First Cabin Akasaka: Luxury Capsule Hotel

At the time of writing, Akasaka is First Cabin’s newest location in Tokyo with 123 “cabins” in a purpose-built building located less than 50 meters from Akasaka Station.

First Cabin advertises itself as a “Luxury Capsule Hotel” chain. If you’ve seen pictures of a typical capsule hotel (or stayed in one), you might be familiar with the slightly dated, utilitarian, morgue-like capsules where you have to remember not to get up too quickly in case you hit your head on the ceiling. First Cabin, on the other hand, is more like a long-term storage locker in which you can only fit a single bed.

Business Class or First Class?

First Cabin likes to use airline metaphors. This extends to the room types – slightly more spacious cupboards are labelled first class while the narrower rooms are business class. Luckily, there are no economy class rooms. For those, see the internet cafe around the corner. Business Class can be had for as low as 4,000yen/night while First Class cabins are over 6,000yen/night. First Class cabins have a small strip of floor next to your bed while Business Class cabins have literally no space not taken by the bed.

Not for couples or families

Despite all the “we’re not really a capsule hotel” branding, in many ways, First Cabin is very much a capsule hotel. For one thing, there are only single rooms with men and women on different floors—so it’s not ideal for couples. Also, the booths are NOT lockable. There is a safe in each cubicle for storing valuables so that you can come and go, but you can’t lock the door.

Amenities in the hotel and around

The hotel has a common lounge, shared bath (separate for men and women), shower booths, a cloak room and a smoking room. The cafe/restaurant next to the front desk has a range of cheapo friendly meals with pasta from 620 yen, foccacia sandwiches for 420 yen as well as coffee, beer and smoothies.

The hotel itself is located smack bang right in the middle of Akasaka, with cheapo booze shop Yamaya and supermarket Maruetsu Petit right across the road. One of Akasaka’s best, reasonably priced sushi restaurants is right next door and there are a huge number of restaurants and bars nearby.