HARUNOYA

It was overall an alright stay, don’t expect Japanese standards. Apparently they had a soft opening period and just opened on April 15. You can see that things aren’t running so smoothly yet, trip.com shows that spa needs to be booked a day in advance, but on WeChat they said no reservations required and we can use anytime. The second day we wanted to use the spa our second time, and was told by a staff we couldn’t use it again, which we were confused about. Later other staff said we could. The spa itself had spectacular views, but the outdoor pool weirdly had half eaten and rotten apples floating around. After talking to the spa staff they said it was for aesthetic purposes and guests must have eaten them without knowing that. Worrying hygiene standards 😨 apart from that overall hygiene seems to be alright. All rooms have our own private courtyard so there are two doors, the main wooden door and then the glass door to our actual room. The main wooden door broke down twice - we couldn’t lock it (more like they didn’t fix the problem fully the first time), which wasted our time as we had to sit around to watch the maintenance staff fixing our door. Breakfast was okay but half the dishes were way too salty for my taste. Weird mix of “Western”, “Japanese” and Chinese dishes. Cheaper to buy on the spot (168 yuan as of today). Service was not up to the standard of a hotel of this price point. The staff welcoming us seems like she was reading from a script, we couldn’t hear half the time even after asking her to enunciate clearer twice. Felt like they were here to monitor us more than take care of us. Instead of “how may I help you?”, they actually responded “what’s wrong?” on two separate occasions. I don’t think this is acceptable! Some staff also do not greet guests properly.

Overall, this hotel succeeds in looking like a traditional Japanese ryokkan, but unfortunately doesn't feel like one due to many important features missing. If you've stayed at a ryokkan in Japan, this one misses the mark, but potentially is not a problem as it is catered towards Chinese people. As a foreigner accustomed to Japanese standards, you might be disappointed. It's very clean and modern, with a "private" bath that looks like a traditional private onsen bath. The dinner was average, with the yakitori being the highlight. Breakfast was Chinese food, which took away from the immersion. As far as experience goes, the main problems here were the details that broke from the immersiveness of being at a traditional ryokkan. These include a lack of privacy, inexperienced staff, out of theme food options, and other details such as not using true hot spring water and the bath being only partly Hinoki wood. The privacy concern is because if you have the courtyard room, you have a "private" courtyard and bath, but in the morning a worker was outside in the courtyard with full view of my bath. This felt very uncomfortable and I no longer felt relaxed or at peace, and needed to close all the blinds which ruined the point of having an open courtyard. It was worth a try, and definitely a beautiful space. But I couldn't help but feel disappointed as the important details were missed in this recreation of a ryokkan.

nice!!