Onyuyado Nakaya — Local services in Yuzawa

I'm surprised this place isn't more popular. It is a 1.5 hour bullet train ride from Tokyo Station to Echigo-Yuzawa station, which is famous for their sake tasting wall in the station where you can pay $5 for unlimited shots of sake from all over the country from breweries established almost a century ago. We stayed at this hotel in this beautiful, clean tatami room with its own private open-air hot spring bath on the balcony with a gorgeous view of the mountains and village lights. We paid less than $200 per person for the room for 1 night (it was just my boyfriend and I) and we were served a traditional kaiseki meal for dinner (a 10-course meal, came with a cup of sake, grilled beef, sashimi, several other amazing little dishes with local ingredients and even dessert which was bought locally too!). The following morning we were served a Japanese breakfast, which also came with quite a lot of delicious food.||||They speak a little English so it wasn't hard to communicate to them when we wanted dinner/breakfast (they let you choose a time from 5:30-7pm for dinner, or 8:15-9:30am for breakfast), or to get a free ride to/from Echigo-Yuzawa station. ||||The public baths are gender separated and each comes with a mountain-view outdoor hotspring bath and an indoor hotspring bath. They looked incredibly modern and clean. Everything comes with its own shampoo/conditioner/body wash and even facial wash, toner, lotion, hair treatment oil, etc. from the famous KOSE brand. My room even came with a toothbrush/toothpaste and a free face mask for women (the pill shaped travel sized ones that unfold when you apply water or toner to it) and my boyfriend's kit included a free razor, but no shaving cream.||||The onsen (hot spring) town is a 20 minute walk from the hotel (probably don't wear the clogs they give you to walk around town because it hurts after a while, especially for my boyfriend). It has plenty of restaurants, convenience stores, and mom and pop shops that sell bottles of sake (since this town is famous for their sake) and dessert (we had a japanese cheesecake slice for $2 and it was amazing) and mochi for cheap prices. I should've bought most of my souvenirs here instead of at the airport.||||We didn't go to the ski resort here, but they have go-karting around the mountain, bobsledding, and other family fun stuff. It's on the way to the hotel too. I'd say from the station it takes 10 minutes to get to the bottom of the lift for the mountain ski resort, and from the bottom of the lift it takes another 20 minutes to the hotel. I wish we could've gone it was pretty affordable too.||||Overall, this was a pretty fun hot spring town and an affordable clean, beautiful ryokan (trust me, I'm picky with my hotels and this was worth it). The only things I didn't like was that we didn't close the folding windows to the balcony and lots of scary bugs came in at night so I didn't want to go back into the private open-air bath in the morning (I opted for the public bath instead), which ruined the point of paying for a private one. They also didn't have a place where you could boil eggs with hot spring water. Sounds silly, but I know onsen towns might have this feat. and I really wanted to try it. ||||In the end, I'd recommend just paying for a room without the private bath since we barely used it during our 1 night there before the bugs came in. Also there was only 1 other family using the public bath when we were there on a Monday so chances are you'll have the public ones to yourself, which are just as beautiful. Also pick one without the western-beds, but the ones where you sleep on the floor because the floor is super clean and the bed they set up for you is SO comfortable. Usually in these places the pillows are too hard, but I found this one to be...

This was the only traditional inn we stayed for our whole Japan trip. We stayed 2 nights and opted the most expensive room with a private onsen. ||We had a nagging feeling that the male server assigned to our room, didn't like children. Our 2 boys are the average noisy asian kids so that was quite the bummer.||Everything else about this stay, though, was wonderful.||We entered a private entrance to a corridor for 3 different rooms. We were ushered into our room, which opens up to the shoe cabinet where we left our shoes and exchanged it for bedroom slippers.||Bathroom with sink, bath & shower is separated from the Toilet. There is a separate entrance to our living space, with tatami mats and a central table where we sit & sleep. Beds are made by our servers every evening and kept every morning.||The private onsen is the bomb of the whole stay. It is so private and felt so exclusive. It was very cold, washing in the cold air but when we enter into the onsen, it was so relaxing, watching the snow mountains during sunrise or sunset is really the experience of a lifetime.||Traditional kaiseki breakfast and dinners are served and I could see how much care was put into the painstaking process of preparing for our meals.||1 catch though is that there isn't any other restaurant options so if you stay here, you'd better order all your meals or have separate arrangement to eat elsewhere. The hotel was nice enough to get us to a nearby restaurant and picked us up after (must be back by hotel...

We stayed for 5 days using the hotel as a base for skiing whilst visiting our son who was teaching at nearby Gala Yuzawa. This is not a traditional (European) style skiing accommodation but don’t let that put you off , it is great! |This hotel is a traditional Ryokan that overlooks Yuzawa. Our suite consisted of bedroom (western beds), separate bathroom & WC, main room/dining room (tatami floor) and a separate seating room/balcony overlooking the valley. |Traditional Japanese breakfast and dinner was served in our room. These were excellent and beautifully prepared although sadly we skipped most of the dinners as we were eating out with friends.|There is an excellent (segregated) Onsen on-site with indoor and outdoor baths and we are certainly Onsen converts as they are such a great way to relax after a days skiing. |The staff speak very little English but with the help of google translate were incredibly helpful and accommodating. Really great service.|There is a complimentary shuttle bus (to or from Gala and Echigo Yuzawa Station ) that supposedly ran to a schedule but they seemed only too happy to take or collect from either on request. Either are walkable but not with skis and boots. |Definitely recommend this. Good value and a traditional Ryokan with Onsen...