Kawaguchiko Hotel — Hotel in Fujikawaguchiko

I and my wife stayed here overnight on our first ever visit to Kawaguchi. It was a very memorable experience that I would love to experience again. Leaving on the following day, we regretted only staying overnight in Kawaguchi as the place itself was very beautiful and the hotel was very nice. ||This is not a modern hotel. It has been around for a long time, maybe even one of the original hotels in the area, as I have read that a Japanese emperor even stayed here once. But the 'oldness' of the hotel is what gives it its charm. If you love charming places, this one is a beauty. ||The rooms are spacious, although the decor is dated. There is no bidet in the bathroom and instead uses toilet paper, unlike most Japanese hotels. I think it styles itself as a western type hotel. It has a bathtub, though, and you can have all the hot baths you want with water coming from Mount Fuji. The room we booked was a Western-type room with two single beds. It was a spacious room with even a small table and two chairs. It has air-conditioning, which worked perfectly fine. It also has a big window from where you can get beautiful views of the outside. There was a TV with YouTube which I used a lot because there are no English channels on local TV. ||When you check in, they still have a bellboy (bellwoman in our case) who would bring you and help you with the luggage to your room. Hotel service that is no longer being done in many small hotels. It was a welcome surprise. She spoke relatively good English.||There are only a few staff members in this old hotel that seems to transport you to the past. In our overnight stay, we only saw four people working here. There was the manager who seemed to be in his 60s and who appeared to be a seasoned hotelier. He spoke very well in English and was friendly and accommodating. When my wife asked him if he could take our picture outside (I gasped when my wife did this as I thought it was beneath a manager to do this for us), he gladly obliged. He was a nice guy. ||The other staff members we interacted with also understood and spoke enough English to be able to communicate with foreigners, even the much older driver/hotel security man who greeted us when we arrived before the 3 pm check in time. ||There is an onsen that operates 24 hours on the 4th floor. I didn't try it, but my wife did, and she loved it. You can see the view of Mount Fuji from the women's section of the onsen. I am not sure about the men's section. Anyway, you can see Mount Fuji from your hotel window if your room is on the side of the hotel facing the mountain. If your room is on the front side of the hotel, you will have a great view of Kawaguchiko itself. ||They have a traditional Japanese style breakfast here, which we weren't able to try. Maybe next time. ||What I was able to try was the free brewed coffee at the lobby when I got back from my morning walk. They have this small coffee bar at the lobby lounge, which, when we arrived the afternoon the day before, was not operational, and I thought it was only for display. ||When I entered the hotel after my walk, the manager was at the front desk and was pointing me towards the coffee bar, enjoining me to have some free coffee. I was surprised by the offer and was glad because I love good coffee. I was impressed that there was a dedicated barista at the bar who make the coffee from grind to brew. You can have it in the lounge on classic ceramic coffee cups, or you can take some with you to your room in paper coffee cups. ||They have free shuttle service to Kawaguchi Station every 30 minutes in the morning, up till 10 am. This is such a nice service since commuting in Kawaguchi is a little burdensome with its limited taxis, and the sightseeing buses are sometimes very full to accommodate passengers with big luggage. Drivers of the busses are also hard to communicate with and are sometimes unfriendly and rude. ||I wish this hotel many more...

