Atagawakan — Hotel in Higashiizu

The Atagawakan was a delightful and beautiful beach location to enjoy swimming, hot spring baths, and sumptuous meals. My kids loved the beach; I loved the hotel, the staff, and in particular, Mr. Inaba, who spoke fluent English and was very helpful, gracious and kind. ||The hotel provides free transportation to and from the train station, which was very helpful considering our luggage and the hilly town, and also had ample beach towels, umbrellas and beach chairs to take across the street for the entire day. A small outdoor shower allowed us to rinse sand off before re-entering the hotel lobby. The lobby also provided sandals to borrow for the beach, which is volcanic dark sand, very soft, but hot in the sun. Each room had a spectacular ocean view, with fridges stocked with everything from bottled water to big Asahi beers. ||Our meals were private banquets, and the friendly, lovely waiting woman provided everything we could ask for, and served us very professionally, introducing us to elegant Japanese dining. When we went to breakfast, the room staff came into our rooms to put away the futons and set up the sitting area; when we went to dinner, they came back to set up the futons. Every afternoon we received big flasks of ice water and a light snack, and they didn't mind us tracking in beach sand, and cleaned up after our sandy days on the beach. ||The hot-spring baths are beautiful, with both indoor and outdoor baths available to men and women separately, with fabulous views of the ocean.||Conveniently located next door is a Circle K store to get coffee, snacks, lunch items, and in the evenings, we could set off fireworks on the beach, or the kids could play arcade games. The entire neighborhood was safe and filled with families. ||If we had wifi in the rooms, that would have been a plus, but the absence of internet just refocused our group to...

The Atagawakan was a delightful and beautiful beach location to enjoy swimming, hot spring baths, and sumptuous meals. My kids loved the beach; I loved the hotel, the staff, and in particular, Mr. Inaba, who spoke fluent English and was very helpful, gracious and kind. ||The hotel provides free transportation to and from the train station, which was very helpful considering our luggage and the hilly town, and also had ample beach towels, umbrellas and beach chairs to take across the street for the entire day. A small outdoor shower allowed us to rinse sand off before re-entering the hotel lobby. The lobby also provided sandals to borrow for the beach, which is volcanic dark sand, very soft, but hot in the sun. Each room had a spectacular ocean view, with fridges stocked with everything from bottled water to big Asahi beers. ||Our meals were private banquets, and the friendly, lovely waiting woman provided everything we could ask for, and served us very professionally, introducing us to elegant Japanese dining. When we went to breakfast, the room staff came into our rooms to put away the futons and set up the sitting area; when we went to dinner, they came back to set up the futons. Every afternoon we received big flasks of ice water and a light snack, and they didn't mind us tracking in beach sand, and cleaned up after our sandy days on the beach. ||The hot-spring baths are beautiful, with both indoor and outdoor baths available to men and women separately, with fabulous views of the ocean.||Conveniently located next door is a Circle K store to get coffee, snacks, lunch items, and in the evenings, we could set off fireworks on the beach, or the kids could play arcade games. The entire neighborhood was safe and filled with families. ||If we had wifi in the rooms, that would have been a plus, but the absence of internet just refocused our group to...

Wonderful facilities. Big, beautiful, clean room with an ocean view, and a lovely onsen bath with an outdoor portion to enjoy in the rain. Excellent location that’s peaceful enough to enjoy on your own, but in a town with enough interesting businesses and people to be entertaining.

But the hotel service was not great. I mistakenly didn’t order any meals and they couldn’t add them to my plan on the day—fair enough, that’s how it is at ryokan—but they didn’t suggest anything I could do instead, meaning it was up to me to figure out how to not starve in this unfamiliar town. Ultimately I had to walk all the way up the hill to the FamilyMart in the early morning to find breakfast.

The WiFi went down on the second day, and it took two phone calls to get someone to come and fix it.

When checking out, I asked the front desk staff to hold on to my luggage as I wanted to do a little more exploring before leaving. They left my luggage sitting out in the open in the lobby, and when I came back it was totally unattended and I (or anyone else…) was able to grab it and leave without any kind of security check.

Finally, when it was time to head back to the station and the rain was pouring down, I asked about the shuttle bus. It wasn’t running at that time—okay, that’s fine, there’s a timetable—but again I got absolutely no help or sympathy, or an offer of an umbrella. Just a cold shoulder and a reminder that it starts running again at 2pm. My last memory of Atagawa is trekking up the hill, umbrella-less, in the pouring rain.

Overall I enjoyed my stay, but the lack of care or initiative from the staff did put a...