OMO7 Asahikawa by Hoshino Resorts — Hotel in Asahikawa

We paid for a Superior Triple Room for our little family of 4 (both our kids are under 6yo and can stay with us for free, but I figured a mid-journey splurge so my husband could get a better sleep with his own bed would be nice) but arrived to a room with only 2 beds made up and the 3rd bed bare, with a note saying they’ll charge us a further ¥8000 if we try to use it - puzzling considering we booked a triple room for its 3 beds, otherwise I might as well have booked a double room and saved my money right?

We also paid extra for “Breakfast Included” which usually means ‘for all 4 of us’. But no, reception kept asking for more payment so my older child can eat with us. For a child who has not touched much of the other “breakfast included” hotel buffets thus far? No thanks (he ended up sitting through our Omo7 breakfast with none of the food of interest to him anyway). Disappointing they even badger about it, when they’d marketed an included breakfast with the room.

The biggest horror was that they mistakenly charged me for someone else’s booking on top of my own (¥42,900 x2 is no small sum) and I wouldn’t even have realised it had they not badgered me about the breakfast charge! They said I hadn’t paid for my booking yet so I believed them. After putting through the payment, they started asking about the child breakfast fee, which made me bring up my booking confirmation to point out “Breakfast Included”, only to realise I’d paid weeks ahead for the room.

The look of horror on the receptionist’s face when he realised he’d charged me for someone else’s room was almost as horrified as my own! With their limited English, it took multiple staff to communicate the issue and hours to ‘fix’ the charges - the extra charge is still pending on my credit card at the time of writing.

I couldn’t get the names of staff as all nametags bear only Kanji, so I can only identify them by sight not names. Just my bad luck this receptionist went home before this billing issue was even settled.

After multiple visits to reception to rectify the billing and dispute the breakfast and bedding (they don’t tell you that reception’s phone extension is ‘2’ by the way!), they eventually agreed to waive the ¥8000 make-your-own-bed-with-linen-hidden-under-the-bed fee, but by then my poor exhausted husband had fallen asleep with the 2 kids so the 3rd bed still stands bare and unused.

My experience of their public bath was cut short by all these issues, but lucky me, I still had 50minutes to “relax” before it would close, it being 11.10pm by the time reception conceded the bed fee. The place was deserted since normal people don’t publicly bathe so late. Their shower is hilarious, you have to manually pump it up and down to get water through the shower head before it cuts off every 8 seconds. I lost count of the number of times I was caught off-guard and had to grope blindly for the lever, since my eyes had soap dripping in. Cost-saving exercise masked as environmentally-friendly.

Overall a disappointment, we’d only stayed there for a few hours, unless you include the time we wasted at reception. Hopefully they sort out the payment problem as I fear Google-translate-communicating with them...

-the hotel was chosen due to its marketing for skiing/snowboarding.|-Its a 5-8mins drive (or taxi ride) from the JR station.|-the hotel staff were very friendly and helpful.|-The Superior room I stayed in was spacious.|- The facilities of the spa are very similar to what I experienced in europe, having a warm jacuzzi, sauna, lying down hot tub, a walking pool of body temperature, and a cold water pool. |- the waxing station is a highlight for skiers/snowboarders. There is a heated iron and all kinds of waxes. It's particularly attractive as I could not find waxing shops in the town (some ski resorts did provide waxing service). |- There is ski rental in the hotel but mostly powder skis (ski rental was found from an upstairs shop cum guest house within 5-8 mins walking distance).|- The hotel promoted free shuttle buses to 4 ski resorts. In fact the buses are local buses, while the hotel provided coupons to guests who had made reservations. So these buses were not direct buses between the hotel and ski resorts. So in fact thats was not what i expected from the marketing material. That said, the travelling time was a bit long but it did post in writing and we thought the travelling time was acceptable. |-I have not tried the meals, but my friends who booked the breakfast package said the breakfast was very good. |- About room cleaning, garbage would be taken away and new towels provided every day, but tidying would be done on Day 4 and Day 7.|- The staff were super helpful. Due to some misunderstanding I had not picked up my skis in the hotel. I only discovered the problem when I arrived at another hotel for my second part of the journey. They then very kindly helped to dispatch the skis via courier. During the course they had communicated with me over the phone (i am not a local and we talked in english) and by email. When I tried to thank them by writing to their management, the staff refused politely saying they were happy...

the hotel was chosen due to its marketing for skiing/snowboarding. -Its a 5-8mins drive (or taxi ride) from the JR station. -the hotel staff were very friendly and helpful. -The Superior room I stayed in was spacious. The facilities of the spa are very similar to what I experienced in europe, having a warm jacuzzi, sauna, lying down hot tub, a walking pool of body temperature, and a cold water pool. the waxing station is a highlight for skiers/snowboarders. There is a heated iron and all kinds of waxes. It's particularly attractive as I could not find waxing shops in the town (some ski resorts did provide waxing service). There is ski rental in the hotel but mostly powder skis (ski rental was found from an upstairs shop cum guest house within 5-8 mins walking distance). The hotel promoted free shuttle buses to 4 ski resorts. In fact the buses are local buses, while the hotel provided coupons to guests who had made reservations. So these buses were not direct buses between the hotel and ski resorts. So in fact thats was not what i expected from the marketing material. That said, the travelling time was a bit long but it did post in writing and we thought the travelling time was acceptable. -I have not tried the meals, but my friends who booked the breakfast package said the breakfast was very good. About room cleaning, garbage would be taken away and new towels provided every day, but tidying would be done on Day 4 and Day 7. The staff were super helpful. Due to some misunderstanding I had not picked up my skis in the hotel. I only discovered the problem when I arrived at another hotel for my second part of the journey. They then very kindly helped to dispatch the skis via courier. During the course they had communicated with me over the phone (i am not a local and we talked in english) and by email. When I tried to thank them by writing to their management, the staff refused politely saying they were happy...