Hakone Pax Yoshino — Attraction in Hakone

I stayed at this hotel with my friend for 2 days 1 night. We are looking for a nice hotel with onsen that are not too far from Tokyo. While researching Hakone, we stumbled upon the hotel. The pictures are beautiful enough with a few good reviews. Although we do notice the horrible reviews.. should have heed those reviews.||While booking the hotel (we chose the option with kaiseki/dinner and breakfast), we put in the note that we cannot eat a particular meat, due to allergies. Please note that in the booking form, there is a question on allergies, etc. However, upon our dinner, we notice that the particular meat was presented to us in the form of a hotpot. When we question the waiter, he seemed confuse and not aware of our request (Note: 1 waiter can seem to talk decent enough English). He then proceed to remove the particular meat from the hotpot, and just left the hotpot as it is where the meat has been soaked. We informed the waiter that this is not acceptable and asked to get a new pot. This request is not met and another waiter who cannot speak English at all simply ignore us. Oh, and btw, don’t bother asking for a refill of hot tea or water, as it will take them at least 20 minutes to serve the tea/water to you. Btw, the whole dinner is TOTALLY UNDERWHELMING. Afterwards, when we complaint to the front desk, they did acknowledged our request in the form. They then just said they cannot do anything and offered a free personal onsen which is only available from 9.30 to 10.30 pm. (At that time, it is already 9.15 pm). We decline as we already went to the onsen earlier and who would go again after that. ||Another horrible realisation we encounter is during breakfast. Most of the ingredients that we ate during kaiseki/dinner is the same with breakfast - same fish, miso soup, tofu, etc.). So, in hindsight, the kaiseki is just totally normal ingredients with fancy cutleries. This is not my first onsen hotel with kaiseki I’ve experienced in Japan, so I do know the standard they are supposed to deliver. ||In summary, please AVOID THIS HOTEL AT ALL COST. I saw another review that say this hotel does not cater to your special dietary so my experience is not the first one. You can get better option hotel with more nicer onsen around Hakone at...

We stayed here for 1 night during the Tokyo part of our trip to experience a Japanese ryokan, including the food, the room features and the use of an onsen. The room was authentically minimalist with slippers, tatami matting, a very low table with seating cushions around it and a futon for sleeping. The toilet, bath, shower and other washing facilities were different to the usual Western ideals but very good. The shower (photo) was the same as the ones in the onsen. |The hotel is situated overlooking the Sukumo river which was a raging torrent due to a day of extremely heavy rain Getting to the hotel from Hakone involves either an irregular shuttle bus service, a 20 minute walk or a 700¥ taxi ride. Due to the lashing rain we opted for the taxi. The staff were very friendly and helpful. Our room, 401, looked a bit tired with paint that needs touched up and occasional stains on the matting. There is an in-room safe, tea/coffee making facilities, a fridge and plenty of hangers.|We definitely wanted to enjoy the Japanese experience, so I wore the yukata, Japanese socks and slippers and a haori (jacket) which was fun. The onsen (very hot 40°C spring) was a completely new experience and once you got used to the nudity and the very hot water was extremely relaxing. |There's no bar available but the vending machine did sell ice-cold KIRIN lager at a reasonable price. |Dinner was a multi course tasting menu of a lot of Japanese dishes. Despite there being more than 10 items, the overall menu wasn't overpowering. It was well balanced, very tasty, enough to be filling but NOT overwhelming. ||Breakfast buffet was very good, offering a wide range of Japanese dishes as well as scrambled eggs, small sausages and bacon. ||Overall, this was a very novel experience offering an insight into the authentic Japanese lifestyle and I'm so glad that we had the opportunity enjoy it. Even the weather improved significantly as we...

Hotel was a convenient walk away from Hakone Yumoto station, about 10 minutes, and was very helpful when it came to check in and even tracking down our shipped luggage that hadn't arrived quite yet. When it did they brought it up to the room for us.

The breakfast is also quite good with both Japanese and Western breakfast options.

The room was quite clean and the staff did a great job prepping is while we were out. Overall the only downside to the room was that about half the river view balcony's boards were rotting away, and the private room onsen got very filled with bugs, very quickly if used. The heat just attracts mosquitos immediately through the open airways that let you listen to the stream. Oh, and weirdly the room smelled very, very musty.w

The biggest downside to my stay was when I came down to the lobby to see if I could get a dinner reservation in the hotel restaurant that night and help making a reservation next door the following night for a sukiyaki restaurant that operates strictly on a "reservations only" basis if you want their fancier meals.

The person who helped me happily informed me that under no circumstances could I get a reservation that night in the hotel, which is fine, but also that no place in the area needed a reservation. Which.. is just patently untrue. You just have to look at the website for Sukiyaki Ukon to see they only serve the most basic meal without a reservation, and they reserve the right to turn you away if they don't have the food prepped to accommodate you. The website system was not completing successfully so I needed someone who spoke better Japanese than I do to help make a phone reservation. No dice here.

Luckily we did get into that restaurant our second night without a reservation and enjoyed their most basic meal set, but it would have been nice to be eating the more luxurious course sets the folks around us...