Hakone Yunohana Prince Hotel — Hotel in Hakone

This was the Overnight section of a 2-day Tour out from Tokyo, between Matches - we were a Touring RWCup Party from the UK. ||||Described as a 'Ryokan' (traditional Japanese Inn/Hotel with authentic food, rooms and ambiance, so as a real chance to experience something genuinely Japanese, and a change from the formulaic 'Western Humongous Bed Factories'. We were really looking forward to this.||||How wrong could we be .......||||Welcomed - barely, much less warmly. Pointed in the Direction of our Room. We carted our own luggage.||||Room - very basic indeed and more like a cell. Floor was a sack-like material which being damp added a powerful overlay of damp and musth. Round table at floor level with a well to hide your legs was most uncomfortable. The bed was described as a futon, however my description would be some ruffled sheets - with straw-filled pillows to match which also added that extra earthy farmyard aroma to the room.||||Walks in the grounds - banned. Walk over to the next door Golf Course, which from our Bedroom window looked cool, was met with a tundra-like response of "Keep Out. Private'. an entreaty as to the Green Fees illicited the same response. The Prince Hotel's reaction was "they are always like that". Shame you did not consider it appropriate to warn us.||||Getting out of the Hotel or for some exercise was therefore limited to their drive or the Car Park.||||Dinner at night - decscribed as "a feast on a kaiseki dinner". My summary - awful and portions too small for my Hamster.||||Breakfast was their Shining Hour served at 07.00 (Note - not from 07.00). We came early at 07.05, and walked into the Dining Room to find every single place setting had its hot Meal sat there waiting, going cold. Ours already was. Others who filtered down 10, 20 30 minutes later were greeted with the same sight.||||A pointless waste of time, effort and food. I think 3/4 people of 40, ate that morning.||||We paid and went outside to wait in the Car Park for our Coach.||||I unfortunately left something in our Room. Did they make any attempt to contact me/us about it - Nope. Our Tour Agent did and they forward it to a Hotel further on in our Itinerary - it took amost 9 days to appear and they charged me postage and a Handling Fee.||||In Summary - No sleep, comforts, food or drink, or Service.||||Quite the most un-Japanese experience of our entire fabulous 7-week Itinerary,...

We had a lovely room overlooking the golf course. It was still the dregs of winter, so the grass was brown, but the juxtaposition of the green trees, blue sky and brown grass was actually lovely! Our room was a traditional Japanese room with tatami mats and two tables. One without a western style 'well' for feet and another flat style. The bathroom was spacious with separate areas for the sinks, showe/rbath and the toilet. ||||The room had the traditional ukatas provided which we could wear anywhere within the hotel - even to dinner and breakfast!! Which we did, but it felt weird, I have to tell you!||||The onsen baths were lovely. The traditional cleaning and scrubbing areas with their tiny seats; the indoor hot bath and even an external hot bath, too, overlooking the golf course, but private. This is a review of the women's baths, but I understand the men's is similar!||||For dinner we had the multi-course Kaiseki extravaganza. It is said that there are 15 courses... but in this case, there were many more! Many of the dishes we ate we had no idea what they were... but nothing was awful, and everyone lived, so it was all good! This hotel did an amazing job of catering to two of our party that don't eat meat or fish. Great courtesy to these non-foodies, as well!||||When we returned to our rooms, the futon,a padded mattress, called a shikibuton, a quilt, called a kakebuton, and a pillow filled with beans, called a makura were all set out for us. For our Western bodies, this was still very hard to sleep on! We are just not as flexible as the Japanese!||||Breakfast the following morning was just as amazing as the dinner the evening before. || Multiple courses and all I can say is that I recognized the miso soup, the rice and the smoked fish. Other than that - everything was new, amazing and sometimes a challenge! Again, ate everything and i am still here to tell the tale!||||An added bonus was the coffee and juice area in the lobby sitting area. For us Westerners, the cup of java after breakfast was a real bonus!||||Loved this place and wished we had more than one...

We scored a last minute deal from Booking.com and chanced upon this property which includes both dinner & breakfast, staying in a traditional ryokan yet on the grounds of a rather upscale hotel. Dinner was assigned to us in a common hall but it wasn't the traditional "Japanese dining area" as I would expected it to be. Perhaps they segregate the rooms between tourists / locals. Dinner was normal but breakfast was better. Sake was good.||We stayed just a night. A rather good experience sleeping on a futon but luggage space might be compromise if you have 4pax to the room. Loved the outdoor onsen esp in the late night where you get to see the clear skies full of stars!||From the bus stop outside to the property takes about 30mins and if you think you can walk in yourself even though it's just 30mins per Google maps I'd say no because it's kind of winding mountain road(?) H bus would stop by the "Ashinoyu Bus Stop" and upon reaching the bus stop you can call the Hotel to send the shuttle bus to pick you up. ||If you drive there's plenty of parking lots around. Staffs are friendly and service oriented. One staff with glasses by the name of Ko (sorry if I'd spell it wrongly) can speak good English and he's been very helpful to help me with my reservation needs around! Thank you! I wished we had 1more night to better enjoy the...