Hotel staff were terrific. Great at explaining and making us feel very comfortable while giving us the most genuinely Japanese experience of our trip.
My husband and I spent two nights at Hidatei Hanaougi in mid-March, 2017. I would call this a "modern ryokan". If you are looking for a strictly authentic ryokan experience, this place will probably not fit your criteria. The meals, for example, are not served in-room, but in a private tatami room on the 2nd floor (each room is assigned its own dining room for the duration of the stay). But if you are looking for something in between traditional and modern comfort, I highly recommend Hidatei Hanaougi! After a lot of research, we decided on Hidatei Hanaougi because we really wanted our own bathroom, while most of the traditional, smaller ryokan we looked at had shared bathrooms (toilet/shower) between several rooms. We also wanted a room with a private onsen so that we could share the soaking experience together and not have to go to the separate men/women onsen. Of course, in a room with private onsen, you have the option of doing either! The kaiseki meals were beautiful, varied, and left us very full. The main course for dinner both evenings involved the famous Hida beef (which was indeed delicious). It happened to be yakiniku the first night, and shabu shabu the second. Going into our stay, we were expecting that we would want to take advantage of the late-night ramen bar downstairs, but we ended up being too full from our dinner! Wonderful hospitality from every employee we encountered, especially from our assigned host, Hiroko, who was with us for the duration of our stay
Hotel staff were terrific. Great at explaining and making us feel very comfortable while giving us the most genuinely Japanese experience of our trip.
My husband and I spent two nights at Hidatei Hanaougi in mid-March, 2017. I would call this a "modern ryokan". If you are looking for a strictly authentic ryokan experience, this place will probably not fit your criteria. The meals, for example, are not served in-room, but in a private tatami room on the 2nd floor (each room is assigned its own dining room for the duration of the stay). But if you are looking for something in between traditional and modern comfort, I highly recommend Hidatei Hanaougi! After a lot of research, we decided on Hidatei Hanaougi because we really wanted our own bathroom, while most of the traditional, smaller ryokan we looked at had shared bathrooms (toilet/shower) between several rooms. We also wanted a room with a private onsen so that we could share the soaking experience together and not have to go to the separate men/women onsen. Of course, in a room with private onsen, you have the option of doing either! The kaiseki meals were beautiful, varied, and left us very full. The main course for dinner both evenings involved the famous Hida beef (which was indeed delicious). It happened to be yakiniku the first night, and shabu shabu the second. Going into our stay, we were expecting that we would want to take advantage of the late-night ramen bar downstairs, but we ended up being too full from our dinner! Wonderful hospitality from every employee we encountered, especially from our assigned host, Hiroko, who was with us for the duration of our stay
