Kinokuniya Ryokan

The guests praise the spacious, clean rooms with mountain views and private bathrooms. They also value the well-equipped onsens and separate areas for men and women.

A different kind of experience than your usual accomodation. We kinda expect that this ryokan is old as stated over 300 yrs old. We want to experience something of a japanese traditional service, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The ryokan has remained its old character. Admired the collection of antique and unique pieces on display. We booked the Japanese futtons. It's comfortable. The dusty ceiling and wall has probably added to its old character. We're fine with that as the toilet and beds are clean. We love the private bath or onsen although we have to pay extra for that. The location is quite remote and going somewhere else will be a challenge. The best thing we've ever done is to hire a car to take us around. The surroundings are quite mystical so make sure go for a nice walk and explore the place. I imagine the setting of Spirited Away. The only disappointment we have is when they cancelled all our breakfast inclusions for the third day. We only missed out the second day breakfast as we have to travel to Yamaguchi Prefecture and we are early riser. Breakfast at 8am is quite late for us. The gentleman at the reception had assumed that we are cancelling all our breakfast inclusions during our stay. We are so looking forward to our breakfast on our last day until they told us that we can't have it anymore as it's been cancelled. Understand that there some miscommunication and lost in translation somewhere. It left us disappointed overall considering that we have paid over AUD$800 per night. Not cheap. We have stayed in other ryokan in Kyoto before and they are always very accomodating and I would say that it's worth what you have paid for. Breakfast has also have western or japanese tradional breakfast options. This ryokan doesn't give you any choices unless you say that you have food allergies. Overall, it's not worth what we have paid for.

We prefer a small ryokan like Kinokuniya than a hotel type onsen. Even though it looks old, but this is what you come here for. We have three of us in a very spacious room. I happened to have an online meeting and it worked well. We booked with 2 meals - breakfast and dinner. As expected, the food is great. However, it's very traditional so make sure that you expect for something different than your usual.