Niseko Freedom Inn — Hotel in Kutchan

We stayed here 6 years ago and it was a really positive experience so we decided to stay again. The service is excellent, all the staff go above and beyond to help you out with all things snow and non-snow related. ||We stayed in a western room with two king singles pushed together and a lovely outside view. The room and en-suite are quite basic but still useable. The only issue I had was the rock solid bed but that’s very common in japan. ||For location, they are a 10 min walk from Hanazono lifts and they run a bus back and forth each morning and afternoon. They also drive you to a local onsen in the evenings if you book in and out to different places in Kutchan-Cho and Hirafu for dinner. They had some excellent recommendations for food. ||So why only 4 stars? Two reasons.||1. When we booked, the email communication was excellent but they advised us due to the timing of the shuttle from Hirafu back to Sapporo (8am) drop off would be during their breakfast time so they could not do it. We were given the option of them calling us a taxi in the morning (taxis can often just not come) or a private transfer at $450 AUD. We took the private transfer given we are connecting to an international flight but when we arrived here staff advised they could do a breakfast time drop off....it would just cost us an extra ¥6000. I would have appreciated knowing about that beforehand to save myself a bunch of money on the private transfer. ||2. Since the last time we stayed they have started running a service for xtravel groups from Sweden. I can see why they offer the service as it clearly works for their sort of accomodation but while we were here two different groups stayed and the second lot were jerks. Loud, inconsiderate, yelling in the hallways at 6am, staying up late and yelling good night in the hallways jerks. We choose this accomodation because it doesn’t have that element of drunken moron so commonly found in Hirafu and this was unfortunately a bit of a...

Small friendly hotel with a youth hostel vibe. Staff could not have been nicer or more helpful, especially when our shipped skis failed to arrive—they were able to contact the local delivery office and track them down in time for the second day of skiing. Fantastic access to Hanazono lifts. Hotel runs a shuttle in the morning and afternoon, and is a 10 minute walk otherwise. Location is more remote than it might seem, in hindsight we would have gotten groceries en route to be able to prepare some of our own meals. Some rooms have fridges, our two did not (used nature’s fridge, i.e. a plastic bag hanging out the window). Breakfasts were not exciting but were adequate; last day was Japanese-style breakfast which was a nice surprise. We had the hotel dinner one night, which was tasty and a quite vast amount of food. Second floor room with private bath was very comfortable. Basement room with shared bath was a bit musty-smelling and shared shower and toilets were grim. If we had not had access to the private shower, it would have been a less pleasant experience. Be sure to look into the free Hanazono shuttle loop (see photo), which stops at the back of the Park Hyatt. We discovered it accidentally on our way back to the airport, as it’s not part of hotel’s information or the resort transportation summary. Goes to Hirafu Welcome Center and a few other stops...

I came here with my family for a 3-day ski trip. The staff were extremely friendly and quickly helped us settle in. Even though most of the staff are people from Europe like Ireland and England, they can communicate with Japanese tourists well. ||||This cozy little inn was in fact converted from a bungalow and I spent my free time shoveling out the front porch. Freedom Inn was located just a 5 minute walk away from Hanazono 308 skiing slope. There are shuttle vans everyday from 8:30-9:30am to Hanazono and 4:00-5:00pm back to the hotel. In the evenings when you need to enjoy, just hop along to Weiss Hotel (again, by the shuttle) to enjoy the Japanese Onsen. Furthermore, you get half price once you tell the front desk that you stay in Freedom Inn! ||||Cliff, the owner, always has recommendations of dinner for you! He mostly recommends small restaurants in the local town of Kutchan which are cheaper and better than the more expensive restaurants in the touristy Hirafu. In the mornings when you wake up, once you glance outside the window, there'll be snow everywhere for you to see, on the trees, the windows, the front porch and the roads. ||||I'll definitely come back next winter to stay again in this lovely inn. Also, I told Cliff that I'll come back when I'm 18 to shovel out the...