Hakone Suimeisou — Hotel in Hakone

We had a great experience! We have stayed in many ryokans before, and this one did not disappoint.

Thanks to Naoko-san and her team taking such great care of us, we had a splendid time at Suimeisou.

Vegetarian kaiseki - this is one of the only ryokans that went out of their way to prepare vegetarian kaiseki. Do indicate during booking. They do tell you in advance that some of the dishes have dashi in them (stock that sometimes have fish).

The food is served in-room so they will need to have a specific timing for when you will be back to have dinner, and so that they can then set up the futons for bed. Likewise for breakfast, they will knock on your door 30 minutes before the breakfast time you indicated, to set up the table for breakfast and to clear the futons.

I saw the reviews about the inability to change the meal times. I am not sure what this was about as we had no issues changing our breakfast timing for the next day, when we decided to book the private rotenburo (open air onsen) at a particular timing. in fact, it was staff that helpfully suggested the change based on our itinerary.

Location - location was amazing, just 2 minutes or so from Hakone-Yumoto station on foot. Easily accessible using elevators from the station. Lots of options around the ryokan as well.

Language - I do speak some Japanese so this did help. Hakone is not Hokkaido, there are generally fewer English speakers here so do not come in expecting that they can communicate with you in perfect English. They do try. Naoko-san for example had studied some English many years ago, and tried her best to explain the kaiseki dishes to our four year old and to chat with him. I also saw other staff trying their best using translator's to communicate with non-English / non-Japanese speakers, and truly appreciate the efforts made.

Amenities - this is Hakone and many ryokans pride themselves as having a long history. This also means that some of the furnishings are dated but overall I found them to be very well-maintained and...

We are extremely disappointed and we want let us other customers know how bad this experience was for us.||We were in Japan for our honeymoon and this accomodation was the only one that disappointed us. First of all, staff is very unprofessional: they can't speak english, it is very hard to communicate and this shouldn't happen when you pay so much money.||Second, our privacy has been damage twice: first time, we were completely naked, taking a hot spring bath in our terrace and they entered the room without permission, at 7 pm, to put futon on the floor. Secon time, they rang the bell and bring some towels at 1 am at night!!! we were asleep and we got so scared. We were completely shocked and speechless. ||Keep in mind, this is a very fake ryokan: they rudely imposed us to have breakfast at 8.30, saying that that is a typical ryokan and those are the rules.||I guess they have rules just when it's more convenient to them, since we didnt find any tea ceremony room or any typical japanese ritual and enviroment. But instead, they have a NIGHTCLUB, I guess that is very essential to show traditional customs and cultures!!! ||You have to wake up early anyway, because the floor corridor is loud by cleaning ladies running around screaming and using vacum cleaner without caring about customers, they are all over the place and we even found detergents in front of our door, we had to move those in order to get out.||We paid over 1.300 dollars for 4 nights, I find this treatment absolutely unacceptable; we booked this trough booking.com and they proposed a refund of 28 dollars which has been a further insult on top of all the other bad situations we went through.||Aggravating condition: we were on our honeymoon and they knew it ahead, they have absolutely no excuses and these people are just cheaters who take advantage of turists looking for authentic ryokan experience: trust us and do not book this place! Your trip will turn out...

We are extremely disappointed and we want let us other customers know how bad this experience was for us.||We were in Japan for our honeymoon and this accomodation was the only one that disappointed us. First of all, staff is very unprofessional: they can't speak english, it is very hard to communicate and this shouldn't happen when you pay so much money.||Second, our privacy has been damage twice: first time, we were completely naked, taking a hot spring bath in our terrace and they entered the room without permission, at 7 pm, to put futon on the floor. Secon time, they rang the bell and bring some towels at 1 am at night!!! we were asleep and we got so scared. We were completely shocked and speechless. ||Keep in mind, this is a very fake ryokan: they rudely imposed us to have breakfast at 8.30, saying that that is a typical ryokan and those are the rules.||I guess they have rules just when it's more convenient to them, since we didnt find any tea ceremony room or any typical japanese ritual and enviroment. But instead, they have a NIGHTCLUB, I guess that is very essential to show traditional customs and cultures!!! ||You have to wake up early anyway, because the floor corridor is loud by cleaning ladies running around screaming and using vacum cleaner without caring about customers, they are all over the place and we even found detergents in front of our door, we had to move those in order to get out.||We paid over 1.300 dollars for 4 nights, I find this treatment absolutely unacceptable; we booked this trough booking.com and they proposed a refund of 28 dollars which has been a further insult on top of all the other bad situations we went through.||Aggravating condition: we were on our honeymoon and they knew it ahead, they have absolutely no excuses and these people are just cheaters who take advantage of turists looking for authentic ryokan experience: trust us and do not book this place! Your trip will turn out...