Rakuten STAY VILLA 富士河口湖の森 — Hotel in Fujikawaguchiko

The two-star review isn't for the room or location but rather the customer service. While it's a neat way to cut cost, especially for a property that doesn't have a lot of units, the automated check-in was not up to snuff.

As was highlighted in the news recently, companies are not supposed to be asking foreign residents for a copy of their passport. Unfortunately, the automated check-in system doesn't grasp the nuance of a foreign resident versus tourist. The system would not allow us to continue with check-in until I uploaded my passport despite having a Japanese address. Finally, we remembered that I had packed it in case of an emergency and just uploaded the passport so we could proceed. We attempted to use the calling feature for support but could not get through to staff for over 30 minutes.

Other negatives to note is the strong smell of kresote from the old railroad ties used as decking, a bulb missing from the chandelier, and some cobwebs in the vaulted part of the ceiling. All of these are minor and don't really bring my review down much.

On the positive side, the cottage felt very clean and modern, the bath peaceful, and there being more provided amenities than expected, such as...

Easy checked in without problem with prior online check in before arrival. No public transportation at this area, suitable for local or overseas tourist who have self driving. Location about 1 km from the shopping area. Very clean. 1 bed room with 2 twin queen size beds at the 1st floor, standard bed room. Have a space living room together with dining table, kitchen complete with refrigerator, cook top, sink, microwave, kettle and standard kitchenware. Laundry room, sauna room. 2nd floor has a big bedroom can fit 1 family with 3 children, 1 small activity room, 1 shower room with a small onshen. This is a western style villa, nice to staying here for 2 nights with 7 people. The most inconvenience is the fire alarm explosion in the midnight at 2am and keep the alarm sound as long as 3 minutes, caused us woke up whole family. This smoke alarm explored interval half and one hour. This is the most unhappy to stay at...

Really nice rooms for large groups.

We booked this place on our trip to FujiQ Highland Park. It was on 5 or 6 minutes by car from the parking lot of the park. Very clean rooms. Everything was very high quality and well kept.

Noise transfer from the neighboring room was very noticeable in the evening. Not voices but footfalls and thumps. We were there with kids so are less sensitive to this from others, but it was our kids who complained about the noise the next morning.

The only bad was the check in. Terrible. Using a fixed tablet wasn't a problem. Needing to initiate an online video call with the check in staff with the tablet was a huge hassle. It would not connect for approx 10 minutes of repeated attempts, and when it finally did, the audio was hard to understand. This was not great, in my opinion.

Overall it's really close to Mt. Fuji and in an extremely scenic part...