Hotel Abest Hakuba Resort — Hotel in Hakuba

Hotel Abest Hakuba, from a skiers perspective.||Staff 5 stars, hotel 2 stars||A mixed bag of a hotel.||It is not ski in/ski out, as claimed on some websites. The walk to the lift station is a few hundred yards uphill and can be challenging in snow and ice.||There is no housekeeping, let alone daily, again as claimed on some websites. You have to get clean towels at reception and the rooms are not cleaned or serviced during your stay. With people leaving and arriving daily the corridors are often strewn with dirty laundry, which isn't ideal in a relatively small area..||Our room, with en-suite shower/bath and toilet was small, which is fairly typical of ski resorts, but there was no storage. No cupboards or drawers, at all, just 5 coat hangers in an open space, and only half a toilet roll in the bathroom. The toilet roll is shockingly flimsy and cheap, disintegrating as soon as it comes into contact with anything remotely moist (although this may be common in Japan rather than a hotel specific issue).||There was nowhere to put wet ski gear on return from skiing. The ski storage room has no heat and does not even have heated rods to put ski boots on, so if you return with wet boots then that is what you have to look forward to in the morning.||The beds, and pillows were rock hard, like sleeping on cement. Bedding was stained.||The food is a mixture, some decent, some less so, but always let down by most of it being cold, even if you arrived dead on time for breakfast or your evening meal. The food is buffet style and is laid out in open plates, so immediately loses any heat. Surely a simple fix to put it out in catering style containers with lids? ||Some positives:||The staff were all really excellent – relentlessly cheerful, helpful and hard working. They were happy to help resolve any problems and provided padded mattress toppers to help with the concrete bed issue. One staff member even took my wife to hospital after a fall, which was much appreciated and went well beyond what you would normally expect in terms of customer service. At the end of our stay we were driven to the station, again much appreciated.||The miso soup and rice got my wife's approval, and the dim sum and freshly cooked to order shrimp tempura on a couple of nights were excellent, as were the mini croissants at breakfast.||The onsen was very good, the toiletries in the bathroom were of a good quality. The beds are really spacious. ||I would expect to pay a premium for a hotel so close to a lift station, and with its own onsen, but the overall quality of accommodation on offer does not justify a charge of...

Wow. I booked this hotel last minute and we hit the jackpot! Location is amazing. 1-2 minutes walk from Goryu which was our favourite slope! There are no bathrooms in the rooms however this ended up being a blessing as you relax in the downstairs onsens every night after a day of snowboarding and it is an experience in itself. If we had showers in our rooms we may not have considered using them, but they ended up being almost as much fun as snowboarding!! There is also a sauna in the ladies and men’s. And the men’s also have an ice bath, which is great for your muscle recovery for the next day on the slopes. Lastly, we need to mention the staff!! We have never been anywhere in the world that have had nicer people looking after us! They look after you as if you were family! They drove my son on his birthday around for nearly half an hour so he could get Pokémon cards! They let me check in early as I’d injured my knee. I feel there is nothing they wouldn’t do for you! Completely above and beyond and a wonderful experience. We will come back every year!!! We highly recommend...

We arranged our accommodation through Booking.com after finding Abest on the internet. ||Looked good. But soon discovered they had nobody on the phones that could speak English. Arranging the visit, getting directions, trying to get a pick up from the bus stop, calling for assistance from the train station and getting directions from the hotel was all impossible. ||We were a family of 5. 2 teenagers and a 5 year old. ||When we arrived we found the front stairs were covered in snow. We had to dig our way up the stairs. Nobody around to assist or receive us. ||Eventually the hotel manager appeared but could speak no English. We resorted to using google interpreter on his computer. ||He could tell us very little about access the slopes, the ski schools and equipment. We soon realized that he could offer no support and that there never be any. ||We didn’t check in but instead found better accommodation where we felt we could get the support...