In our 10-day Hokkaido self-drive vacation, my family and I wanted to stay at an onsen town. So I chose Noboribetsu and Adex Inn in Noboribetsu due to its close proximity to Jigokudani Valley (about 10 minutes’ walk) and the main shopping street. We stayed one night on a Saturday.||Getting to hotel & parking: We arrived at the hotel after visiting Cape Chikyu and Tokkarisho Lookout Point in Muroran via Apple Map and Google Map on Apple Car Play in our rental car. Depending on the direction, Adex Inn is at the end or at the start of Gokuraku Street. After we unloaded our luggage at the front entrance, a lady staff from the hotel walked over and provided me with a parking slip and directed me to park my car at the car park that is opposite the Jigokudani Valley (about 160 metres from hotel) since the hotel does not have its own car park. I could not even park at the sister hotel Dai-ichi Takimotokan Hotel across the road. |If you take the train from JR Sapporo Station or JR Hakodate Station or JR New Chitose Airport Station, you have to alight at JR Noboribetsu Station and then take a 15-minute taxi ride to the Adex Inn. If you are take the inter-city express buses from Sapporo, Muroran and New Chitose Airport, you have to alight at Noboribetsu-Onsen Bus Terminal, exit the Bus Terminal, head onto Gokuraku Street (and not prefecture highway 350) and you reach Adex Inn in after about 6 minutes of walking.| |Check in and check out: unlike most hotels, there is only electronic check in and check out, which was pretty straightforward. At the standalone check-in machine, we clicked “check in”, keyed in the required details and scanned our passports; it dispensed room number slip and physical room cards. For check out, we clicked “check out” on the menu, entered our room number and returned the room cards into the machine.||Hotel room: after opening the room metal door (interesting) to our 7th floor Standard Triple Room, we were greeted by a large room with a pointed triangular end configuration. He room comes with an open wardrobe with several hangers, a safe (on the floor), two brown sofas, a square table, a long dressing table and chair, LCD TV, a small refrigerator, a kettle, a mirror and three single beds. The view from the windows looks into the hills, Daisokuya Plaza, Grand Hotel, residential house and other Adex Inn hotel rooms. The entire room is carpeted with a dull brown carpet except the bathroom. The bathroom is interesting – it is elevated and measures 120 centimetres long, 80 centimetres wide and 190 metres high that houses a simple cistern (and not a Japanese bidet cistern), a sink, a Japanese bath tub, dental kits and Fiesta pure shine shampoo and body wash. The bathroom with a metal door was one of the two dislikes that we have about the hotel room - not only is the bathroom small and cramped, it reminded me of the airplane toilet cubicle. Moreover, we saw black stains along the side of the sink. The other dislike was we could hear the occasional noise of the venting steam from the geyser at the Sengen Park next to Adex Inn (it was not loud as it was quite far). Other than the bathroom, we liked the following about the room:|(1) The beds were comfortable such that we have a good night sleep|(2) Air-con was quiet|(3) Complementary wi-fi access with fast connection speed|(4) A Panasonic F-VX40H3 air purifier||Hotel amenities: when we first stepped into Adex Inn, the hotel café greeted us. It opens from 8am to 10pm. The menu had sandwiches (Adex Special, chicken, dry cured ham and avocado and ham, cheese and grilled roast pork), bagels (apple and bacon and cream cheese and blueberry), several types of coffee (including Coffee Carrot specialty coffee), tea, soft drinks, beer and cocktails. As we saw that the prices for the sandwiches were quite expensive (¥800 - ¥1350), we ate at one of the nearby restaurants outside the hotel.|While we were informed by hotel staff that we could walk across the road to use the Grand Bath onsen (the largest onsen in Hokkaido) at Adex inn’s sister hotel, Takimotokan Hotel, I decided not to as I foresaw many people using the 35 bath pools from 5 different hot spring sources. I was glad that I did not go because I had the onsen pool at Adex Inn all to myself! It was my first time experience in an onsen where the unfiltered pale green hot sulphur spring water was cloudy and had a very slight sulphur smell due to suspended sulphur. My skin felt refreshed after soaking in the onsen with its dose of natural bath salts. In any hot onsen, it would be good to remember not to submerge your whole body into the hot bath immediately but gradually by scooping the hot bath water and pouring over your body for a few minutes. |The hotel does not have a gymnasium. However, there are two washing machines and two dryers which we gladly used to wash our dirty laundry. ||Overall, we had a satisfactory stay at this 3-star Adex Inn. Although the cubicle/booth type bathroom is still functional, I hope the management could renovate it to make it bigger and blend beautifully with...
