About
ANA Crowne Plaza Narita is very close to Narita Airport, only a 4-minute drive away. If your flight arrives in Narita very late, you can basically just spend one night at this hotel. Then the next day you can head straight to wherever you want to go. Of course, it also works well if you have an early morning flight and want to stay here the night before.
The best thing about this hotel is that it offers a free airport shuttle service, running from 6:00 a.m. until midnight. Service is less frequent during the middle of the day, since people arriving then may not necessarily stay at this hotel and may just head straight into the city instead. The hotel shuttle has stops at both T1 and T2, so just wait at the stop number shown here. The platform also posts the hotel’s timetable. If you arrive at T3, you’ll need to take the airport’s free shuttle to T2 first, then transfer to this hotel’s bus.
If you want to take public transportation into central Tokyo the next day, you can take the hotel shuttle back to the airport and then transfer to the subway or an airport bus into the city.
Redemption
Since we had an IHG credit card free night certificate that was about to expire and we couldn’t use it elsewhere, this worked out perfectly. On top of that, we were already arriving in Narita at around 9 p.m. and planned to spend the entire next day at Disney. So we figured we’d just stay somewhere casual on the first night and not waste money on a hotel in central Tokyo. After considering everything, we chose this hotel. The standard redemption is 17,000 points per night, and the IHG card gives a 40,000-point certificate, which is more than enough for a stay here.
I checked, and the cash rate was between $90 and $150. So although the certificate didn’t produce a huge redemption value, if you have points, staying here for 17,000 points seems like a pretty good deal.
If you apply for the IHG credit card now, 170,000 points can get you 10 nights!
Annual free night certificate + $50 flight credit!
- Welcome bonus: 140,000 IHG points (spend $3,000 in 3 months)
- Rewards: 10x on IHG purchases; 5x on travel, gas, and dining; 3x on all other purchases
- Redemption: Redeem at IHG hotels, worth 0.6 cpp
- Annual fee: $99
- Apply now>>
Lobby and Check-In
The hotel lobby looked pretty good, and the ceiling was quite high.
There were a lot of sofas in the lobby, and quite a few people were sitting around chatting late at night. I’m guessing they were waiting for late flights. The lobby announcements also kept playing the time of the next shuttle bus.
The front desk staff at check-in seemed to be two Indian guys, and the process was extremely slow. It took ages to finish checking in just one person.
The computer was also very old.
Surprisingly, check-in didn’t even require a passport, and they didn’t ask for the passport of the other person staying with us either. The staff member didn’t seem to care how many people were in the room. He just looked at our confirmation number and finished the check-in. According to him, he upgraded us by one level. Since we were only staying one night anyway, I didn’t bother discussing it further.
Also worth mentioning: there’s a 24-hour convenience store in the lobby (FamilyMart), which is really convenient. You can buy a few small items to break larger bills, since you’ll later need coins for subway tickets and lockers. The convenience store also sells steamed buns, fried chicken cutlets, and cakes, so you can grab something for breakfast or a late-night snack.
Room Experience
This time we booked two rooms, one twin and one king. The king room didn’t have anything special going for it; the only impression was that it was really small. But considering it was only 17,000 points per night, it still seemed pretty decent.
As for the bathroom, it was old, but still fairly clean.
The toiletries came in large bottles.
The other twin room seemed to be a corner room, so the total space felt about twice as large. It even had a living room area.
The bed area was about the same, though.
Both rooms came with matcha chocolate, which was ridiculously sweet!
Conclusion
This was our first hotel stop in Japan, and for a one-night stay it fully met our needs. The shuttle bus and convenience store were really convenient. If you have a similar early-morning or late-night flight, it could be worth staying here with points.