Ishiuchi Maruyama Ski Resort — Attraction in Minamiuonuma

I had mixed feelings for this ski resort, some staff were good but some were the worst among Japan in my eyes.

It was especially bad when we took a shuttle to the guesthouse near the Hatsukaishi area. When we got off, the shuttle driver stopped us from leaving and said it's the wrong station. Despite being a foreigner, my Japanese level is well enough for all the communication to be in Japanese. I tried to show him the location of our accommodation by using Google map, the driver said "there are so many hotels around the area and I DON'T CARE where you stay" in a really rude way and refused to look at my phone.

I was convinced by the driver, what else could you do if a local insisted that you are going the wrong way? So the 9 of us moved our baggage back onto the bus. Later we found out it's the wrong station the driver brought us to, I tried to ask the driver to take us back to the station we initially got off, which was just 5 mins drive away. And he refused to talk to me anymore by saying "I don't understand you" (but I had been talking to him in Japanese like for 5 mins). He just told us to talk to the staff inside the resort centre and ran away with the shuttle.

The staff inside told us that we initially got off at the correct stop. And it took us almost another hour to get back to the right place for the waiting time of another shuttle etc. This happened on Jan 23, 2025.

Have to say other shuttle drivers and the centre staff were good. But that particular shuttle driver was awful.

There are some additional problems with the staff controlling the ski lift. I stayed mostly around the Hatsukaishi area. Most of the time when I or friends fell from the lift while getting off, unlike other Japanese ski resorts, almost all the staff was indifferent to stop or slow down the lift and it was really dangerous. They just made gestures or yelled at you...

Great resort with a massive top to bottom run (if the bottom part has enough snow). Nice variety of runs and on a powdery day, can be pretty good to board on. One of the only ski resorts to have a lift that incorporates both gondola AND chair lift in one. Normally will take 6 people in a chair lift and about 10 in a gondola and the rate is around 4 chair lifts to one gondola so would be faster if you just take the chair lift. Not a long ride compared to some other ropeway/gondola systems so if in a rush to get going, recommend queuing for the chair lift. Staff seems a bit oblivious to queuing though, massive queue waiting for the gondola yet they were still allowing 'private' groups get in; a queue of 50+ people and letting 2 people in a 10 person gondola doesn't look too logical.

Slopes are varied though the lifts seems to be under some form of renaming; they used to be numbered but the map indicates them as alphabetical characters causing a bit of confusing when trying to find your bearings; hopefully this will be resolved once they have finally renamed everything properly. A number of restaurants, I chose kerun because they had steak but seems like New Maruyama also has it.

Overall a great place for those after extremely long runs from top to bottom. Has a number of tree runs too.

Free shuttle bus from Echigo Yuzawa Station as well, taking around 10minutes making it pretty...

Stayed at Garden Villa Ishiuchi which was right next to the resort and our expectations were high. Unfortunately the slopes are like rice paddies and in steps and with no real good long runs. Snow conditions were very wet compared to others and it was very crowded. They have a new lift with Gondolas which we did not get to try out but probably due to this, their lift prices are about 20% higher than others nearby. Worst is that they do not allow Snow scoots or Snow Motos but we did not find out until we were on our 4th lift near the top. When we bought our tickets we were told that it was ok and also there was nothing on their home page to indicate otherwise. So we got our money back and went to Iwappara Ski Resort for the afternoon which was awesome! Better snow conditions, wide long runs, lot less people and no discrimination against your...