enough so that my colleague complained that the 42-inch tv looked small when he was watching it from the bed. There is a small working area with lan connection for internet.

The bathroom is small but very well stocked with L'Occitane shower, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion. I am still on the road and I took a couple of the lotion.

I did not have any of the negative experience mentioned by other reviewers. I had a late flight so I took the morning to visit a friend. I left my bag and my handcarry (laptop bag with no lock) with a staff. He delivered it to the airport bus waiting area. So all I needed to do was to turn up where the bus was with my ticket. My laptop bag was intact and nothing was missing. Amazing.

Food at the hotel restaurant is expensive. I had two coffees and a cake for tea and they came up to US$30. I guess someone has to pay for the water pouring down the waterfall.

There are two subway stations nearby and they are about 10 mins easy walk. The Akasaka area has one of the train stations and it has a row of cheap (Tokyo standards) restaurants. There are offices in the area so the restaurants are busy during office hours but on weekends they are close to dead.