Zao International Hotel

We stayed for 10 days as a family of three with a young child and barely went out. The only place we visited was the local shop, where we picked up drinks and snacks before taking the chairlift back to the hotel. You can borrow all your gear here. The skis stay in the locker, where they dry very quickly. We tried both the public and private baths. The public one is definitely worth trying, though tattoos aren't allowed. If you have one, use concealer or a tattoo-covering sticker. It was a nice touch to have ice lollies waiting in the lounge after a bath. There was hardly anything negative to say about the hotel.

The location is nice, and the onsen is decent. The free shuttle can take you anywhere in town, but it only runs until 5pm. Dinner was poor and the choices were limited. If you're staying more than two days, you may have to cross the mountain at night in the snow to eat somewhere else. The room WiFi signal was weak, and room cleaning is only available from 9 to 11am, with no afternoon cleaning.

The hot springs were good, but the rental gear looked old and wasn't very good quality. My boots wouldn't tighten properly, so I had to adjust them every time I rode. Even though I booked ahead, they didn't have shoes in a suitable size for me. The person helping us set the bindings didn't seem familiar with how to adjust them. And nobody checked whether I was a beginner or a regular skier.

The way they handled a room mix-up made the whole stay uncomfortable and ruined the experience. I wanted the deluxe room, which was why I'd rearranged my trip to stay that night. Compensation was one thing, but they should have told me clearly that my room had been assigned to someone else. I wouldn't recommend this place. I had reserved a 57-square-meter deluxe room and arrived to check in at 4pm. At the front desk, I heard the staff realize that my room had gone to an earlier guest with a similar name. They'd mixed up our names and assigned that guest the deluxe room. They called the manager and asked us to sit well away from the desk. Later, the manager acted as if everything was normal and took me to a smaller, 46-square-meter room. I only realized it had been downgraded when I checked my booking again and compared it with the online photos. When I returned to the desk to ask, the manager admitted he hadn't told me about the change earlier. He offered 2,200 yen per person as compensation. We didn't accept at first, so he offered a free private bath session instead, saying the deluxe room had already been assigned and was no longer available. The fact that he hadn't been upfront about it left me feeling uncomfortable.