My first Indigo experience!

It was timely that I saw this new IHG property opening close to my stay dates so booked this to get some Shibuya shopping done and grab more Diamond breakfasts while I can!

Address – 2-25-12 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku, 13 150-0043 Japan. Website.

Contact – Tel: +81 70-3958-5992. Email: reservations.shibuya@ihg.com.

Price – 53,000 points per night booked for a “Standard Room” using IHG rewards points which in all honesty was not cheap but I had no near future plans to use my points anyways so earn and burn! Also had to buy some points to have sufficient in my account during one of their 80% purchase bonus offer so that worked well for me. The initial rate I saw was 61,000 points per night and it later dropped so that saved me some points too.

Location – This property is located Awesome location right smack in the Shibuya madness and about 6-8mins unsheltered (+ slightly uphill) walk from Shibuya station. The hotel offers 2 direct pathways to the Shibuya streets which has no lack of shopping or dining options. The fantabulous location of the hotel also means it’s very easy to drop off your loot from one shopping excursion before embarking on another.

Getting There – If you are coming from Shibuya Station and using Google map, you will probably see the below route BUT as I’ve learnt the hard way, this is actually the long way which leads you to the loading bay and vehicular entrance of the hotel.

Instead, watch out for the Mega Don Quijote store and take a shortcut by going into the mall located on the opposite side of the road – you will see a Hotel Indigo signage at the entrance of the mall so just follow that. This same pathway is the most convenient to get you from level 1 of the hotel to the streets.

The other pathway above-mentioned is a staircase accessible at level 3 of the hotel where you get access to 2 sides of the streets, both of which are great starting points.

Check In – I arrived to a relatively packed lobby located on level 12 of the building and went through a short queue before being attended to. The staff took awhile to process the check in and to my delight told me my room is ready as it was only 11am+. I then decided to enquire about any upgrades (even to a Premium room which was the next available tier I could see) as a Diamond as I could see all room types are still selling on the app. The staff just said they are all committed to other guests – I showed them the same app screen I was seeing availability on but it made no difference. After pressing a little, he asked me to wait to be attended to by a Manager and I sat for about 15mins before the Manager approached me. He told me I was already upgraded to a high floor (even though there were no such room category?) which is available right away, or should I want a room with a Shibuya view, I’ll have to wait til 4pm. At that point, I chose to take the high floor room as a 5-hour wait is not going to be pleasant.

I mean I know that Indigos does not actually have to give any upgrades to IHG Diamonds versus Intercontinental where one tier upgrade is guaranteed but surely it doesn’t hurt to treat elites better?

And can hotels stop creating phantom room categories outside of the official list?~

I was also not given any information about breakfast until I asked which was weird as I thought the info should have been offered when I picked breakfast as my welcome amenity during the earlier check in process. There was also no welcome letter provided.

Okay, sorry, rant over.

The hotel lobby is actually quite a pretty and colorful space with a handful of seatings available for waiting or general chilling.

Room – My room was indeed on a high floor, level 24, and after the crappy check in experience, thank goodness what I saw was modern and very vibrant indeed. To be fair, the space looks completely like its pics on the website as the property just opened on 01 Oct 2023, as well as just enough to fit 1pax with two luggage. 2pax here will definitely be a squeeze.

The open concept wardrobe is set up to the left of the hallway and is equipped with bare essentials of slippers, hangers and some shelving space.

The main block of the bedroom space is cosy but adequately equipped with what I needed for 2nights – wall-mounted TV + a sitting area with coffee table which turned out to be quite useful for winding down after a day of shopping, or a DIY in-room tabao dining spot. I liked that this corner comes with additional shelving nooks too.

The king bed is the firm cushy type and is my favorite bed of this trip! Otherwise, its flanked by 2 bedside tables which had USB ports and lighting controls.

The mini bar is as expected containing the essentials and the fridge here comes fully stocked. The sole window to the outside world is located beside the min bar and is operated by manual pulleys.

The bathroom is a cosy space more meant for 1pax with limited countertop space, with separate shower and toilet spaces. Toiletries are pump-sized Biology ones which were okay. Bathrobes are hung on the door here at arrival but the material were too scratchy for me. This is also the only hotel this trip which did not provide pajamas interestingly.

Breakfast – served at Gallery 11 from 6:30am-10:30am, the space was more spacious than I thought and definitely carried through the colorful vibrant theme of the property. Plenty of seatings available though the crowd throughout my two mornings were surprisingly thin.

There is also an alfresco area offering views of the skyline – I think this would be a nice choice if weather is good in the daytime, or nighttime as well.

The spread was okay and saw the usual international fare with some touches of local flavor like purple sweet potatoe soup. There were also 2 fridges offering plated cold like cold tofu, green pea soup, cold chawamushi etc.

The hot stuff:

The cold stuff:

I was then pleasantly surprised when the staff came over to invite me to select a choice of ala carte dish from a printed menu – turns out there were two tiers of breakfast for paying guests: the buffet only for JPY3,520 per adult, or JPY4,180 for the buffet + 1 ala carte dish. Looks like diamonds got the better end of the deal here, though I would say the buffet is more than sufficient if you are paying cash for it. My egg dishes turned out to be rather mediocre anyways.

Facilities – almost missed checking out the gym but managed to hop by the space located on the same level as check in and saw a neat room of equipment which should do the trick for basic stuff.

Service – As with some new and modern properties these days, service staff seem to be young but this meant unfortunately un-trained. or not trained enough. The check in experience aside, the check in area often saw queues with guests waiting to be attended to as it is the same counters for check in, check out, and general enquiries. At times it seems that there were more staff than counters, I realized that a handful of them are so new that they were just observing and not undertaking any tasks at all. Patience is needed for sure if you are staying at this property.

Check Out – nothing to pay for so the process was thankfully quite painless.

In Summary,

Great new property in a fantastic location though you may need more space if not solo, plus moderation of elite treatment is necessary.