I and my wife stayed here overnight on our first ever visit to Kawaguchi. It was a very memorable experience that I would love to experience again. Leaving on the following day, we regretted only staying overnight in Kawaguchi as the place itself was very beautiful and the hotel was very nice. ||This is not a modern hotel. It has been around for a long time, maybe even one of the original hotels in the area, as I have read that a Japanese emperor even stayed here once. But the 'oldness' of the hotel is what gives it its charm. If you love charming places, this one is a beauty. ||The rooms are spacious, although the decor is dated. There is no bidet in the bathroom and instead uses toilet paper, unlike most Japanese hotels. I think it styles itself as a western type hotel. It has a bathtub, though, and you can have all the hot baths you want with water coming from Mount Fuji. The room we booked was a Western-type room with two single beds. It was a spacious room with even a small table and two chairs. It has air-conditioning, which worked perfectly fine. It also has a big window from where you can get beautiful views of the outside. There was a TV with YouTube which I used a lot because there are no English channels on local TV. ||When you check in, they still have a bellboy (bellwoman in our case) who would bring you and help you with the luggage to your room. Hotel service that is no longer being done in many small hotels. It was a welcome surprise. She spoke relatively good English.||There are only a few staff members in this old hotel that seems to transport you to the past. In our overnight stay, we only saw four people working here. There was the manager who seemed to be in his 60s and who appeared to be a seasoned hotelier. He spoke very well in English and was friendly and accommodating. When my wife asked him if he could take our picture outside (I gasped when my wife did this as I thought it was beneath a manager to do this for us), he gladly obliged. He was a nice guy. ||The other staff members we interacted with also understood and spoke enough English to be able to communicate with foreigners, even the much older driver/hotel security man who greeted us when we arrived before the 3 pm check in time. ||There is an onsen that operates 24 hours on the 4th floor. I didn't try it, but my wife did, and she loved it. You can see the view of Mount Fuji from the women's section of the onsen. I am not sure about the men's section. Anyway, you can see Mount Fuji from your hotel window if your room is on the side of the hotel facing the mountain. If your room is on the front side of the hotel, you will have a great view of Kawaguchiko itself. ||They have a traditional Japanese style breakfast here, which we weren't able to try. Maybe next time. ||What I was able to try was the free brewed coffee at the lobby when I got back from my morning walk. They have this small coffee bar at the lobby lounge, which, when we arrived the afternoon the day before, was not operational, and I thought it was only for display. ||When I entered the hotel after my walk, the manager was at the front desk and was pointing me towards the coffee bar, enjoining me to have some free coffee. I was surprised by the offer and was glad because I love good coffee. I was impressed that there was a dedicated barista at the bar who make the coffee from grind to brew. You can have it in the lounge on classic ceramic coffee cups, or you can take some with you to your room in paper coffee cups. ||They have free shuttle service to Kawaguchi Station every 30 minutes in the morning, up till 10 am. This is such a nice service since commuting in Kawaguchi is a little burdensome with its limited taxis, and the sightseeing buses are sometimes very full to accommodate passengers with big luggage. Drivers of the busses are also hard to communicate with and are sometimes unfriendly and rude. ||I wish this hotel many more...

I really wanted to love this hotel, partly because I was paying over $300/night, but unfortunately I did not enjoy my stay at all. The breakfasts (Japanese style only) and the enthusiastic, efficient service provided at breakfast was the highlight. The outside entrance to the hotel is the most attractive of the property, but they keep the public areas so cold that we had to wear our down jackets if we wanted to sit in the lobby. The front desk is not always manned and you will need to ring a bell for service. When the front desk is not manned, they actually turn out the lights in the public areas they purport to feature - the library is a great place, but is kept in the dark most of the day. The hotel seems abandoned for most of the day because the lights are out and its cold as hell. There is another lounge on the ground floor with a viewing screen and wood stove, but it's dark as well. I cannot emphasize enough how unwelcoming and cold the lobby area is. The decor is EXTRMELY dated and needs to be upgraded, and should be in much better shape to justify their high prices. The housekeeping staff cannot complete their duties in one visit, and we were interrupted 3 times on one day in order to complete the tasks. The view from the women's onsen is non existent- the windows are frosted for privacy to about the height of 6 feet, and since it's on onsen, there is condensation on all of the windows - I thought it is particularly misleading to describe a view as a feature of this hotel. The sauna was broken. Two of the lights in the onsen area were flickering like they were about to expire. Luckily the heating in the room worked well, but the man who checked us in and showed us our room, turned the heat down and told us - TOLD US!!- that 19 centigrade was warm enough. What the heck, dude? I'm the guest and paying you handsomely to stay in your outdated hotel which can't afford to keep the lights on. The young man at the front desk was helpful and kind, the older man at the front desk was rude and not helpful at all. This place could be fantastic if an investor wanted to renovate it, but as it is now, I would never recommend it to anyone and would never return. The "bar" upstairs is sad, sad, sad. Never a staff member there to get you a drink, and a wine machine instead. Also freezing cold. Spend your money elsewhere - it looks like this place is in the process of going out...