Appi Kougen Onsen Hotel — Hotel in Hachimantai

Absolutely loved my time here. The snow condition was excellent. The advanced slopes we took were not too agressive. They were single black diamond or advanced intermediate. There was plenty of room on the slopes. The lines at the gondolas was not too long. We may have waited 10 minutes maximum.The quad was less than that. The smaller lifters were a few minutes to no wait at all. There was a central cafeteria on the mountain as well as some smaller cafes at the top and other rest houses. Bigger one at base. The food was good. We bought the meals with the room as a package. We had a choice of 5 place we could redeem them. 3 of the 5 were in our building so we didn't need to go out in the cold until it was time to ski. The 1st night we had a 6 course Japanese meal served. It was delicious. The following 2 nights we had the buffet. It was good also. We had the buffer breakfast all three We stayed at the Onsen Hotel. I we to the Onsen and it was very crowded. I went to the outside pools and it was very slippery on the walkway outside. There was a lot of ice. The room was modest. The phone didn't work but, it wad replaced once we tild the front. Lightbulb was burnt out on one lamp but, plenty of light. Prices were reasonable. price performance was very good. We spent about $1100.00 US.This includes gas for the car. Had a mishap as we were about to leave the cafeteria on the mountain in the afternoon just after the lifts shut down I went outside to put my skis.on and I couldn't attach. There were no other rental skis left there and I finally decided to check the number against the photo I took a few days back when I first rented them. It turns out they were not mine. I looked all around but, mine were gone. Not knowing how to get down the mountain I grabbed a ski school instructor was just heading out and he adjusted.the skis so I could fit in. The were just one knotch too small. I skiied down with them and told the rental shop what happened. They wrote it down on my receipt and accepted them...

Pros: convenient location, close to ski fields. There is a bus that will take you to and from the plaza if you're too lazy to walk friendly staff (don't expect anyone to speak English though) decent buffet breakfast and good choice for lunch at the plaza Foodcourt Adjoining onsen was great big room shuttle to nearby Hachimantai village on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights for dinner etc

Cons: looks like it was built in the 80s and never left that era, very dated, carpets need a good clean, bathroom wasn't very appealing and the plumbing was dodgy such that you could smell sewage from time to time, cupboard doors were falling apart beds are all single, no way of pushing them together heating in the room was excessive with no way to turn off leaving us to have to open windows dinner options restricted to that in the hotel (most of which require reservations), or that of the grand next door (which was super pricy). We enjoyed eating at the Izakaya though and stuck to that most nights

Overall, clean convenient hotel with friendly staff, but incredibly dated and could do with a major update and improvements to...

Value for the money. Although it only 3 min walk to the ski center. You can call for the reception to drive you to ski center in the morning. But storing gear is a little bit troublesome, it turn out we store most gear in the pay locker in ski center. The most advantage of this hotel is that it connected to onsen directly so no need to take shuttle to onsen. Must book dinner beforehand otherwise you have to use the buffet dinner although the buffet is very good, it will be boring if you have same dinners for...