Hotel Japan Shiga — Hotel in Yamanouchi

The rooms: as Kathy D mentioned, be prepared to be roasted in your tiny cell (room). I am used to 26C office temperature in Tokyo offices - but when we arrived our cell was a comfortable bio-sauna setting of surely over 40C. We pulled the pulled the plug on the blowers and shut off the hot water circulation. But even with that the air stayed terribly hot all through 4 days and sleepless nights. We kept the windows open most of the time but 40C in door air and -15C outside don’t ever blend to anything comfortable. |The rooms are smaller than my first dorm room - just with two beds crammed into instead of one. The adjacent tatami room should sleep 3 but if you book for 3 “semi-western Style room” only one futon you will get. Don’t be fooled by the photos: there is zero shelf space and absolutely nothing to sit on - it’s the bare Tatami. As “amenities” you get a see-through legal size modesty towel for the shared bath and dental kit. Real towels are 100yen rental fee at a place that charges TOKYO 4 star rates for a single star backpackers / youth hostel accommodation. It is most infuriating!||2. Food: if you buy half board, you will get buffet style breakfast AND buffet style dinner - hello! we are talking college style canteen food not Japanese breakfast, not Japanese dinner either. It’s a big room with 70th furniture and wax tablecloth overseen by a guy whose only concern is that nobody uses more than one tray and one 16 mold canteen plate. ||3: Guest Support: if you don’t manage minimal levels of Japanese you will be totally lost. ||4. Bath: this is not an Onsen. It is a shabby dark shared bath room without any onsen allure whatsoever - think school gym showers and you are on the right track. ||5. All the rest: it’s clutter and dysfunctional run down everything everywhere: ski storage, common areas, you name it. ||This place’ main business is school camps and during peak weekends they blood-let the gravy train of tourists who don’t find anywhere else to stay and will tolerate everything for a good day of skiing. BTW the school groups get real Japanese set dinners and perfectly prepared ski equipment - you won’t. The holiday weekends are about getting as much for as little work and...

Our easy going family of 5 stayed for four nights at Hotel Japan Shiga. Although in all of Japan we had the most amazing accommodation experiences Hotel Japan Shiga did not suit our family. We have included our experiences to help you decide if it will suit you. The positives were the two men at the front desk were very helpful, we needed to use an electronic translator as they had very little English however they did everything possible to assist. The location and skiing was excellent however the language barrier would make it difficult if you are not experienced skiers. The breakfast was 1100 yen and good value if you like Japanese food, there was also croissants and rolls available. The Nepalese restaurant within the hotel was excellent. Things to be aware of: Our heater was switched off but was still pumping out hot air, our room was so hot we had to open the window to the sub zero temperatures to stop from sweating, it was impossible to sleep in the heat. The common areas are very smoky so if you don't like tobacco smoke you won't be happy. We were given a small white cloth for bathing, when we asked for towels we were asked for 500 yen for our 5 towels, we wrongly assumed this was a deposit. You have to pay for the towels! There was a toilet and basin in our room. The basin had a cold and hot tap, the cold was freezing and the hot burning so the plug had to be used for anything in between. The showers were all open and surrounded the large grand bath. We experienced the same sex communal naked bathing, if you are happy to do this then that is fine. Best to avoid the busy times before and after dinner! If you have valuables don't take them to the bathroom as you need 200 yen for the lockers. Gowns are provided but we needed to walk though the smoke filled common areas to get to the grand bathroom. We were only supplied with two cups for our family of five but managed to get some paper cups so we had one each. The room was not serviced at all in our four night stay, the bin was not emptied and no supplies...

We 3 families have spent the whole week there and find it an extremely pleasant experience.||I would definitely rate it 5 stars and will recommend it to others. There is one major reason why I rated this - the hotel owner Yugo Nose San is such a nice, considerate and professional person. I’m a very frequent traveller and of course I agree there are some other hotels with better hardware quality. But the service we received from Yugo San is absolutely first class. Some examples:|- his English proficiency is very high as he’s spent 16 years in Europe. |- he drove us to the ski park and even led us to the track to make sure our kids are comfortable with it|- he proactively drove us to the Snow Monkey Park when he knew we might need to wait for an hour for the bus.|- he served us whiskey and snacks every night|- he planned for us how to go to airport in a better way, again proactively||There are some other examples showing that he is always willing to step beyond his duty and is so flexible that he always puts the customers first. ||I can see some positive and negative comments about the hotel and I do agree with most of these comments. However, with Yugo San, everything becomes different. Our kids also love it so much, mainly because of him. Very well done, thanks for your service and we will come...