Romantic Hotels in Beppu

I recently stayed at Kannawaen Sanso Ryokan, and it was a truly remarkable experience. From the moment I arrived, the staff’s warm hospitality made me feel welcomed and relaxed. The ryokan is set in a beautiful, serene location, surrounded by nature, offering a peaceful retreat from daily life. The room was spacious and tastefully decorated in traditional Japanese style, blending modern comforts with authentic charm. The private onsen attached to my room was a highlight, allowing me to unwind in soothing hot springs while taking in the picturesque views. What truly sets Kannawaen apart is the attention to detail and personalized service. The staff went out of their way to ensure everything was perfect, making me feel truly cared for throughout my stay. If you’re looking for a luxurious, tranquil getaway with impeccable service and a true Japanese experience, I highly recommend Kannawaen Sanso Ryokan. It’s a place we would love to visit again. Note: they provide shuttle from/to station with time slot! Convenient

This hotel is about 10-15 mins walking from the JR Beppu station. It is easy to find as you just walk towards the seaside until you see the Beppu Tower beside a main road, the hotel is behind it. There is a 7-11 beside the tower, and a bus stop in front of the tower, so is quite convenient. If you take the bus to visit the 7 Beppu Hells starting from the JR station and follow the sequence, i.e. Chinoike and Tatsumaki Jigokus as the last two hells, and you take the bus towards the Beppu station, you can stop directly in front of the tower, this complete a full circle of your Beppu Hell tour. I booked a seaview Japanese room and the view is great. The room is also spacious for Japanese ryokan standard. There is some minor renovation and furniture replacement done, so the room is a mixture of new and worn. There are two onsen baths in this hotel: one at the top floor, an open air onsen bath and one at third floor, which is an indoor onsen bath. The dinner and breakfast are both average though. Overall, I am quite happy with my stay here.

We enjoyed our stay thoroughly. Service was very good. Parking was an extra 550 yen per day. Breakfast was Japanese style but did include a bacon and egg cooked in front of each guest with the small Japanese hotpot. Our room fit 3 adults was very nice with clean modern amenities consisting of one room with two single beds, and a sizable living room with futon in the evening for the third bed. Nice view of Beppu tower in our room. Hotspring outdoor was totally enjoyable with a view of the sunrise and the Beppu Bay. Gotta be careful though because for ladies, someone in a boat at the bay might be able to see our naked upper bodies with telescope if we stand up.😅

Overall, I felt the hotel was very nicely done with great local touches while still keeping an international atmosphere. I also wanted to point out the great flexibility of the hotel, allowing me to change my meal reservations from 3 dinners at Elements (I was on a package deal) to one at Elements and combining the remaining two meals at Elements to a dinner at Atelier. This allowed me to not have to dine at the same restaurant as well as opening up a slot for me to explore a local restaurant. However, there were two things that I'd like to point out that the hotel can improve upon. The first is the staffing at the club lounge (and in general) is not enough. There were many moments where I was left to wait, to the point where using standard facilities (like the check-in counter, or breakfast at Elements) would have been a more positive experience. Breakfast on 12/21 was where the understaffing really showed, where it took over an hour to complete breakfast; many guests left in the middle of their meal since service was horribly slow. However, the second point us what I would really want the hotel to work on - CoVID countermeasures. Largely, two things I'd like to point out. (1) Temperature screening us inconsistent. I was checked when I first arrived, but never anytime afterwards (or should I say, the thermometer station was unmanned). (2) During my meal at Atelier, my wife and I noticed that the staff (He was Italian, I think his name is Marco?) preparing the dishes (in the open kitchen) prepping a sauce, tasting it with the same spoon which was quickly rinsed it under the faucet and returned into the mixing bowl. I pointed this out to one of the servers (Japanese male, responsible for serving and explaining the dishes). This is where I felt the hotel can improve on - in detail, three things. (i) The Japanese server proceeded to quietly scold the staff in front of me, I felt that was not a great experience both for myself and the staff. (ii) Nothing was cleared. After the scolding (and then the staff responding back that he did not put the spoon back in) none of the utensils were changed and no follow up. I guess there is no trust in what a customer points out. And finally (iii) I felt that this is at the fault of the hotel for not putting in proper operation guidelines.A person putting together a meal will need to taste it, to make sure it's good. If the hotel were to put in operational guidelines to ensure tasting can be done while still making it very obvious that it is hygienic, I would not have to be writing this email. Needless to say, our dinner experience was ruined that night. I actually shared the above comment with IHG Guest Relations (on 25 Dec), which the agent was extremely prompt on getting back to me and assured that I would get a response back from the hotel about it within 48 hours. Unfortunately, the hotel never contacted me. I then asked guest relations again (on 5 Jan) to follow up with th

Really enjoyed this unique hotel that has a mix of art, onsen, great views and decent food. The room (419) was not luxurious but was well designed, the balcony overlooked the extraordinary landscape that is Beppu, the greatest feature was the semi open-air onsen bath facilitated by the floor to ceiling windows, connected to the generous deck space. It was fun to walk around the gallery space and admire the interesting architecture, color palettes, and exhibits championing Beppu culture, landscape, flora, fauna etc. Sitting in the Peak restaurant for dinner, I was amused that one of the waitstaff was a robot that ferried food and empty dishes back and forth. Dinner was laid-back, had a window side seat that allowed me to enjoy the city glitter below. My stay here was at a fraction of another Beppu hotel on this trip, in many ways I enjoyed this place more and would not hesitate to come back.

