Shiki Resort Ventvert Karuizawa

Breakfast is self-serve for both rice and drinks, but there wasn’t enough rice for everyone. When we called for help, the staff ignored us, and it only arrived after we went into the kitchen to ask. No apology for the delay, either. When I asked to speak with someone else, I was told there was only one person working that morning and that the reservation center handled everything, so nothing could be done there. That’s a real problem if something urgent comes up and no one on site can respond. It feels like they charge extra for the “Karuizawa” name, and the stay wasn’t worth the price. They need to improve the service and cleaning if they want people to keep coming. A very disappointing hotel. Be careful.

On January 11 at 10:30 PM, I booked a room through Rakuten. By 10:50 PM I was in a residential area about 500 meters from the hotel, but heavy snow made it hard for my car to climb the steep slope, even with snow tires. Worried about the road ahead, I called the hotel to ask about its gradient. A foreign staff member told me to cancel, so I did through Rakuten. The cancellation notice showed a 100% fee. I called again and spoke with a Japanese staff member, who asked whether I was really only 500 meters away and said I could return to the station and take public transport if I was worried about driving. They also said that if I didn’t arrive, it counted as a customer-side cancellation and the fee couldn’t be changed. When I explained that hotel staff had told me to cancel, they acknowledged mishandling it and apologized, but said the hotel couldn’t decide the fee and sent me to the reservation center. I called the center twice on January 12. Both times they repeated that customer-convenience cancellations incur a 100% fee, then hung up without transferring me to anyone else. I canceled because the hotel staff instructed me to, yet they kept saying the hotel wasn’t responsible and treated it as my fault. I ended up paying the fee. It felt like being scammed by people I’d never even met, all within half an hour. Zero stars.

I’d planned to sleep in my car, then suddenly decided to get a hotel. I found Van Vert nearby and booked online. It was only ten minutes away, so I bought some snacks and set off. A few hundred meters from the hotel, snow stopped my two-wheel-drive car with studless tires on a steep uphill stretch. I called the hotel and was told to cancel online. After I did, they said the policy meant a 100% cancellation fee. The manager was surly and kept insisting it was “as per the policy.” When I asked whether he could decide what to do about the fee, he said he couldn’t. I asked for another manager, but was told that person wasn’t there that day and I should call the reservation center later. I called the center and got the same answer, then they hung up. From booking to canceling took about 30 minutes. If the snow makes it impossible to get there, even when you want to, I don’t understand why the full fee applies. Disappointing.

In mid-June there were rooms available, and the one I got was spacious and inexpensive, which was great 🙂 The hotel sits well back from a busy road, and the large parking lot was easy to use. The large public bath isn’t a hot spring. There were paintings and stone statues all over the place, maybe because of the owner’s hobby, and they gave it a quirky atmosphere. On the drive back, my car was covered with so many little bugs that washing it was a hassle. I should probably have brought bug spray.