Hotel Shirakabaso Shigakogen — Hotel in Yamanouchi

I almost don’t want to write a review because this is such a hidden gem. The staff(specifically the woman working the front desk) was super nice, so helpful, and spoke excellent English. She was able to tell us where everything we needed was, what it costed, and when it was open. She really improved our experiences here with her customer service and ability to communicate.

I usually like to look for restaurants and adventure around, but the included dinner and breakfast here is 110% worth it. There’s not much else in the area without taking a bus. Imagine wearing your slippers down to a dinner table that’s reserved and all ready for you to eat with a varied menu every day. We couldn’t get the days we wanted, and the western style room wasn’t available, but I’m happy about that because the Japanese tatami mat room was amazing, and they allowed us to extend our stay by 1 night because we loved it so much. Spacious room, heaters worked well, big comfy comforters, and windows that open to cool down. Heated bidet and mini fridge worked well. There are TVs you can plug HDMI into if you want to watch movies.

You can walk 300 feet to a mini-resort that sells lift tickets and rents gear, and take the gondola down to a central area of shiga kogen for skiing. We rented our gear(skis, jackets, gloves, everything) from the hotel and it was an easy process, and the gear was good quality. It was around 7000 yen per person per day, which seemed to be competitive/normal compared to other resorts I saw. I’d recommend bringing your own goggles and gloves as those were worn and limited. They have lockers to store all your gear that are heated and have it dried and ready for the next day.

The onsen was AMAZING. It’s super hot, and they have private, indoor, and outdoor options, as well as a dry sauna made of cedar wood with fresh towels put out to sit on multiple times a day. They weren’t picky about my girlfriend’s full body flower tattoos which was considerate of them. There is a gift shop that sells a plethora of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks and snacks for fair prices until 10pm. There is also massage chairs that are super fancy. We met multiple regulars that said we found an excellent hotel for our first stay, and this stay was a highlight of our trip. Everything was ultra convenient and so affordable. All in all we spent 1000$ total for 2 people for 3 nights with meals and ski gear rentals included. Lift tickets were 50$ a day for the...

We had a wonderful stay in a recently renovated triple bedroom at this hotel. It was perfect for us because my husband, who is from Europe, cannot sleep in a traditional Japanese room with tatami. Also, he is sensitive to high room temperatures, but at this hotel, we were able to easily control the room temperature, unlike other ski resorts we've been to. He was really happy about that!

The room, along with the rest of the hotel, was impeccably clean and well maintained. Moreover, the hotel's location was convenient, as it was within walking distance of the nearest big bus station (less than 5 mins). This made it easy for us to access various ski resorts in Shiga Kogen (and the bus service was free).

The hotel had all the amenities we needed for our skiing trip - indoor and outdoor natural onsen baths, complete with a sauna, free massage chairs, and washing machines/dryers. Additionally, they offered ski gear rentals at a reasonable price. To top it off, there was even a ping pong table and my son loved it! We played ping pong every night after dinner :)

The meals were a true delight, featuring fresh local food and a wide variety of dishes. For breakfast, they served rice and miso soup with various small dishes, but they also had toasts with butter/jams and coffee available, which was a pleasant surprise for my husband, as he does not like the traditional Japanese breakfast with fish and rice!

Overall, the service was outstanding, and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at this hotel. It may not be considered a luxurious accommodation, but it fulfilled all our requirements, allowing us to enjoy skiing at the amazing Shiga Kogen resorts. We were so content that we didn't want to leave and return to...

If you want an authentic personalised Japanese Alpine experience this is the hotel for you. My husband and I stayed here with our 2 teens ( 15 and 17 ) and loved it.|Shiga Kogen is Japan's best kept secret with so many area's to ski that can be accessed by skiing from resort to resort or the shuttle bus.|The location is fabulous, centrally located, easy access to the different slopes within a few mins walk.|The hotel is meticulously clean, we had the traditional Japanese room which was spacious. The futons were a bit hard after a day's skiing so I would probably go for the western style rooms next time.|We hired some of out gear form the ski hire in the hotel and the rest at the top of the Yamanoeki Gondola ( there gear was very good quality and new).|Loved, loved , loved the onsen and nice to have a choice of indoor/outdoor and also 2 private ones. The massage chairs were a welcome bonus for those sore muscles.|Best of all was the amazing service we received from Noako who was at the front desk, she was able to give us endless advise and was incredibly patient with all our queries. Nothing seemed too hard and the best service we have received in Japan .|Would we come back again? A definite yes from us all. This was the full package , we were all very sad...