Karuizawa Prince Hotel West — Hotel in Karuizawa

We stayed at this ski resort hotel for two nights in December 2022 (wished we had stayed for at least one other night). This hotel is located very close to the Prince Outlet Shopping Centre (it’s all part of Prince Group I’d guess). You can walk to the hotel from the Karuizawa train station. There is also a free shuttle bus (green and brown bus) that you can take at 15 min intervals during peak times. This hotel is excellent if you want to ski and shop. The ski slopes are located at one end of the hotel (wing A). I’d suggest staying in wing B as it’ll be quieter. You can also walk to the factory outlet stores to burn more money after skiing. The hotel is not new but seems to have been partially refurbished. The rooms are fairly clean (but not exceptionally clean). Food at the hotel restaurant is expensive. You should make a reservation otherwise there is a high chance that it’ll be booked out. However, there is a Family Mart store at the hotel to buy food etc if you’re on a budget. You can also hire ski gear at this hotel. Thankfully, the prices seem fairly reasonable. Beware that this hotel can get very busy during check in and check out hours. We enjoyed great hotel service. We had 5 in our family with 2 rooms booked. The hotel gave us a third (sofa) bed for the same price. It was a very nice gesture. Overall, I’d stay here again for sure (but maybe travel to Gala Yuzawa for day trips to enjoy...

I’d like to thanks to the cloak services staff (as I didn’t see their name tag) we came here yesterday and the young cute lady was very helpful and being gentle. She isn’t fluent in English but that is fine since they still help us keeping the luggage in the waiting room (it’s called cloak room in Japan, I don’t know why)

The second day is our departure day, but we thought we still need the services since we are going to have a ski class afternoon (which is way after the checkout time) and they were accept our luggage nicely and even help us planning the bus timetable without us asking them. Yeah it could be their policy not to turn away from customer, but the services mind was 10/10

Then we realized that if we want to shorten the process we should head to the station after the class, not coming back to the hotel so I need to ask the staff to return our luggage and head to the station with the bus. She help us obtain all the stuff and help us look at the bus timetable again. Turn out that the train we need was one right in front of us and closing the door. We thought it was okay. We were not in a rush so another 30 min waiting is fine but then she went to the shut door and ask the driver to accept us. I’d rate this 11/10. Unfortunately we were running from the front across the checkin area to the bus. Greet her a farewell and not even a few seconds to...

Traveling with 2 teenagers. This is not a suitable place for them. Check in at 3pm. You can check your luggage early. But, during this waiting time, you can only go for outlet shopping. Sadly, not for teenagers !Staff are fine but quite fixed. For example, we arrived at 1030 and one teenager asked for using gym. They said no. It's his birthday, none is happy about this. At the early evening, I found you need to pay 2000 yean for each use of gym and hot spring. I feel this is silly. You are charging us anyway why not let us use and pay? Cottage: is cute and cozy but extremely oldx3. I think you can describe a vantage cottage. Clean but a bit of natural symphony from outside. Buffet dinner: selection if food was ok. Western, Chinese and Japanese. But certainly the entire area are a bit of pricy. 9000 yean plus 18% charges. If you dont have a choice , this is acceptable. Or you can choose to eat early at the outlet area. Hot spring: outdoor and indoor. Very nice setting but you pay 2000 per use. Overall, this area is pretty pricy. But if you are here to chill this should be nice but with teenagers I would say they rather live in Tokyo like a cheap hotel not this. They don't appreciate this at all. I still appreciate the service and...