We stayed at the hotel for 6 nights. It is best reachable by car. The hotel is recent built, very modern, has large rooms and very well maintained. The beautiful garden seen from the bar and restaurant was amazing to watch. Every day room cleaning was outstanding. And the collagen sauna was exceptional.
It was indeed confirmed that the hotel staff does not help with luggage, even though there are up to 3 people sitting at the front desk at a time and dolly standing in the lobby. In contrast, the staff at `Hakone Retreat Villas` helped us with the luggage.
There are two big things, which threw us off materially and culturally, and we are glad that it happened on the last night of our stay.
1. The hotel offers 6 course dinner on a rather pricier side (for Japan), 19,200 JPY per person. While the chef was super professional and entertaining, the traditional japanese beef was swapped for chicken. Just the night before, we went to high cousine `Buon'Agio` restaurant in Kyoto downtown, where a dinner with Wagyu beef cooked in front of us cost 25% less.
2. There were just 2 of us along with 2 Japanese ladies. At the end of the dinner only two of us were asked to have our desert in the lobby bar. While the other two japaneese ladies were let to finish their dinner at the restaurant.
Both concerns were expressed to the hotel staff, although the manager has not contacted us while they had enough time to do so.
This ruined our initial impression about japaneese hospitality.
