Yuyado Tokinoniwa — Hotel in Kusatsu

Just checked in for 3 nights. ||I stayed in same Kyoritsu resorts in Okuhida (Miyama Ouan) and experience was amazing, so we'd decided to stay 3 nights here. This hotel is a great value.||||1. Location||It's off from Yubatake, center of Kusatsu town but there's a shuttle bus to center bus stop every hour. 15min nice walk. Because it's off center, this property sits on large lot and has gardens, and great mountain views. Plenty of guest parking available.||This hotel shared common area with Konoha, more budget resorts. We stayed on busy pre Christmas weekends but common area was never crowded. ||||2. Amenities||They have 2 large public baths both mens and women. One comes with large outdoor bath overlooking forests. It was beautiful and has many choices of tubs. There's also hamam kind of sauna, dry sauna on pubic bath. 3 private outdoor bath is first-come basis. Large tubs and beautiful milky hot springs were very nice. ||||There's free coffee, water/tea machine and ice pop by the public bath. Lounge area is very large and we always found a place to sit. They also serves ramen from 10pm for free which was great (although we've never tried). There's coin laundry (which I didn't see from their web sites) was great help for tourists from US like us.||||There's pillows bar and Yukata (Kimono to wear throughout the stay) bar to chose what you'd like. So many choices of pillows and different types of Yukata. I don't really need Yukata as much as they've provided Samui (Kimonotop + Pants, like Japanese PJs) but selection of pillows was good idea. ||||3. Room ||Great room. We had tatami room living area, tatami bedroom with 2 single beds (which we can put together for double use) and vanity area, shower booth and bathtub on balcony. Toilet was separate with sink which was great. Has small minibar area which was very helpful. Upon checked in, there was tea aromatic fragrance was in the room and it was very nice. ||||4. Food||We had breakfast/dinner plans. Beautiful Kaiseki for dinner and beautiful presentation, we enjoyed a lot. There are good selection of Sake, Cocktails and other alcohol. A top notch service and servers were very polite and nice. ||||5. Overall||This resort is a new type of Onsen Ryokan with modern service/idea. They don't provide slippers but instead they'd provide socks to wear through the stay. No shoes in the Ryokan and many walk around bare feet. They don't provide fancy shampoos or amenities, or towels by the public bath but they provide a basket with towels to carry from room which totally makes sense. They don't serve dinner via room service (as it used to be old fashioned age), but they serve great Kaiseki meals in the restaurants with semi-private (cubicle) tables. Very efficient and we love this resorts. We really enjoyed this Kyoritsu resorts and looking forward to stay at another resorts soon. ||||Highly recommended. If you don't have budget, there's an option to stay next door (connected inside, same facilities) Konoha is good choice too. ||||*We were the only foreign tourists when we stayed. Not much Chinese guests too. Most of the guests were Japanese and English service might be limited. But it's worth challenging to stay in this...

Just checked in for 3 nights. ||I stayed in same Kyoritsu resorts in Okuhida (Miyama Ouan) and experience was amazing, so we'd decided to stay 3 nights here. This hotel is a great value.||||1. Location||It's off from Yubatake, center of Kusatsu town but there's a shuttle bus to center bus stop every hour. 15min nice walk. Because it's off center, this property sits on large lot and has gardens, and great mountain views. Plenty of guest parking available.||This hotel shared common area with Konoha, more budget resorts. We stayed on busy pre Christmas weekends but common area was never crowded. ||||2. Amenities||They have 2 large public baths both mens and women. One comes with large outdoor bath overlooking forests. It was beautiful and has many choices of tubs. There's also hamam kind of sauna, dry sauna on pubic bath. 3 private outdoor bath is first-come basis. Large tubs and beautiful milky hot springs were very nice. ||||There's free coffee, water/tea machine and ice pop by the public bath. Lounge area is very large and we always found a place to sit. They also serves ramen from 10pm for free which was great (although we've never tried). There's coin laundry (which I didn't see from their web sites) was great help for tourists from US like us.||||There's pillows bar and Yukata (Kimono to wear throughout the stay) bar to chose what you'd like. So many choices of pillows and different types of Yukata. I don't really need Yukata as much as they've provided Samui (Kimonotop + Pants, like Japanese PJs) but selection of pillows was good idea. ||||3. Room ||Great room. We had tatami room living area, tatami bedroom with 2 single beds (which we can put together for double use) and vanity area, shower booth and bathtub on balcony. Toilet was separate with sink which was great. Has small minibar area which was very helpful. Upon checked in, there was tea aromatic fragrance was in the room and it was very nice. ||||4. Food||We had breakfast/dinner plans. Beautiful Kaiseki for dinner and beautiful presentation, we enjoyed a lot. There are good selection of Sake, Cocktails and other alcohol. A top notch service and servers were very polite and nice. ||||5. Overall||This resort is a new type of Onsen Ryokan with modern service/idea. They don't provide slippers but instead they'd provide socks to wear through the stay. No shoes in the Ryokan and many walk around bare feet. They don't provide fancy shampoos or amenities, or towels by the public bath but they provide a basket with towels to carry from room which totally makes sense. They don't serve dinner via room service (as it used to be old fashioned age), but they serve great Kaiseki meals in the restaurants with semi-private (cubicle) tables. Very efficient and we love this resorts. We really enjoyed this Kyoritsu resorts and looking forward to stay at another resorts soon. ||||Highly recommended. If you don't have budget, there's an option to stay next door (connected inside, same facilities) Konoha is good choice too. ||||*We were the only foreign tourists when we stayed. Not much Chinese guests too. Most of the guests were Japanese and English service might be limited. But it's worth challenging to stay in this...

We stayed in Tokinoniwa for 1 night and stayed in the in-room onsen with the 40.28m2 room. ||||Location: a bit far from the main onsen village, which is fine for us since they offer free shuttle from hotel to main onsen village with early and late night, so no need to worry that you can't get to the village||||Room standard: we stayed in their biggest room which is nice, however, the room inside is actually a bit older than I expect, and since their entrance and lobby are so well furnished and looks new, so that I expected the room will be the same; however, it is not, so it is a bit disappointed...||||||EXCELLENT free bus shuttle to Karuizawa - make sure you book it in advance, I believe this is such a GOOD nice service that they have. It saved you many transit and train changing time. ||||Staff: all staff are wonderful, their service is one of the best||||Meal: ||Dinner - We sat in a private room from their restaurant floor. I had onsen meal many times, but unfortunately, I would said their dinner is one of the not-so-good onsen dinner that I ever had, they started with many starchy food, and their the seafood grill's seafood is not as fresh, and the sashimi we found a piece fish scale when we ate (which I believe this is a big no-no for onsen/japanese meal), and the sukiyaki seems only sweet, we don't taste much for the soup stock (konbu or any other taste). Therefore, we were not so satisfied for the dinner.||Breakfast - we got sat in the restaurant floor but not in private room this time, it was much much much better than dinner, or i have adjusted our standard for their food, anyway, the breakfast was good, we both choose the JPN style, grill fish and congee/rice, it was way better and the taste for the pickles/veggi have reach the standard||||In conclusion, we think this is an OK stay, we spent around USD$500 (2 people for night, 2 meal), honestly, I would exepect expect a bit better experience. I will say the bus service and many outdoor onsen to try are the highlight...