Naruko Kanko Hotel — Local services in Osaki

We stayed in early November 2023. The room was fine. Nothing special, but clean and roomy. The staff were friendly and helpful. We didn't need English support so I can't say if any spoke English. The onsen is standard good. The rotenburo was quite hot but felt good in measured doses after a day of hiking and one's skin feels silky smooth after soaking in the sulfur baths of this region. The lobby has a decent coffee machine and some complementary beverages. ||The food was nothing short of excellent and made the stay a success. When making our reservation we opted for set courses and we inquired beforehand if they could do a vegetarian course. Some places will say "no", some will not answer you, and some will say "yes" but you find the chef has little experience with vegetarian meals and it ends up being very tofu heavy. Naruko Kanko Hotel's chef clearly knew what he or she was doing: the set was varied and delicious. I have provided a photo of dinner (before the rice, soup, and something else I can't recall now arrived). The seafood course, selected by my companion, was reportedly equally good. Breakfast (another photo provided) was also very good. As a domestic traveler in Japan, I have stayed at any number of hotels and ryokans over the years and this was one of the best set courses I have had. ||On the down side, the amenities, which one picks up in the lobby, were very basic, and strangely there were no towels in the room besides the two onsen towels, large and small, i.e. the sink area of the bathroom had no hand towels and we had to ask at the front desk for some. That was excessive cost-cutting, I think. ||The most recent review here prior to this one appears to be from 2016 and some things have changed, not that they impacted our stay. There is no longer karaoke nor a separate bar. I imagine these were casualties of greatly reduced tourism during the pandemic, which many hotels nation wide are still trying to...

I was a bit skeptical upon arrival at the hotel particularly due to the overwhelming smell of sulfur that greeted us but they explained that this was due to the natural hot springs. I quickly got over the smell and enjoyed every bit of the experience. ||We could go into the hotel and even to our rooms without changing our shoes, how cool is that?!!!!!||the room was large, warm and very welcoming. Amenities were just ok though we would have appreciated face cream and face soap in the room but well....||food was excellent and staff were friendly and helpful somewhat English speaking so yes it was great.||Oh they have the Onsen; you should so try this, it's the best!!!!!!||I recommend...

It is a mix of a traditional Japanese ryokan and a hotel. (You can wear your shoes to your room unlike typical ryokan that you take it off at the entrance hall)|The staff were very warm and welcoming. The room was beautiful and very functional. It was a typical traditional room.|Dinner was a feast.|I really liked the plum wine (umeshuu). It's a different variant from what I have had so far and it can only be found in this hotel. |The natural hot springs was heavenly. One may find the sulphuric smell around the air awful but that's from the hot springs and I heard it has healing properties...