I have stayed at a wide range of ryokans around the Nagano ski areas, this one was by far the most disappointing. The staff are very young foreign workers on working holiday visas that clearly have no hospitality training or experience
First, realize this property is a 15 minute drive from Akakura Onsen where the majority of bars and restaurants are – there are narrow roads that appear on Google Maps that should connect the two towns but these aren’t plowed in winter. So if you’re staying here, consider hiring your own car, also the nearby Seki Onsen ski area is tiny and you'll want to go elsewhere.
I can forgive the circumstances of the location but this place is really isolated, there are no other businesses open in this town, you need to eat but the food here was just awful. The breakfast was simply cheap bacon and sausage with an egg dish – the scrambled eggs were memorably inedible. We didn’t eat breakfast after day 2. We had to get dinner one night, unacceptably bad, the beef rice bowl was pretty standard fare but the shrimp fried rice had 3 tiny shrimp and the “Chinese chicken” had no actual chicken.
And all this could be forgiven if they offered competitive prices but we paid over US$300 per night!
I wouldn’t go back here and can’t recommend it but I am hopeful that someone can turn this place around because it would be a complete shame not to make the most of this property. Please get the staffing in order and offer some basic decent food.
