Hotel Nanpuso

The open-air style bath areas are a great experience, and the rooms are spacious and cozy. Dinner was wonderful, too. I’ve stayed here several times with my family and have always been happy with the excellent service, food, and rooms. Definitely worth a stay.

The hotel had Ba Sing Se vibes. There’s a beautiful outdoor onsen about a six-minute walk away, and it welcomes people with tattoos. The hotel itself has more options if you aren’t tattooed, so having a decent number of tattoos can make things harder. Our room was beautiful, and the showers were great, but it was unbearably hot inside. The hotel is around a 20-minute walk from the train and bus station. Restaurants are reservation-only and most nearby places close early. Without a reservation, they won’t serve you, so you may be out of luck unless you go to the basement for ramen, which will do if you’re hungry.

For what they charge, I expected professional, welcoming service. Instead, staff didn’t explain things properly in English, and we felt like a problem rather than guests. The whole place seemed set up only for Japanese visitors, with international guests treated as outsiders. It may look nice online, but our stay left us feeling that the hotel doesn’t know how to handle tourists. If you’re a foreign traveler looking for a welcoming experience in Hakone, I strongly suggest staying somewhere else.

I stayed here on my birthday and got no special gesture at all, not even a simple “Happy Birthday.” At $800 a night, that kind of experience is outrageous, and I can’t recommend the place. The view was just the building across the street, with no real scenery. The room was extremely small, and the advertised open-air bath was only a tiny bathtub with dirty residue inside. Breakfast was barely edible, and the rest of the food was underwhelming. Staff often forgot things and didn’t seem professional. I rarely leave negative reviews, but this place disappointed me across the board. Nothing about the service or facilities made the exorbitant price feel justified.