Hakuba Happo-One Snow Resort — Attraction in Hakuba

Terrible broken tracks (december). Uncomfortable to ride snowboard. The staff at the ticket office is unfriendly and refuses to help.

In December, when there is already a lot of snow, for some reason the majority of the slopes are closed and at the same time the employee at the ticket office downstairs provides false information that only one slope is available to me with my ski pass for the day, which turned out to be of disgusting quality, broken up and uncomfortable to move along. At the same time, I found that I wasted time on this slope and was disappointed with the resort, while I could have had a positive experience on the neighboring slopes, which the ticket office employee kept silent about. And I was especially disappointed by the poor customer experience of using this resort, the lack of customer focus on the staff and, as it seemed to me, the arrogant laughter of the team of employees when I accidentally put my ski pass on the gondola seat and got off without it ... and the resort, instead of showing customer focus and helping to restore access to the ski lifts I paid for the day, simply ignored my request and did not even want to return the payment for the lack of access to the ski lifts. In fact, it turned out that I paid more than $ 100 for a trip from Nagano to the resort, counting on an exciting experience from my first snowboarding in the mountains, and for these $ 100 received only 3 descents on one broken slope and disappointment in the resort. The arrogant laughter of the team sounded when, in response to their disdain and pointing out the rules for the lack of compensation, I showed them how I put one star on Google Maps. This means that they really do not care about the opinion of customers about them, which, in turn, predetermines poor service and the formation of a bad customer experience in the future. This is evidence of poor organization of work. And you can refer to the rules as much as you like, but I do not pay for a piece of plastic, but for service for 1 day or for a season. And laughing at the fact that I am deprived of this service for my money, where companies that value customers meet them halfway - this is a shame. Plastic costs a maximum...

The village has by far the worst infastructure of any ski village I have been to. For such a large village to have PAID and INFREQUENT (hourly) shuttle buses is unacceptable. You might find yourself wandering for up to an hour in search of a restaurant.

Further, it is impossible to buy a ski pass in the village itself and ski gear shops are few and far between to say the least.

Perhaps the worst part is the kind of people the village seems to attract. Japanese tourists are rare. Instead the village seems to thrive with bogans (and I'm Australian) often times drunk and travelling in herds yelling at people.

The village lacks core basics every good ski village should have - ease of access, good shops, and a good atmosphere.

The ski fields themselves are average. They are decently sized and not too busy while the skiing conditions are what you'd expect from Japan. The restaurants have a decent selection which is moderatley priced. The lifts however are noticeably dated. They are slow and without footrests or canopies with many lifts often times closed entirely. Further, the runs are not typically groomed although this is understandable given the...

Largest resort in hakuba, and the one to stay in if you are choosing a single place from which to explore the rest of the valley. It has the largest selection of runs, good for intermediate skiers but a bit limited for experts as they don't really have a great selection of side country/tree skiing compared to other resorts. There are also better places in hakuba for beginners.

Happo one is at the centre of the shuttle bus network so the easiest place to stay without a car, although the buses are somewhat infrequent and at irregular times. Would recommend a car if you want the flexibility to explore different resorts from first to last lift. On powder days the buses were packed with long queues.

The other slight issue was that there doesn't seem to be enough restaurants for the number of visitors. Many restaurants were booked for the whole week and so we ended up having to go down to the station area to find a table, even then you need to go at 6.

Overall, if you don't have a car, stay in happo one, if you do then maybe...