Best Hotels near Kajihama Park, Itoigawa

From the Shinkansen ”Kurobe Unazuki Onsen Station”, it takes about 30 minutes by hotel shuttle bus to arrive at Hotel Ogawa along the stream. It's a big hot spring inn rather than a hotel. Guests' names are printed on the newspaper-style guidebook. The room is in a very emotional location along the creek. It is really suitable for an inn. There is a natural cave open-air bath 5-6 minutes from the inn, and it is said to be one of the 4 famous hot springs in Etchu. For dinner, we serve only local dishes, such as firefly squid, hot pot vegetables of the original brand pork, and boiled rice with white shrimp. It is a hot spring inn that I would like to visit again.　

We stayed here as part of a Tripadeal Aus package and it was a classic - “you get what you pay” for experience. Hotel is definitely mid range but room sizes were ok. We stayed in a fusion Western / Japanese room with 2 singles and 2 futons on tatami mats which was fine. Smoking and smell of smoke was a bit of an issue as doors to the smoking room and karaoke lounge were left open most of the time.. so the whole place smelled. Hotel staff tried to help by offering us some scented spray and were friendly and accommodating enough (shout out to Otomo San who was very helpful through our whole trip) but the cigarette smell was bad. Being on the northern side of the valley, the hotel backs onto Hakuba Norikura Onsen and the trails were great for young ones and beginners and being ski in and out, was ideal. But you are bus rides from everything and other parts of the Valley like Happo, Tsugaike (next village) or Cortina Limited food but hotel breakfast buffet was ok but Japanese style with some mix of Western (croissants and sweet bread). We chose to eat Dinner at a local family run place instead (see other review) which was not far from hotel - walkable. Lunch at the Snow drops cafeteria outside the hotel was cheap and locally exceptional.. one of the positives. Our passes as part of the hotel deal was limited to Norikura and didn’t allow us to ski across to Cortina (fine print stuff - where as a normal Day pass should allow you to ski both of you bought it locally) or buy a Hakuba Valley pass which gives you access to all the resorts. In hindsight, we should’ve just invested in a Epic pass in Oz in 19/20 which would’ve gave us 5days skiing. Ski gear rental offered by the hotel was also pretty average with very old gear (I’m talking 10-15+ yrs old) and definitely not up to scratch if you’re expecting new-ish stuff.. we ended up organising our gear through another place in the Echoland village (see separate review) which was great. There is a luggage delivery service which was helpful to send our bags back to the airport without having to lug them around all over Japan and the trains. Hotel onsen was the saving grace and great to have it just “upstairs” after the end of the day and is segregated. All in all probably just ok.. but we stayed here for the “value” deal and local experience.

I was surprised because there is only wifi near the front desk, but it was good to be able to cut off my smartphone. Due to the deep snow, the truck got addicted to the inn and the return was late.

The guest house suited next to the Jade coast where u can find different types of rocks and minerals include Jade! for using train, u need to change from Tomari station, limited schedule during afternoon. But prefect for those love quiet! The host couple very very nice even cannot speak English, they use google translate to communicate with me. The dinner and bfast an absolutely surprise! The dinner set with sushi crab hot pot rice tempura ….. The room is traditional Tatami with ocean view. Love this and sure come back!