Bousui Ryokan Shizuoka Hotel — Hotel in Higashiizu

My husband and I decided to book Bousui Ryokan as a special off-the-beaten path destination for our 1 year anniversary. Sadly it has been a disappointing stay. When we checked in after an arduous trek (Google Maps walking directions had us walking dangerously on the main narrow road coming from Ito-Hokkawa station), the staff was cold and gave us a basic run down of the place with no acknowledgement of our anniversary. All he seemed to care about was to pin down the exact time we wanted to our private onsen and have breakfast, which we didn’t know but felt pressure to confirm on the spot. The lobby bathroom was dingy as others had mentioned and did not feel like a luxury resort. We selected the breakfast option but not the dinner option when booking the room, and when we realized there were very limited options to have dinner around the area we asked to have dinner the next day to which they quickly replied “no, you cannot have the dinner”. There was no attempt at accommodating the request and it seems strange that we couldn’t add-on dinner for the day after as there was still advance notice.

A lady came by our room with matcha and sweets as we got settled in, which was a nice touch. However as we got back to the lobby for 4pm happy hour, we noticed other guests were receiving a welcome drink and were sat in the sofa in the gorgeous lobby overlooking the ocean as they received their run-down, whereas our experience was just standing at the receipt desk and being made to feel like we were nuisances without any welcome drink, which would’ve been so nice as we were parched and thirsty after the 4hr train ride from Kyoto. I had to ask for some, and again was made to feel like I was troubling the staff for something that should’ve been given to us which really dampened the experience.

The next disappointment was when we asked to use the luggage shipping service for our next destination. So far, all the hotels we’ve stayed at have helped take care of this effortlessly. However, the staff here seemed super confused by our request and gave us a pink slip for Yamato Transport that was in Japanese and said to fill it out. We literally have no idea how to fill it out and feel frustrated that they would expect us to know how to and couldn’t take care of this simple matter themselves. Now we are stressed about whether or not our luggage will make it to the correct destination.

This is our first stay at a ryokan with onsen, and we read up on etiquette and was expecting some level of traditional/older facilities and that has been honestly fine, we don’t mind the dated decor and amenities, it’s the customer service that has been so terrible especially for a USD $390/night 3-star hotel. So far the onsen private bath experience has made up for the less than stellar check-in experience. We will see what breakfast brings tomorrow, and I guess we’ll need to figure out dinner plans too since we can’t eat here!

If you’re a foreigner and looking to celebrate a special occasion or anniversary, I suggest you look elsewhere.

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Edit: Well breakfast was interesting. We chose the latest time at 8:30am and to our surprise they knocked on our door at 8am to try and clear our beds while we were still sleeping. It was a rather rude awakening on our anniversary to not be able to sleep-in and get rushed to get ready. We asked for 5mins and was still brushing our teeth when the lady came back again to promptly dismantle the bed to make room for breakfast. The kaiseki breakfast itself was beautiful and elaborate which was too bad as we didn’t feel like eating first thing in the morning. Upon eating, we found the grilled fish was rock hard (they pre-cook it and you heat it back up over a flame), the tofu had an eyelash hair in it, the clams were sandy and my husband ate into ground bones/rock in their house meatball things that were inside the miso soup. Gross and...

I can say many great things about this hotel. The views from the lobby, through giant windows and out over the ocean, are beautiful. The train ride down from Tokyo, along the coast, was lovely. The Japanese-style rooms are a great experience, and we slept like logs on the futons with super-comfortable bedding and the sound of the waves coming through the window. The breakfast was delicious and incredibly elaborate. Service was super-attentive, with so many people taking care of room set up and meal service. You can get picked up at the train station by the hotel van. All of the staff were friendly, helpful, and polite. The private bath suites (each guest gets a free one-hour session) are gorgeous and very deluxe, and the public baths are also very nice - though be forewarned, swimsuits are not allowed!||||On the negatives side - although our room faced the ocean, it was set back over some other roofs of the lower floors, and there was no balcony, so we did not really get much of an immersive "ocean view" experience from our room, as we had expected. And the biggest negative of all is that there is really no outdoor space at the hotel at all, other than the small outdoor baths (which are still behind a fence / under an overhang). The hotel is basically sandwiched between the road and the ocean. You will spend all of your time in your room, in the baths, or in the lobby. For me, I felt much more confined than I had expected/hoped If you want more of an outdoor Ryokkan/Onsen experience, with gardens and other outdoor space, you should go somewhere else.||||One word for vegetarians - they cannot prepare a vegetarian dinner option, and the dinner is supposed to be a big part of the experience. We checked in advance and knew this so we brought some snacks for dinner and enjoyed the Western breakfast, which was...

I can say many great things about this hotel. The views from the lobby, through giant windows and out over the ocean, are beautiful. The train ride down from Tokyo, along the coast, was lovely. The Japanese-style rooms are a great experience, and we slept like logs on the futons with super-comfortable bedding and the sound of the waves coming through the window. The breakfast was delicious and incredibly elaborate. Service was super-attentive, with so many people taking care of room set up and meal service. You can get picked up at the train station by the hotel van. All of the staff were friendly, helpful, and polite. The private bath suites (each guest gets a free one-hour session) are gorgeous and very deluxe, and the public baths are also very nice - though be forewarned, swimsuits are not allowed!||||On the negatives side - although our room faced the ocean, it was set back over some other roofs of the lower floors, and there was no balcony, so we did not really get much of an immersive "ocean view" experience from our room, as we had expected. And the biggest negative of all is that there is really no outdoor space at the hotel at all, other than the small outdoor baths (which are still behind a fence / under an overhang). The hotel is basically sandwiched between the road and the ocean. You will spend all of your time in your room, in the baths, or in the lobby. For me, I felt much more confined than I had expected/hoped If you want more of an outdoor Ryokkan/Onsen experience, with gardens and other outdoor space, you should go somewhere else.||||One word for vegetarians - they cannot prepare a vegetarian dinner option, and the dinner is supposed to be a big part of the experience. We checked in advance and knew this so we brought some snacks for dinner and enjoyed the Western breakfast, which was...