Read moreIn our 10-day Hokkaido self-drive vacation, my family and I wanted to stay at an onsen town. So I chose Noboribetsu and Adex Inn in Noboribetsu due to its close proximity to Jigokudani Valley (about 10 minutes’ walk) and the main shopping street. We stayed one night on a Saturday.||Getting to hotel & parking: We arrived at the hotel after visiting Cape Chikyu and Tokkarisho Lookout Point in Muroran via Apple Map and Google Map on Apple Car Play in our rental car. Depending on the direction, Adex Inn is at the end or at the start of Gokuraku Street. After we unloaded our luggage at the front entrance, a lady staff from the hotel walked over and provided me with a parking slip and directed me to park my car at the car park that is opposite the Jigokudani Valley (about 160 metres from hotel) since the hotel does not have its own car park. I could not even park at the sister hotel Dai-ichi Takimotokan Hotel across the road. |If you take the train from JR Sapporo Station or JR Hakodate Station or JR New Chitose Airport Station, you have to alight at JR Noboribetsu Station and then take a 15-minute taxi ride to the Adex Inn. If you are take the inter-city express buses from Sapporo, Muroran and New Chitose Airport, you have to alight at Noboribetsu-Onsen Bus Terminal, exit the Bus Terminal, head onto Gokuraku Street (and not prefecture highway 350) and you reach Adex Inn in after about 6 minutes of walking.| |Check in and check out: unlike most hotels, there is only electronic check in and check out, which was pretty straightforward. At the standalone check-in machine, we clicked “check in”, keyed in the required details and scanned our passports; it dispensed room number slip and physical room cards. For check out, we clicked “check out” on the menu, entered our room number and returned the room cards into the machine.||Hotel room: after opening the room metal door (interesting) to our 7th floor Standard Triple Room, we were greeted by a large room with a pointed triangular end configuration. He room comes with an open wardrobe with several hangers, a safe (on the floor), two brown sofas, a square table, a long dressing table and chair, LCD TV, a small refrigerator, a kettle, a mirror and three single beds. The view from the windows looks into the hills, Daisokuya Plaza, Grand Hotel, residential house and other Adex Inn hotel rooms. The entire room is carpeted with a dull brown carpet except the bathroom. The bathroom is interesting – it is elevated and measures 120 centimetres long, 80 centimetres wide and 190 metres high that houses a simple cistern (and not a Japanese bidet cistern), a sink, a Japanese bath tub, dental kits and Fiesta pure shine shampoo and body wash. The bathroom with a metal door was one of the two dislikes that we have about the hotel room - not only is the bathroom small and cramped, it reminded me of the airplane toilet cubicle. Moreover, we saw black stains along the side of the sink. The other dislike was we could hear the occasional noise of the venting steam from the geyser at the Sengen Park next to Adex Inn (it was not loud as it was quite far). Other than the bathroom, we liked the following about the room:|(1) The beds were comfortable such that we have a good night sleep|(2) Air-con was quiet|(3) Complementary wi-fi access with fast connection speed|(4) A Panasonic F-VX40H3 air purifier||Hotel amenities: when we first stepped into Adex Inn, the hotel café greeted us. It opens from 8am to 10pm. The menu had sandwiches (Adex Special, chicken, dry cured ham and avocado and ham, cheese and grilled roast pork), bagels (apple and bacon and cream cheese and blueberry), several types of coffee (including Coffee Carrot specialty coffee), tea, soft drinks, beer and cocktails. As we saw that the prices for the sandwiches were quite expensive (¥800 - ¥1350), we ate at one of the nearby restaurants outside the hotel.|While we were informed by hotel staff that we could walk across the road to use the Grand Bath onsen (the largest onsen in Hokkaido) at Adex inn’s sister hotel, Takimotokan Hotel, I decided not to as I foresaw many people using the 35 bath pools from 5 different hot spring sources. I was glad that I did not go because I had the onsen pool at Adex Inn all to myself! It was my first time experience in an onsen where the unfiltered pale green hot sulphur spring water was cloudy and had a very slight sulphur smell due to suspended sulphur. My skin felt refreshed after soaking in the onsen with its dose of natural bath salts. In any hot onsen, it would be good to remember not to submerge your whole body into the hot bath immediately but gradually by scooping the hot bath water and pouring over your body for a few minutes. |The hotel does not have a gymnasium. However, there are two washing machines and two dryers which we gladly used to wash our dirty laundry. ||Overall, we had a satisfactory stay at this 3-star Adex Inn. Although the cubicle/booth type bathroom is still functional, I hope the management could renovate it to make it bigger and blend beautifully with...
Read moreWe (family of 4 - 2 adults and 2 children 7 and 4 yrs old) stayed for 2 nights. It was early July so it wasn't hot yet so didn't need an air conditioner - but we did use the fan.||||We had hired a car and there is car parking around the corner for maybe 20 or so cars at no charge. The car parks do fill up at night though - so one night we parked at the Takimotokan's parking but didn't get in trouble.||||Most staff spoke some english and were very helpful. The rooms were quite basic as you can see from the photos. The bathroom was very small. But we were expecting that.||||We didn't eat in the hotel - we went out into the main street and tried different restaurants (japanese food only) which was delicious and relatively well priced. There are the usual Family Mart and 7-11's on the main street as well.||||One of the reasons we chose the Takimoto Inn is because of it's proximity to the Dai-Ichi Takimotokan's onsen and you are permitted free access to the onsen (and also because of the Takimotokan's price). You are provided with the yukatas, face towels and slippers which you can wear to walk across the road to the Onsen. I have never been a huge onsen person - but loved the facilities. Lockers are provided for your valuables and clothes.There are 2 floors of hot baths with some outside as well. My wife took our 2 daughters and they loved it as well.||||The Inn is also a short walk to Hell Valley. We did the hike to Oyunuma pond and then onto the foot bath with the kids (1-2 km) where you can rest your feet into the hot river and then walked back to the hotel in a big loop.||||If you have a car we recommend heading to Lake Toya for the nightly fireworks which happen through summer I think. The fireworks were decent - good 15 minutes at least. They start at one side of the lake and move across.||||So overall the hotel and room itself was fairly standard but worth it for the access to the onsen and good location wise for small hikes around...
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