Kurama Hot Spring — Hotel in Kyoto

We stopped in Kurama for the fire festival held on October 22. I tired to book some rooms during the festival. No reservations can be made during the festival so we booked a few days after. When we arrived with our luggage around 11am they assisted us in storing our luggage as check in was at 1pm. When we came back all of our luggage was in our rooms. We had 8 people and got two rooms. Along with the little Japanese I speak and the little English they do it all worked out perfectly. The indoor pool is simple, and looks like any other you would find else where. There is a cold pool next to the hot pool. A sauna is also located in the same room. Both are at very high temps. The water is naturally heated geothermically. The outside pool is where the beauty is at. The overlook of the mountains while sitting in the hot springs pool can't be done justice with words. It is pricey but being from Colorado with lots of mountain towns; I understand because they have to truck up all of the supplies for everything. The staff was super hospitable for almost all of our needs. After we checked in they ran through the pool rules and asked when we wanted to have dinner. We picked the wild chicken hotpot which was delicious. During dinner they setup our futons in the other room. The onsen is right next to a river, which you can hear from the room. When morning came, we planned to leave when the first shuttle left at 9:15 and get an extra taxi as one shuttle would not fit our group. They used both shuttles as our group was pretty big, which I did not expect. I'm use to most shuttles in America where if you fill up on shuttle you have to wait for the next one, and split up a big group. They used both shuttles for our group, which I did not expect. They had setup breakfast for us when I had told them I wanted to leave on the first shuttle. As we were carrying out luggage out of the rooms, the moment they saw us come down the stairs they rushed up and took out bags from our hands and started loading the shuttles as we finalized the check out and paid the bill. I would highly recommend this onsen if you want the traditional experience. Their service and professionalism is...

We stopped in Kurama for the fire festival held on October 22. I tired to book some rooms during the festival. No reservations can be made during the festival so we booked a few days after. When we arrived with our luggage around 11am they assisted us in storing our luggage as check in was at 1pm. When we came back all of our luggage was in our rooms. We had 8 people and got two rooms. Along with the little Japanese I speak and the little English they do it all worked out perfectly. The indoor pool is simple, and looks like any other you would find else where. There is a cold pool next to the hot pool. A sauna is also located in the same room. Both are at very high temps. The water is naturally heated geothermically. The outside pool is where the beauty is at. The overlook of the mountains while sitting in the hot springs pool can't be done justice with words. It is pricey but being from Colorado with lots of mountain towns; I understand because they have to truck up all of the supplies for everything. The staff was super hospitable for almost all of our needs. After we checked in they ran through the pool rules and asked when we wanted to have dinner. We picked the wild chicken hotpot which was delicious. During dinner they setup our futons in the other room. The onsen is right next to a river, which you can hear from the room. When morning came, we planned to leave when the first shuttle left at 9:15 and get an extra taxi as one shuttle would not fit our group. They used both shuttles as our group was pretty big, which I did not expect. I'm use to most shuttles in America where if you fill up on shuttle you have to wait for the next one, and split up a big group. They used both shuttles for our group, which I did not expect. They had setup breakfast for us when I had told them I wanted to leave on the first shuttle. As we were carrying out luggage out of the rooms, the moment they saw us come down the stairs they rushed up and took out bags from our hands and started loading the shuttles as we finalized the check out and paid the bill. I would highly recommend this onsen if you want the traditional experience. Their service and professionalism is...

This was my first ryokan experience, and as a foreigner I'm sure I was unable to fully appreciate it, so I apologize in advance if my judgement is misguided. Overall the place is very nice and I enjoyed my stay, but for that price I was expecting a bit more of attention to small details. Let's start with the onsen. The indoor private onsen is too hot for my personal taste, and frankly nothing special. The outside one is a gem: very nice and clean, nice view and quiet. The water itself is normal, clear, hot water, without strange smells/minerals/color. Honestly I am not sure it was geothermal heat or just artificially heated water. Shame for the buckets made of plastic instead of real wood, but otherwise excellent. The ryokan: excellent service, absolutely nothing to complain. However the structure itself is in need of some renovations. There is no insulation at wall/windows, either sound or thermal. The noise is not a big deal being a very quiet area, but it gets extremely cold already in the evening, it's impossible to stay with the yukata in the room, and one might struggle even under the heavy blanket. An electric stove is provided, but the fan is very noisy. The bathroom is functional but with no shower (you can shower in the onsen anyway), and foul smell comes somewhere from the (otherwise apparently super clean) toilet. Luckily the door of the bathroom prevents the smell from invading the room. The cuisine is... well, just great! Very abundant and super tasty traditional breakfast and kaiseki course. Again, maybe some more attention to details would be nice. For example, with all this super luxury service, using cheap disposable chopsticks is probably not the best idea, as it is not neat to provide monouse wet napkins in plastic wrapping instead of real hot towels before the meal. Overall a decent experience, but be aware that the prices are for 2 people, and if you are a single traveller you get to pay anyway the full price, so it gets double expensive. This is normal practice in traditional style ryokans as far as I...