Furano ski resort

It was a one hour wait to get a lift ticket at the Kitanomine side because there were only two cashiers and the ticket purchase process was extremely slow.

When we finally got our day ticket, the Kitanomine gondola broke down and we had to wait for a shuttle bus to take us to the Furano side.

We were crammed on to the shuttle bus and there were only two shuttle buses operating despite hundreds of people waiting. Despite the bus being over-full, the shuttle stopped twice to pick up people from other hotels.

When we got to Furano, there was a HUGE line for the Furano ropeway. There are only two gondolas on the entire ropeway so we had to wait another 30 minutes in this line, even though each gondola on the Furano Ropeway carries 100 people.

Everything is terribly inefficient and slow and unorganised.

We got to the ticket desk at 0830 and we were not on the slopes skiing until 1130.

I wouldn’t recommend coming here.

My advice to the resort is to modernise the ticket purchase process and/or put on more cashiers, and increase the number and frequency of shuttles between the Kitanomine and Furano areas.

EDIT:

I skied Furano for five days after my initial day for which I wrote the above review (and have one star). With a huge and continuous fall of snow after my first day, I found the runs to be absolutely superb. Some of the best powder skiing I have done with over a metre of powder in some areas.

I still found the ticket purchase process at Kitanomine to be incredibly slow, but the experience on my first day seemed to be out of the ordinary: there was a high influx of locals on this particular day.

On every other day, the lift lines (including the lines for the Kitanomine Gondola and Furano ropeway) were not too bad, but the Kitanomine Gondola again broke down and was out of action for another two days. I could still ski Kitanomine, but had to start at Furano Ropeway and link-run over the to the Kitanomine quad.

This was a very unique and enjoyable experience (except for the first day described above in my initial review). This ‘small town’ ski resort is becoming more popular so I will be interested to see how Prince Resorts responds to the increased patronage.