Hanaori — Hotel in Hakone

TLDR - the lakeside room is a scam. It’s actually a roadside room — you will hear noises from the road and won’t feel private at all. Don’t paid extra for it. You will find much better hospitality elsewhere at this price range.

This is a long review, but I hope you can make an informed decisions, and trust that I’m not a hired reviewer —— I think this hotel’s management is a disgrace— all they care about is profitability, and have no regard for hospitality at all. I think they have stretched too much that both customer experience and employee morale were compromised.

I have been to a few similar modern onsen hotels — Aratashi Minakami, MyStays Fuji, the Prince Karuizawa — they all offered much better experiences at a similar or lower price range. Even Dormy Inn had made better effort to ensure a pleasant stay for their guests.

Service: Clearly understaffed Restaurant staff can’t keep up with the traffic - used plates and utensils were left unattended. The self-serving Yukata rack often run out of sizes / colours. No help was offered on luggage despite our room was at the far end of the hotel. (More on the room below) I need to be fair to the staff - almost all of them are friendly and helpful. It’s not their fault when the hotel cut cost and put them on so much stress.

Room: I have chosen their “Lakeside” room with private “hot water” bathtub, their “premium” room type. It’s actually a road-side room. You will hear cars passing right by you all day. Between you and the road are some trees / bushes , which they claimed was for guests’ privacy. However, since the room is so close to the road, people will still see you and you won’t feel private. if you have superhuman eyesight, you can perhaps find a glimpse of the lake through layers of trees & bushes, but that’s hardly any view. Filter out the hired reviewers and look for the low ratings — you will see other guests confirming the same. The naming and description on website was clearly intended to mislead customers, which really is a shame. I have always admired the integrity and hospitality in Japan — this is a huge letdown. It’s located at the far end of another building. It is 7 to 8 mins to any facilities in this hotel - reception, onsen, restaurant, even vending machine. To be fair to the hotel designer and cleaning team (which I believe is outsourced) - the room is spacious and well maintained.

Food: The buffet is a disaster during peak hours. For dinner, they will try to push you to start at 2030 — despite a long drive with empty stomach we respected their arrangement. However, the hotel stopped replenishing food at around 2115, although the promise was 90 mins. You will have to queue up for food like a refugee, flush it down quickly, and scavenge what’s left on the buffet stations. I had to wait in front of an unmanned cooking station, until their chef reemerge from the background, and gave me a tiny portion of meat with a disgruntled face. Later I found out that he already wrapped it up in aluminium foil to share with his colleagues later. I am 100% supportive to avoiding food wastage but this really shouldn’t happen in front of a guest. For breakfast, you can’t make any reservations in advance. With checkout time at 1000, it could get really crowded. But you won’t miss much even if you decide to skip it. Another review has commented that the quality is similar to what you would get from a “supermarket food-stall” — I found that quite accurate.

Onsen: I think they have at least 200 rooms? There are only 3 small indoor pools and one outdoor pool on the men side, each one is about 2m x 4m — you do the math. If you want intimate bathing experience with strangers, yes by all means go for it. The private bathtub in the room provide hot water, but not “hot spring”. They did make it explicit on website for this. Guess it could be illegal if they made an outright false claim on the quality of water. Don’t have much faith on the moral compass...

