Lodge Blue Mount — Local services in Hakuba

Perfect for almost all skiers !! Recently returned from an 11 night stay at Lodge Blue Mount and am disappointed to read a previous post that can only find 1 thing nice to say and that was that Karen and Greg are pleasant?? I'm sure you feel totally justified in your personal opinion as what matters to you may not be an issue with other guests but seriously if this is the only thing you can say thats good about the place I feel sorry for any place that you stay at thats not the Hilton hotel. After working in the ski industry for 30 years- husband ski instructor myself managing ski hire and managing ski lodges in Australia for over 18 yrs and previous to that working on tour buses in Europe and Australia for over 10 yrs as well as overnight boats in the Whitsundays I like to think that I have come across all types of travellers and one thing I can confidently say is that some people are not cut out for staying in lodges and should seek private apartments as their choice of accomodation.I would like to counter a few of the points that the previous reviewer made as we stayed at the exact same time as them -1) Breakfast was never ready before 7.30 -every morning we had a huge hot cooked breakfast(scrambled or fried eggs bacon spinach tomato toast etc as well as cereals,fruit etc at 7.30 and we were almost always the lasts ones down as we passed many guests on all mornings having finished their breakfast and heading out -by the way we found that we had sufficient food that we never ate lunch out at all preferring to have early dinners 2)the internet never worked -yes there were problems with the internet but it did work most of the time and there were 4 of us using it at different times over 11 nights. 3)the mention of a shuttle service provided at other places failed to mention that comes at cost in the price you pay per night, every person that I encountered who were staying at places that provided this service were paying a lot more per night than what we were paying it was no big issue for us as a family of 4 to walk the small distance lugging our gear to the shuttle bus stop I feel that the money saved could be used elsewhere to make our experience in Japan work for us.The shuttle bus stop went to most of the resorts and the timetable was reliable I work hard for my money and I take the time to do my research before booking so when I came across Lodge Blue Mount I felt what they had to offer was perfect for us and I wasn't disappointed, there were many little factors that made our stay great.Little things like magazines on the table and a cosy fireplace area perfect for apres ski when your to tired to venture out provide the over all ambience of what lodge life is all about. A 10 min walk to get to most restaurants was magical especially with snow falling and if your really tired a taxi would cost less than $8 to get you there. Would I recommend this place to my friends YES Would I stay here again YES Would I recommend this place to most skiers YES Would I recommend this to back country skiers that need to be within walking distance of ski trails NO Personally to Karen Greg and the boys you can be proud of what you have established you guys are doing a great job and we loved meeting you and staying there and would like to thank you for everything you did to make our stay AWESOME !!! problem is I now have 2 kids that want to move to Hakuba they loved it that much PS Im taking a guess here that the disgruntled guests were also the ones responsible for shifting our gear to another area to get their boots up higher on the shelf in the process knocking down 1 of our helmets with goggles attached and left lying...

Recently returned from an 11 night stay at Lodge Blue Mount and am disappointed to read a previous post that can only find 1 thing nice to say and that was that Karen and Greg are pleasant?? I'm sure you feel totally justified in your personal opinion as what matters to you may not be an issue with other guests but seriously if this is the only thing you can say thats good about the place I feel sorry for any place that you stay at thats not the Hilton hotel. |After working in the ski industry for 30 years- husband ski instructor myself managing ski hire and managing ski lodges in Australia for over 18 yrs and previous to that working on tour buses in Europe and Australia for over 10 yrs as well as overnight boats in the Whitsundays I like to think that I have come across all types of travellers and one thing I can confidently say is that some people are not cut out for staying in lodges and should seek private apartments as their choice of accomodation.I would like to counter a few of the points that the previous reviewer made as we stayed at the exact same time as them -1) Breakfast was never ready before 7.30 -every morning we had a huge hot cooked breakfast(scrambled or fried eggs bacon spinach tomato toast etc as well as cereals,fruit etc at 7.30 and we were almost always the lasts ones down as we passed many guests on all mornings having finished their breakfast and heading out -by the way we found that we had sufficient food that we never ate lunch out at all preferring to have early dinners 2)the internet never worked -yes there were problems with the internet but it did work most of the time and there were 4 of us using it at different times over 11 nights. 3)the mention of a shuttle service provided at other places failed to mention that comes at cost in the price you pay per night, every person that I encountered who were staying at places that provided this service were paying a lot more per night than what we were paying it was no big issue for us as a family of 4 to walk the small distance lugging our gear to the shuttle bus stop I feel that the money saved could be used elsewhere to make our experience in Japan work for us.The shuttle bus stop went to most of the resorts and the timetable was reliable|I work hard for my money and I take the time to do my research before booking so when I came across Lodge Blue Mount I felt what they had to offer was perfect for us and I wasn't disappointed, there were many little factors that made our stay great.Little things like magazines on the table and a cosy fireplace area perfect for apres ski when your to tired to venture out provide the over all ambience of what lodge life is all about. A 10 min walk to get to most restaurants was magical especially with snow falling and if your really tired a taxi would cost less than $8 to get you there.| Would I recommend this place to my friends YES|Would I stay here again YES |Would I recommend this place to most skiers YES |Would I recommend this to back country skiers that need to be within walking distance of ski trails NO |Personally to Karen Greg and the boys you can be proud of what you have established you guys are doing a great job and we loved meeting you and staying there and would like to thank you for everything you did to make our stay AWESOME !!! problem is I now have 2 kids that want to move to Hakuba they loved...

Karen and Greg probably have many happy guests, even repeat visitors, but we did not enjoy our stay. We just don’t share the value system that they run their lodge by. They use an airline pricing model: $4 to do laundry, $2 for them to call and make a dinner reservation, $10 for breakfast, etc. We stayed at two other lodges while in Hakuba on this trip, those hosts were happy to drive us to/from the slopes and to dinner at night (as well as make reservations for us, and offer free laundry). There will certainly be no such service at Blue Mount. We actually had the other owners offer to come pick is up when they heard we weren’t getting a ride to the slopes from Blue Mount and had to do 45min+ public bus with a transfer just to go a few kilometers. Twice we just walked the 30minutes in ski boots just to not deal with waiting for the public bus. Speaking of which, breakfast is supposedly served at 7, but we never got it before 7:30, which meant missing that first public bus, and therefore missing first chair. Karen and Greg seemed oblivious to why this would be an issue (we just flew around the world to ski that fresh snow!!). Other lodges we stayed at had food ready at 6:30 so we could leave before 7:30. Karen and Greg seemed really proud of their warm fireplace in the large lounge, but we really couldn’t have cared less. The drying room for our ski gear was cramped and disorganized (again, I came to ski, not hang out on a sofa) and the bed rooms and bathrooms were frigid and damp. The throw pillows in the lounge were perfectly organized every day, but the single bath matt and hand towel in the communal bathroom went unchanged all week. They were filthy and wet, and cold. Our room supposedly had an ensuite bathroom, but it was smaller than the bathroom on an airplane. I’m 6’1” and I literally couldn’t sit on the toilet or stand in the shower, so I used the communal bathroom. There is no dryer for that $4 laundry. Instead I found other guests underwear drying on top of my ski gloves and hat in the gear room. I’m amazed anyone would want their laundry dried next to a dozen stinky pairs of ski boots...why can’t the lodge just buy a dryer for laundry, they could charge another $2 for that maybe? I could go on for awhile on other mystifying choices they’ve made in how they run their lodge. But many of the other guests didn’t seem to mind, but then most of them seemed content to ski half days and spend a good part of their vacation waiting for bus transfers to get between the various resorts. My values...