Hakuba Hotel Ougiya

hotel was great - food was delicious and the Onsen was perfect

We had a pleasant stay at the Ougiya for two nights' skiing. It's a no-frills kind of place, which was fine for our needs. The room was a decent size, the onsen was good and the overall ambience was pleasant. It is an easy walk from the bus stop with various dining options and ski rental in the village. One thing to note is that although it's billed as 'ski-in ski-out', it isn't - you have to walk a few minutes to the nearest rental shop then take a shuttle bus from there to whichever slope you want to go to. This was not a major issue, it's just that the description on ******* is not quite accurate. All in all, good value for an end-of-season ski trip.

We arrived to Hakuba Hotel at 3pm (the posted check-in time). However, there was no one at the front desk for 2 hours. We waited 30 minutes, then decided to leave our bags in the lobby to go out and grab some food and rent skis. When we finally got checked in, we brought our bags to our Japan style room in the hotel's annex building. It was nice at first to hear the annex was connected through an underground tunnel, however, the tunnel was filled with mold. You could see black mold in the ceiling tiles, a bucket was on the ground to catch a water leak, and the carpet tiles were all clearly pulling up due to moisture below. Our room itself seemed relatively clean, but our tatami mat bed rolls had stains all over them and our room included extra pillows, but no pillow cases. We ended up using t-shirts and towels to cover the pillows. The front desk told us that they don't provide room cleaning throughout our stay unless we request it, however, it's hard to request a room cleaning when there is never anyone at the front desk. The breakfast was not good, we found ourselves picking away at certain things that seemed good enough to eat. We were so uncomfortable in this hotel that we decided to leave early and move to a different accommodation for the last two nights. When I explained this to the front desk and requested a refund, they provided zero help. I truly do not understand how Hakuba Hotel has such good reviews, I would highly recommend not staying here.

Staff can communicate in basic english, my traditional room did not disappoint, clean and well done up morning buffet. Can walk to any restaurants, grocery stores and of course the chair lift.