QFOX Black Diamond HOTEL — Hotel in Kutchan

Q Fox Black Diamond is part of a pair of hotels in Kutchan. I stayed there in early January 2025, and it was an excellent experience! The big drawcard is its proximity to the snow. It's one of the cheaper options that have rooms with private bathrooms. The location is good. It's a bit of a walk to the slopes, but there is a complimentary shuttle bus in the morning to a location of your choice in town. It was a bit difficult to find it in the dark on the first night, but pretty usual for Niseko.

The highlight of the trip is definitely the staff. I found them all exceptionally friendly, helpful and courteous. When I met the lady behind the counter looking for some information, she immediately pointed me towards dinner. All my questions were answered very quickly, and the attention was excellent. I was travelling alone this trip, and was a bit worried, but I felt very safe staying here! It was like staying with family :D

Check in was a breeze, your room number and the key code is sent to you the day of your arrival. I actually managed to walk in and unpack before seeing anyone else at the hotel! There's a lift to get to your floor, which I thought was a bit overkill but is a godsend when you're in ski gear.

The room is small but comfortable and was very clean. Some people have commented that the towels are small, and I suppose that's true. Extra towels are available to take as you need them, I suppose. I didn't have much trouble and I'm 6'2. The toilet was nice, the shower is clean. I had read some complaints about the hot water on google, but I had no trouble at all - if anything it was the opposite, when the faucet is turned all the way up it's too hot!

If you have a bit of luggage, it can feel a bit cramped, but cleverly you can slide your rolling luggage under the bedframes. There's plenty of hanging storage which is really useful for skiing, and there's a fridge in your room which is handy to keep some Strong Zeros. The heating in the room is excellent, you have a large head unit in your room and control over the temperature. There's even a boost button that gives you a few minutes of extra warmth if you need it.

Dinner was fine. Same BBQ buffet every night, with a little station to make some noodles/ramen and another for salad. Good selection of food, huge selection of sauces. I had it 3 nights in a row with no complaints but felt like a bit of a change on my last night. You get a free drink (soft drink or beer) with your meal. There’s also a Thai shaved ice dessert station which was cute. There’s an extra fee for hot pot/all you can eat wagyu/all you can drink. A couple of groups did that during my stay, but I can’t review it.

The breakfast buffet is excellent and saves you so much time in the morning!

Some nights one of the staff members sings for entertainment, and if you’re lucky there’s a bit of karaoke too! A whole lot of fun. All in all a great stay, I would strongly recommend this place!

A bit of information that would have been nice to know in advance: Dinner is 1700-1900, breakfast starts at 7:30. Sit in the bar area for a shuttle in the morning, they're free until 10:00. There's no strict timetable but you'll wait

QFox Black Diamond was an unexpected gem of a hotel. It's modest in stature but delivered above our expectations. We stayed here in Feb for 4 nights.

We did run into a minor snafu in that we booked a room w/ 2 twins and ended up with a single double. I think this is more an issue w/ the Agoda platform as the booking appeared as a standard double w/ a request for a twin appended as a note.

Overall the room was small but functional and clean. As someone with a chronic back issue, the bed was firm and comfortable enough. I do wish they had more hooks on the wall for hanging things as there isn't much storage/organization hardware. On the ground floor there is a ski/snowboard storage room for storing your gear.

On the included meals side, the buffet breakfast was pretty good, as well as the bbq/hot pot dinners. We did the daily breakfast but changed it up and ate a few dinners out in Hirafu. Tbh our dinners at Q Fox were the best value/most fun. The meats were of a decent quality, and there was some variety. The nightly karaoke is a must to experience - what a vibe! And for the comments about the hired singer being terrible, y'all are just being mean. The "hired" singer is one of the lovely staff members who sings mainly when there aren't any customer requests queued up just to keep things rolling - she carries a tune just fine.

Where this hotel really shines is the staff. All the drivers and hotel staff were amazingly friendly people. We met Polly upon check-in and became fast friends (and even sang a couple karaoke songs together). She made every attempt to remedy our twin bed situation and presented a few options. For the comments about never being able to find a staff member at reception, I will add there are fixed hours - it's not 24hrs. There is however also a phone number (English-speaking), and a Whatsapp account you can message if you need something and can't find anyone.

We appreciated the free pick-up/drop-off from the Hirafu Welcome centre upon our arrival/departure, you just need to let them know. And the free daily shuttle buses to the slopes in the morning was a great plus, this is first-come first served and you just wait your turn by the bar in the morning.

The hotel is located at the bottom of lower Hirafu, about a 20 min walk back from the slopes. It can get a bit icy so if you have micro spikes they will only make your life easier, but aren't a necessity. We only saw the free red shuttle bus once at the stop by the hotel so you can expect to forget about using it and walk like everyone else.

Overall I would recommend Q Fox Black Diamond. And if you decide to stay somewhere else, at least come for dinner...

Qfox Black diamond is an awesome hotel that's run by an HK family, extremely easy to communicate to the staff.

The hotel is located at the base of Grand Hirafu Village, they offer a morning shuttle for free to get you to your choice of gondola or base area of Grand Hirafu. The hotel is very accomodating, at the time they had a special where breakfast/lunch/dinner was being served for free in their cafe. This made mornings awesome and easy to get situated as breakfast can often be difficult to figure out in Japan. Especially a ski village.

If you are coming in via the busses, I highly recommend calling the hotel and asking for the shuttle they provide a 1000yen shuttle for the hours out of 7AM-10AM. As the walk down with all your bags might be tricky. If you decide not to though, the red line is able to take you about a 5 min walk from the hotel and is what I ended up doing.

The facilities include a coin washer, spacious drying room, reception area, cafe (coffee/latte/tea machine is pretty much always ready to pump drinks out on demand for guests) this is the same Cafe where meals are served. If you are not feeling the free meals that are provided you can always swing over to the attached hotpot restaurant that dishes out some serious family style sichuan hotpot. Be warned, this is proper Asian spicy, not tabasco sauce on some fries kind of deal.

The rooms themselves come with exactly what you need (I stayed in a double twin room): Washroom is separated from the shower (which has wonderfully hot and strong pressure). Shampoo/Conditioner/Body wash is provided as well as towels. Room has hanging area for jackets, mini fridge, small TV and large windows with drapes that can be drawn as needed.

The staff speak English/Mandarin/Cantonese/Japanese. The facilities are very modern as the hotel was finished sometime in the end of 2022. Jacky the owner was extremely accommodating and always up for a good little chat if you decide to end your day early. The cafe is an excellent place to meet people as you'll find it is the nexus of the guests coming and going. I made some great friends staying here and I hope you will too.

Overall, I highly recommend Qfox as they are very caring for their guests and take pride in their services...