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Got 55 Million Yen Laying Around? Then Rent out the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo

Where: 2-1-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi, Tokyo, Chuo-ku, Japan, 103-8328

Imagine you and 500 of your friends get to sleep here for one night.

The Mandarin Oriental Tokyo is turning five this year and instead of celebrating with a party featuring acrobats pouring champagne from chandeliers or a pop singer, they've decided to put together an unusual hotel package--full rental of the hotel for one-night.. The WSJ reports:

To commemorate the milestone, the posh hotel in the capital’s central Nihonbashi District is willing to turn over its beds wrapped in 450-thread count sheets from Italy, Michelin-rated restaurants and cocktail bars on the 37th and 38th floors to someone and his or her 500 closest acquaintances for one night. If that certain patron’s pockets run 55 million yen (roughly $672,150) deep, that is.

There will also be the option to have a cocktail party for your friends featuring pastries from an award-winning Japanese pastry chef. If someone actually does take the hotel up on this offer (reportedly some individuals and companies are interested) the hotel plans on submitting the stay to the Guinness Book of World Records.

This sounds so fun and wacky but the MO Tokyo hasn't reinvented the insane hotel package wheel here.

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HotelChatter Flickr Pool :: A Guest Hates on The MO Tokyo's Voyeuristic Bathrooms

Where: 2-1-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi | Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 103-8328

Lyh1 was kind enough to drop this photo of the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo's bathroom into the HotelChatter Flickr Pool -- and the guest who snapped this shot was also kind enough to share a little bit of feedback:

The shower and tub area is fully exposed. And right pass [sic] the foyer, you see the toilet cubicle. Not a room that you want to welcome outside guests.

I hated this bathroom. It's poorly lit and small. ... The dull grey marble give the whole place a dirty look. For a 5-star premium luxury hotel, this bathroom is just awful.

We feel you, bud: we can totally see how doing your business on that toilet may make you feel like you're kinda, uh, doing something private in public. We've felt semi-exposed in bathrooms before (NYLO was particularly traumatizing because the carpetless floors in the room added a hot audio component) -- and we don't feel our sexiest while we're on the throne.

And we hear you on the speckled grey marble too. But on the flipside, it actually probably hides dirt better than straight up black or white so maybe it doesn't look as dirty as it may really be. Oh wait, no, that's gross too. Nevermind.

Thanks for sharing!

Got a pic you wanna share with us? Drop it in the pool!

New Years Eve Hotels / New-Years-Eve-Hotels / Tokyo Hotels / Mandarin Oriental Hotels / → All Tags

New Years Eve Hotels: Tokyo's Mandarin Oriental

Where: 2-1-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 103-8328

If we had to say goodbye to 2007 with a bang, we would hop on a plane to Tokyo and spend three party-filled nights at the Mandarin Oriental. We've never actually stayed inside a Mandarin Oriental room and we are making a point of doing this in 2008.

We've also never been to Tokyo although we done plenty of reading on it. So what better way to see a new city than from the top of this Mandarin Oriental. The lobby is actually located on the top floor (the 38th) and has panoramic views of Tokyo from every inch. So if you can't splurge on a penthouse suite, sipping tea in the lobby lounge is the next best thing.

From there, things only get better. The MO has some of the largest hotel rooms in all of Japan filled with high-tech gadgetry. The hotel also has a killer-looking spa on the 36th floor and several dining options, all with amazing views of the city.

We found a Mandarin Deluxe room from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2 for $635 a night. Wowzsa. So we won't be ringing in 2008 here but we can dream right?

[Photo: General13]

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Cubicle Dreamin': Spoil Me In Tokyo's Mandarin Oriental

Where: 2-1-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi , Tokyo, Japan, 103-8328

Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.

In this episode, Hotel Maven Amanda K picks out her first choice in Tokyo. Enjoy.

Pictures were already enough to make me want to stay at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, which recently picked up an award for being one of the "most beautiful public spaces" in Japan's capital. Then I checked some customer reviews and found crazily positive titles littering the page: "Absolutely stunning!", "Don't stay anywhere else", "High expectations were more than met" and "Fantastic splurge". Plus a comment from a travel agent with 25 years' experience who was prompted to write her first online review ever because Tokyo's Mandarin was just so good.

Sitting right in the middle of Tokyo in the Nihonbashi district, I can just imagine dreamily staring over the city lights from the 38th floor, or popping down to the 36th to enjoy nearly 10,000 square feet of spa. Rooms are categorized according to their view: that might be to Tokyo Bay, the Palace, or even Mount Fuji, or all three if you book the presidential suite. I think that if you're going to survive a city as big and busy as Tokyo, you have to spoil yourself to have the ultimate place to come home to at night, and that sounds like the Mandarin Oriental at the moment--arigatou!

[Photo: MarkJL]

Related Stories:
· Mandarin Oriental Tokyo reviews [TripAdvisor]
· Japan's With the Style [HotelChatter]