海上館 — Hotel in Tara

We visited in Dec 2022 and booked 有田伊万里の間 which has a open air (really really open!) onsen bath.

I would say the room looks very nice and is very suitable for people that love to take photographs and post it to social media, because the whole room is very Instagramable. However it was probably not the most practical. e.g. both of us have knocked our heads on the low hanging lights a few times. The shelves and tables were filled with decorations that are easy to knock over. The step to the outside deck was unnecessarily high and they had to put in a small stool to get on and off. There was also only one chair on the deck for some reasons when there was plently of space for another one.

Cars and people passing on the road below can definately see anyone standing / sitting on the deck of the onsen bath, luckily it was not a very busy road. It was still a little bit uncomfortable being naked when getting in and out of the bath, not to mention showering on the deck, when you could have eye contact with anyone passing lol. There was also no seperate bathroom/shower-room so you definately need to make do with the deck shower for cleaning yourself (or you may go to the public bath for the shower as well). Onsen bath was not a flowing one and we have to fill in the bath ourselves after check-in. It was a challenge to manage the bath in Dec. Maybe in warmer season it would be better.

The view was amazing. Huge flocks of birds flying above us while the sun was rising -- that was absolutely breath-taking and the one thing we both remembered clearly in the whole trip.

Food was ok. It was basically crab all the way but I felt the way they were cooked was not particularly great. There wasn't really any dish that we felt "oh that's delicious!". It was definitely too much food for us though and we kinda feel bad towards the end, when we were completely full and we still had a whole crab in front of us. Dinner was a bit rushed and the server was not really introducing the dishes to us, only mentioning the name of each dish (which we could read off the menu already).

Service was nothing special for a japanese ryoken. They served macha and sweets during check-in but the macha still had large clumps in it :( and we had to walk around the whole 1/F to find anyone during breakfast as they missed giving us one of the utencils... I guess they were a bit short staffed at the time but still, I have stayed in other ryoken which was also shortstaff but you could feel whether someone cares.

Overall, it left much to be desired. If you love the view, go for it. If not, maybe consider...

Great location BUT food is horrible. Inside the room was quiet, but outside at the open-air bath could really depend on who stays next to you.

We had the stay and dinner package with crabs and wagyu, but the crab was really disappointed. To be clear, the ingredient itself was great, but the way of cooking and processing was terrible.

The 3-way crab except the sashimi one was all full of sands, you can see from the pictures that sands were all over legs joints and lung. We asked for a bowl of water to wash them out, and you could see all the sands from the bowl. The grill crab was cooked improperly, making it too dry. Again, even if the lung was removed but when the dish came out from kitchen it's full of sands again.

At first, we suspected if this was about the species and living environment of the crab, making it with all sands attached, but when we went to another restaurant nearby, we didn't have the sand issue at all, and the grill crab was juicy and...

We stayed here on November 15, 2023. I checked their official website to choose the room I like. With good weather, we were able to enjoy onset with amazing views - sunset, stars, and sunrise. The room is spacious and clean. Apparently, everything was carefully designed. I got to listen to my own music. When going to bed, I made the room so romantic with candles. Dinner was crabs prepared in four different ways and other dishes. It was a bit too much and we could not finish the local fish, which was a waste. Also, our dinner turned cold as we took too long to finish our crabs. The patio is a very nice place to have coffee in...