Jozankei Yurakusoan — Hotel in Sapporo

Initially we paid 550USD for a night for my mom and myself. Then because my autistic sister ended up having to come as well, I requested adding a tatami and dinner and breakfast.

When I first called them, no one spoke English to help. They asked me to email them. But then it took them a few days to get back to me saying that I can’t just add a tatami. I need to change room. And they asked to to contact Agoda for the room change. By then it’s already past our full refund Window. Then they offered me to add another person for extra 300USD. This is 1 day before our arrival. If we cancelled, we couldn’t get full refunded already. And by that time we were already in Sapporo and traveling. So I went with it to avoid more hassles.

Altogether for 3 people is 850USD for 1 room 1 NIGHT! I would expect a 5 star hotel level experience for this price.

But For what I paid as a five star hotel rate the service we got is TERRIBLE. Every service we want to get is like in hunger game. Everyone compete to get it.

The free traditional Japanese loungewear were gone like an hour after check in. You can’t get it if you are late. there are only 4 private onsen in this hotel. The line for it is SO LONG. You are assigned at a certain time for dinner. Ours was at 7.45. We were starving but there’s only potatoes in the lounge for you. The receptionist “advised” us to eat the potatoes or starved til 7.45. When it was finally the dinner time, everyone on the same time slot jammed the entrance the restaurant. You can’t go in until your room number is called. When we got into the restaurant, we asked 4-5 times before the waiter finally remembered to give us extra soy sauce and hot teas when the waiter introduced himself as the server of our table. Dinner was so not tasty. I never knew Japanese food could be “ not good”. How could you mess up with a shabu and raw fish? Trust me this hotel did. When I tried to make coffees in my room. There is hair and coffee bean residues in grinder. Who can I complain to when there’s no one who tried to solve your problems when you don’t speak Japanese At breakfast one server is even training another server in front of us. You wouldn’t expect to see this for the price range of the offering They wouldn’t let my mom enter the restaurant when she came after me until I went outside to pick her up . No hot water from the tap in the sink. Lots of young loud couples No servers spoke English, nor did anyone bothered to use Google translate to help us.

In all this is by far the most expensive hotel I stay for 1 night (800USD) per night and the WORST EXPERIENCE. I’m so disappointed bc I was so looking forward to the onsen experience. I wouldn’t not recommend...

Let me preface this review with my partner and I have been traveling for 10 months with only our backpacks; we use Booking.com 80% of the time and are staying at $30-$90 a night places for 1 room 2 adults. We really looked forward to treating ourselves at Yurakusoan and booked the Hollywood Twin room with River and Mountain View to have a nice evening ($315). We couldn’t be more dissatisfied and exploited by this hotel.

We were told that my partner wasn’t on the booking and would be $230 more dollars on top of the $315. After using Booking.com for 10 months and booking 1 room, 2 adults, how was this the hotel where I only booked 1 adult? We accepted the $585 charge, even though this was 100% unlikely.

We paid $585 for the River and Mountain View room…which didn’t have a River /Mountain View. Check out the picture of the parking lot. After the extra charge issue which I was super nice about, I went back downstairs to show them I paid for the River View and would like to change rooms super nicely. The staff were apologetic and then went to their manager to get help. The manager came back and said “we have no more river or Mountain View rooms.” I asked if they could offer a discount or amenity. No. I asked if I could just cancel the reservation completely because we paid for something and didn’t receive it. No. I walked away feeling like trash after they charged $585 for this view; kept the windows shut the whole time because it was a remainder of how much this sucked.

The amenity includes a free Yukata rental (Japanese traditional bathhouse robe). We go to pick ours up and a sign is displayed saying they ran out and don’t have any more. How does $585 onsen that includes free Yukata rentals runs out for its guests?

The amenity includes free tickets to a special art display that runs from 7-9pm and a 15 minute walk from the hotel. The hotel scheduled our dinner for 7:45pm….literally the worst possible time. The amenity also includes free ramen from 10pm - 11pm. That 7:45pm dinner doesn’t even finish until 9:30pm. How did they expect people to be hungry or even attend this art exhibit?

No tattoos, which I expected and booked the room with a bath in the room. They still charged us a bathhouse tax even though we weren’t allowed to use the public bath

Value wasn’t worth it. We went to Kinosaki onsen two weeks ago for $266 for the both of us, and received more food, Yukata, and access to 7 additional onsens that were tattoo friendly.

We felt so exploited and sad, and tried to make it a good experience; in then end, we couldn’t wait to check out and leave the walls of this pretentious and parasitic place. Lesson learned: more money doesn’t make an experience...

The hotel and rooms were beautiful. I understand they are fairly new and it shows. The details and cleanliness was impeccable. The food at breakfast was inedible for us as we are westerners not accustomed to fish, soup , pickled vegetable etc for breakfast. Would have been nice to have a western option as other ryokans we have stayed at offered.

Disliked · The location and view was very industrial. Our room looked out onto the parking area. The staff had almost no English, and for a hotel that offers a website with an English option we were surprised nobody knew English an we had to communicate solely thru google translate. Many other nationalities such as Korean, Singapore, Chinese also stayed there and they also didn't know Japanese much but knew English yet none of the staff save one or two people had any English. Some staff seemed bewildered that we even stayed there and some staff were downright rude to us because we had not much Japanese. We have stayed at Ryokans in many other locations with no Japanese and staff with little English and always felt welcome, at this place we felt like a burden and were often overlooked by staff when trying to ask for help. The facilities that make this place a standout are the private Onsen's, there are four of them. None are reservable so when they open at 3pm, the line for them forms quickly and never ends until maybe 1 or 2 am. Also this hotel is strict, no checkin before 3pm so everyday ( we were there 3 days) at 3pm large groups would arrive on buses and flood the lobby with people all madly trying to checkin at one time. It was loud chaotic mess every day. Would be better to stagger the checkins. Also, every day they close all the Onsen's from 10 am to 3 pm so those of us who stayed multiple days couldn't even use the facilities during the day and had to fight the madding crowd everyday at 3pm. It was a disgrace for the money per night we paid. All in all, its too bad because the hotel and facilities are nice but the ambiance , rude and bewildered staff, chaotic crowds mean we will never come back. I wouldn't call this a ryokan its more of a spa with huge...