Hotel Yumeshizuku — Hotel in Minamiaso

Haven't been so pleasantly surprised by a hotel in quite a while. When we arrived and stopped our car at the lobby to unload our luggage, the check-in staff was on the phone, but she quickly ended the call and rushed out with a colleague to help with our bags. She spoke impeccable English, had a great sense of humour, and yet maintained an exceptional level of Japanese decorum -- e.g. when she walked us to our room, she ushered us into the lift, pressed the button for us, then quickly excused herself so that we could have the lift all to ourselves (she took the stairs). When the lift doors opened, she was standing right outside. Sadly we didn't catch her name, but kudos if you are reading this!||||We quickly realised that we lucked out, being the only guests at the hotel that night: the car park was empty, the onsen baths were empty, the restaurant was empty. That was when we met our waitress Miyazaki-san, who couldn't speak English, but patiently conversed with us in simple Japanese (we could understand a little bit of the language), explaining the food and, after dinner, engaging in a 30-minute chit chat. Lovely lady.||||The room, a Superior Western-style room with open-air bath, was massive, and had a private rotenburo that looked out into a beautiful Japanese garden and Mount Aso as the backdrop. Here in the foothills, even in spring the nighttime temperature dipped into the single digits, so it was very nice to enjoy the hot bath with the crisp cold air. ||||Regret that we only...

The moment we stepped inside, I knew this place is going to be amazing. One of the staff members actually directed us because she ran into us as we were searching for the hotel. She quickly dashed into the hotel and grabbed other staff members to help us with our luggage and took our shoes. ||||We originally planned to drive up to Mount Aso but we were told the usual 15min route was not safe so the staff spent a great deal of time explaining to us another route if we still choose to go up. There happen to be an intern there that spoke mandarin which my relatives understood and she was very attentive to us the entire time we were there. ||||There's a foot bath immediately outside the lobby area which we took advantage pretty right after we settled into our amazing rooms. The rooms were beautiful with sliding doors as curtains if you don't want to look out to the beautiful, breathtaking landscape. You can see the weather change before your eyes, it was magnificent. I didn't feel crowded even thought there's 3 of us in one room. If there has to be one thing I can improve is the washroom water tab. We kept hitting it down thinking the water would stop but it was the opposite haha.||||The meals were absolutely delight. Delish multi course dinner and if you're adventurous, there's horse sashimi. The hotel asked us beforehand for food allergies which they took well care of.||||Their onsen is part indoor and part outdoor so you can enjoy a mountain view as you soak in...

Service is really poor. Japanese staff couldn't care less for us. They treat us so poorly unlike other Japanese guests. They not even trying to talk/help us. The only staff that care us the best is a Nepalese staff. It is normal for Japanese staff to not able to speak English but most of the time they will try their best to communicate, but not this luxury accommodation. Maybe being an Asian but not Japanese is the cause?

Moreover, hotel parking lot locate near the onsen fume. We park our car overnight and on the next morning our car is covered in onsen stain. Hotel staff never apologize and couldn't care less. The only thing they trying to do for us is trying to kick us out of the hotel lobby as fast as possible and handing us a water hose to let us clean our car ourselves at 0 Celsius, freezing temperature. We don't really expect them to wash the car for us or anything, we just want to know how to clean the onsen stain and where to clean them coz we don't want to damage the rented car, moreover the onsen stain also covered the windshield which make it really dangerous to drive as we can barely see anything when the stain hit with the sunlight.

For the price tag of $300 a night, with such mediocre service and all of the trouble with our car and the poor service-mind of the owner, I would say AVOID...