Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Unzen Toyokan

My room was spacious and comfortable, with a really nice view of the lake. Staying in a tatami room was a great experience as a tourist, though getting up from the floor was hard on my knees even though I’m not that old. The building is strange and confusing. It isn’t laid out straight, and elevators A, B, and C don’t all go to the same places. A is by the lobby, while B and C go to the restaurant, and you can’t get to A from either of those.

The hotel is extremely old and outdated, and I wouldn’t recommend the rooftop open-air bath. The brochure listed a day-use ticket at 700 yen, but the price on site was 1,000 yen. Staff said there were more guests that day, which was hard to believe as an explanation. If you’re only visiting for the day, I’d go to another hot spring.

The rooms are badly in need of renovation. They felt tired, almost like an abandoned haunted hotel, and must have last been renovated more than 30 years ago. The food and drinks were great, but dining was chaotic and could be intimidating if you’ve never experienced an Asian buffet. It felt like everyone was on their own. Staff were super friendly, and their English was the best I’ve encountered in Japan, but they seemed overworked and could use more help in the dining area. I wouldn’t recommend the hotel yet.

We had such an unpleasant stay that we left a day early and found another hotel. On the first floor, our room filled overnight with extremely strong sulphur fumes from the nearby volcano, even with the windows shut. It was hard to breathe, and we got almost no sleep. We had to run the aircon full blast and leave the hallway door open to clear the fumes. The hotel has around 500 rooms and was crazy busy, so we couldn’t find anyone to really discuss it with. Checkout was through a self-service computer, and we couldn’t get help. Later, the hotel didn’t respond when we tried to contact them for some kind of resolution, or even an apology. Even putting aside the fact that we couldn’t sleep or breathe properly in the room, we didn’t enjoy the hotel. It’s far too big and crowded. The buffet dinner and breakfast were an absolute zoo, with more than 100 people turning it into a free-for-all. The first-floor rooms were old and tired too. There were no real redeeming qualities for us.