It has the highest number of hot spring sources and the highest amount of hot spring water in Japan. Among them, eight hot spring villages with a long history (Hamawaki Onsen, Beppu Onsen, Kankaiji Onsen, Hotta Onsen, Myoban Onsen, Kannawa Onsen, Shibaseki Onsen, Kamegawa Onsen) are called Beppu Hatto. The [Ryotei Matsubaya] where I stayed this time is located in the Kankaiji Onsen area, one of the eight hot springs of Beppu. The inn is located on the slope of a mountain on the west side of Beppu City, on a hill where you can see the mountains on the west side and Beppu City and Beppu Bay on the east side. The inn was located on a steep slope with no shops nearby, so we needed a car to go out after arriving at the inn. [Ryotei Matsubaya] has two types of guest rooms: the old building [Oka no Sou], which has 10 standard rooms, and the new building [Tsuki no Sou], which has 8 guest rooms. The new building [Tsuki no Sou] has three types of guest rooms, [Stylish Modern], [Japanese Modern], and [Maisonette], which are oriented towards a new ryokan style.The accommodation fee is slightly higher than the Japanese and Western style rooms [Oka no Sou]. It is set. This time, we stayed in the [Maisonette] type in the new building [Tsuki no Sou]. Prices vary slightly depending on the season, but the cost of accommodation this time was 48,000 yen per person, per night, including two meals. The maisonette-type guest room is 100 square meters in size, with a living room and Japanese-style room on the lower floor, and a daybed sofa next to the window. There are chairs on the balcony where you can relax while looking out over Beppu city. There is a twin bedroom on the upper floor, an indoor bath and an open-air bath, and honestly it was too big for two people to stay in. From the room and open-air bath, you can see Beppu city and the tourist attraction Global Tower right in front of you, and beyond that you can see Beppu Tower and Beppu Bay. The night view also looked beautiful. Apparently you can't see much of a view from [Oka no Sou]. The open-air bath on the upper floor can be accessed directly from the indoor bath, and is about the size of two tatami mats. It is installed on the balcony, but there is a partition to hide it, so you don't have to worry about it being seen from other places. In addition to the open-air baths in the rooms, there are five shared hot spring baths in Tsuki no Sou and Oka no Sou, all of which can be used free of charge without reservations. Types of baths are: Private open-air bath••••••2 Private semi-open-air bath•••1 Indoor family bath••••••1 Large public bath (separate for men and women)••••1 Common bath available Time: 15:00-24:00 06:00-08:00 the next morning (some baths can be used until 09:00) I took a bath in one of the private semi-open-air baths [Yakushi no Yu], which is carved out of a large monolith. It was a very large bath that could accommodate about 10 people. From the bath, I was able to see the beautiful night view of Beppu. The hot springs were very pleasant to the touch, but the temperature of the hot springs was quite high, so I had to add water to cool them down before I could enter. Meals are served in the building's dining area both in the morning and in the evening. It's a semi-private room, so you can eat slowly without worrying about other people watching you. The menu for this dinner is as follows: ●Seasonal platter ●Clam shinjo ●Sashimi of spiny lobster and seki mackerel ●Stone-grilled abalone ●Simmered Japanese beef tail and radish ●New bamboo shoots Shrimp with cherry leaves Namafu Fried rice ●Seafood Salad ●Japanese black beef with sesame sauce Warabi Bamboo shoots Sokatsu ●White rice Pickles ●Fruit salad Sakuramochi Each dish was served with seafood from the Bungo Channel and from the mountains of Oita, so each dish was delicious without getting cold. The breakfast had a wide variety of items and I was able to choose between rice or porridge and it was delicious. ●Location: Approximately 10 minutes by car from JR Beppu Station ●Check-in: 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM ●Check-out: 11:00 AM ●Spring quality: Colorless and transparent simple spring ●Efficacy: Neuralgia, muscle pain, recovery from fatigue, Arthralgia, motor paralysis, health promotion Frozen shoulders, sensitivity to cold, chronic digestive diseases, joint stiffness ●Source temperature: 65℃ ●Bath temperature: Natural source water. Water is added for temperature adjustment ●Five shared baths ●Parking for about 10 cars ●Rooms: 8 rooms [Tsuki no Sou] 10 rooms [Oka no Sou] ●Facilities: Wi-Fi available ●Pets not allowed My impressions after staying in the city are As someone who lives here, it feels like I'm staying in a somewhat stylish apartment, but I wonder if the room has the atmosphere of a Japanese inn or a hot spring inn. That's what I thought. However, this is just a matter of personal preference, so I think it's a great place to stay with your family, with an attached open-air bath, a large room with a great view, 5 shared and private hot springs, and delicious food. The old building has also been renovated and renovated, so please choose the room that suits your taste. This inn is located halfway up a small mountain on the outskirts of Beppu city. The location is not suitable for going out at night, so we recommend it for those who want to finish sightseeing before checking in and spend the night relaxing at the inn. The values, tastes, and sensibilities of traveling vary from person to person. You can't rely on other people's preferences, including mine, and you can't rely on travel site reviews at all. One of the joys of traveling is finding an accommodation of your choice based on the candid opinions of people who write reviews. Beppu has good hot springs and many attractions. Please visit Beppu once.

The hotel has a parking lot for self-driving convenience. The bathroom supplies are said to be a brand name by my girlfriend. The bathrobe is very beautiful. However, although the outdoor hot spring is blocked by a partition, there is no top cover. You can see the corridor glass window on a certain floor of the hotel. 🤣 I hope it is not a corridor for the guests. 😅

All the meals were very delicious. The staff were also very polite. The only disappointing thing was that the room was not relaxing. The bed mat was not fixed in place, so it moved every time I had tea or went to the toilet, and there was no lighting at my feet, so it was hard to walk at night. Although the hotel is located on a hill, the bath in the room was completely visible from the outside, which made it hard to relax. It was disappointing that I couldn't relax in the free-flowing hot spring water.