NNorth JumpTaoya Nachikatsuura is a refurbished property with excellent rooms and a great location, making it a VERY comfortable and convenient stay overall.
Nice touch with the selection of yukata in chic designs—it adds a bit of personality to the experience. The hotel also offers free-flow alcohol and small bites throughout the day, you need to be careful not to over drink or overeat.
Both the dinner and breakfast buffets stand out, offering a wide variety of options with solid quality across the board.
That said, the in-room outdoor bath (our booking) felt unnecessary. In our view, it’s not worth the extra cost, as it doesn’t come close to the full experience of the main onsen downstairs.
CCEL_LI was about to give bad reviews due to some poor check-in experience, but everything after check in is so good that compensates this journey.
First, the check-in process that brings me with bad experience: it is self-served and there is no any staff. By rights you should receive an instruction email with check-in PIN in advance, which I heard from other guests. However, I didn’t receive anything but Trip’s confirmation letter and I was unable to check in. And my sim card in Japan is just an internet card unable to make phone calls, which means I have no way to contact the hotel directly. My partner and I were desperately locked out of the hotel in the evening, after 7h hiking, with no other available hotel in the mountain. After waiting for over 1 hour, other guests helped us to enter the admin room where there is an ipad to call the hotel (why not make it available to guests without checking in?), and with the help of Trip’s agency, we finally checked in successfully.
Then here is the staying experience: so good that makes me almost forgive the poor check-in experience. Each room is a spacious individual house and ours has a garden for BBQ. The food is also self-served, with the cooking stuffs and ingredients in the fridge. It was unexpected that you need to cook yourself (I don’t think it was listed on room info when I booked it), but it’s not bad that Wagyu, chicken, and vegetables are served. The rooms are big and cozy, and you can do the laundry after hiking.
Everything is good about the hotel itself, just be aware of the self-checkin process and make sure you get the instructions before that.