由布院風の森 — Hotel in Yufu

Stayed at a Japanese style quadruple room for one night two weeks ago. That was the third time I visited Yufuin and having stayed at wonderful ryokans during previous visits, I wanted to try some other nice accommodation. Based on guests’ reviews and on balancing various factors I finally chose Kaze no Mori. My wife and I took a bus from Hakata Bus Terminal and arrived at Yufuin shortly after 11am. After lunch and a leisure walk around the shops, we planned to ask the Tourist Information staff to help us call the ryokan for pick up but they were not able to contact the ryokan despite several attempts. Anyway we took a cab and checked in shortly after 3pm. ||Our room was spacious and had a marvellous view of Mt. Yufu. So beautiful that I spent 15 minutes sipping tea on a chair to admire the scenery. Although we had an open air bath in our room, I also tried the public bath but it was not anything much different from the in room bath. Quite small indeed for a public bath. The indoor and the open air bath in the room were good enough to serve my purpose of going there. The ryokan has an upstairs lounge where guests can sit down to have a coffee or beer for free while enjoying the scenic areas around. This ryokan really deserves highly favourable comments in terms of location (not far from Yufuin JR Station), ambience, view, and facilities. ||It was unfortunate however that I must say the standard of the ryokan was let down by the quality of their catering service. The quality of food they offered for both dinner and breakfast did not match the high standard of what a ryokan of such grade was supposed to offer. The food we had including the sashimi were only the most basic of those food types one could find in any small restaurant or side street supermarket. And what further disappointed us was the young gentleman who served us dinner. He obviously had very limited knowledge of the dishes and could not properly introduce the dishes to us, and only let us have a pot of warm instead of hot tea when we requested for it. We don’t blame the gentleman for that which was obviously a management problem. The ryokan’s management should have made sure their staff received proper training and are competent to work independently before letting them serve customers on their own, as otherwise it could upset guests and harm its reputation. We had our meals in a separate room which we appreciate...

I stayed here with my parents for a night.||This ryokan is located in the south from the station and it is particularly  famous for its beauty onsen along with shoyanoyakata(another ryokan famous for onset in yufu).||From the yufu station, we took a taxi to get here and it costed us around 800yen. The staffs were very friendly and their service was the best! ||The kaiseki meal was very delicious (some dishes were fusion japanese from my standard). The meals were not prepared in the guest room but were prepared in a private dining space so we could have our own time to enjoy the meal. ||Although the location was far from the main attraction street, we were able to fully enjoy yufuin and the traditional ryokan experience since yufuin was really small town.||They also have a beautiful public bath; I went there before dinner, after dinner, and in the morning. ||When you are checking out, you can ask them to drop off to the station for free(pick up is also available but I did not know that...

I stayed here with my parents for a night.||This ryokan is located in the south from the station and it is particularly  famous for its beauty onsen along with shoyanoyakata(another ryokan famous for onset in yufu).||From the yufu station, we took a taxi to get here and it costed us around 800yen. The staffs were very friendly and their service was the best! ||The kaiseki meal was very delicious (some dishes were fusion japanese from my standard). The meals were not prepared in the guest room but were prepared in a private dining space so we could have our own time to enjoy the meal. ||Although the location was far from the main attraction street, we were able to fully enjoy yufuin and the traditional ryokan experience since yufuin was really small town.||They also have a beautiful public bath; I went there before dinner, after dinner, and in the morning. ||When you are checking out, you can ask them to drop off to the station for free(pick up is also available but I did not know that...