My family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids aged 8-14) stayed for one night in the Deluxe Room with Tatami Area with Open-Air Bath with Lake Side in late March and had a wonderful time. This was the last night of our 10 day trip to Japan, and it was a much needed time of relaxation.||Meals: We all found many options at the buffet - I can mostly speak to the appetizers as I was pretty full after those, but there was a lot of variety in flavors and the quality was excellent. I didn't have a lot of stomach space left after that, but I had a few other things that were also delicious, and many of the dessert options as well. My kids are not adventurous eaters and found many things to eat - this hotel is extremely kid friendly, there were many families there when we stayed. I think I could have easily had 3 different meals at both buffets and not repeated much. We did add on a carafe of wine for dinner (extra cost) which was reasonable. We also all really enjoyed the breakfast!||Room: This is the only room that fits 5 people, so was our only option. I loved that the futon area could be completely separate from the bed area with sliding doors. The futons are in a cabinet in the room, and the staff prepares the beds while you are at dinner, which was nice. ||I believe most of these rooms are in the building farthest from the baths/lobby/restaurant, but I didn't find the walk to be too bad. We were on the 2nd floor (the one that connects all the buildings) but because of the size of the room, we didn't hear any noise from the hallway. ||The bath on the deck was too hot for any of us to enjoy for very long, mostly because of the depth - it's quite a deep pool, so it's hard to keep a portion of your body out to regulate the temperature. It was cool and rainy when we were there, so we didn't really use the deck much, I do think it's a good option if you want to enjoy this hotel but want or need a private bath, but do know that the temperate is very very hot. If you have a smaller family or are only a couple and can use the public bath, I would personally skip the private bath on the deck.||Baths: My whole family loved the baths - I wasn't sure if my kids would be comfortable in a public bath, but after they tried it once, all of them loved it. We went before and after dinner, and in the morning, so got 3x use out of our one night there. I especially enjoyed the open air bath. Great amenities in the locker room as well.||Hotel Amenities: I loved the vibe of wearing the provided yukata or lounge clothes around the hotel - well over half of guests were doing so, and it added a lot to the relaxed nature. My kids especially loved the yukatas.||A few tips:|-Book the shuttle immediately - there are a few time options you can book, we did the 11:15am shuttle from Odawara to the hotel, and I loved the efficiency of processing everyone from the shuttle immediately, giving all the directions and then you had a token to exchange for your room key at 3pm check-in, without having to wait in a line again. Staff was VERY helpful and everyone I talked to spoke excellent English. We also took the 10am shuttle back to Odawara.||-The actual town of Hakone is quite busy, I found it to be a similar vibe of Wisconsin Dells or the Black Hills in the USA - a lot of activities that have lines and feel a bit cheesy. We did the ropeway up and back and that's it and each stop was packed with people. We thankfully didn't have to wait long, but it was tough to find a spot to eat lunch and the ropeway alone doesn't connect you all the way to Gora. Only doing this and briefly stopping to eat a quick lunch took us 3 hours, and we wanted to make sure to get every moment out of our one night...

[Good View, Clean and Friendly, but Dinner Experience Falls Short]

I arrived at this hotel this afternoon and found the overall environment to be nice and clean. The staff was friendly and welcoming, and the check-in procedure was clear and efficient. However, despite these positive aspects, my overall experience was marred by the quality of the dinner.

The hotel itself was well-maintained, creating a pleasant atmosphere for guests. The cleanliness of the rooms and public areas was commendable, and it contributed to a comfortable stay. The staff members were friendly and provided excellent service throughout my visit, which enhanced the overall hospitality experience.

The check-in procedure was smooth and hassle-free. The hotel staff was organized and efficient, ensuring that guests could settle into their rooms without any unnecessary delays or complications.

However, the one aspect that significantly impacted my overall impression of the hotel was the dinner experience. Unfortunately, the quality of the food and dining service fell short of expectations, and it had a negative impact on my stay.

During my visit to the restaurant, I had high hopes for a memorable dining experience. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met, and I found the overall quality of the food to be unexpectedly poor.

On a positive note, it was evident that the chefs put their heart into their craft, and the use of fresh ingredients was apparent. However, the execution of the dishes fell short, resulting in a blurred taste harmony that left much to be desired.

The appetizers were presented great, however they lack of organization. The flavors seemed jumpy and failed to come together in a cohesive manner. Furthermore, I was disappointed with the limited selection of sashimi, which left much to be desired in terms of variety and quality.

The hot dishes were a disaster, to say the least. They were even worse than train express lunch boxes, which is quite disheartening. One of the main dishes, the grilled beef, was not only chewy but also tasteless. It was difficult to believe that this was the quality of beef one would expect from a Japanese restaurant.

The dessert selection was equally underwhelming. While I appreciate the attempt to offer a seasonal concept, I didn’t know that Halloween chocolate could consider to be one of it. A pumpkin cheesecake, or a dessert inspired by chocolate and chestnut would have been a much better choice. Even the ice cream lacked flavor, and I couldn't help but think that buying ready-to-serve ice cream cups would have been a better alternative.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of my experience was the buffet dinner. Guests were expected to return their used dishes themselves, which gave the impression of being in a food court rather than a reputable restaurant in a resort hotel.

Overall, while the hotel provided excellent service, the restaurant fell far short of expectations. It was the sole reason I would hesitate to return to this hotel for future vacations. I urge the management to consider revamping the dinner experience, perhaps by adopting a semi-buffet concept with fewer choices for appetizers and desserts, and offering main dishes made to order. Additionally, attention should be given to menu design and the concept of taste harmonization.

I sincerely hope that improvements are made so that if I ever have the opportunity to visit again, I can have a more enjoyable...