Rishiri Marine Hotel

Good location that is close to the ferry terminal. This is important because the bus terminal is also there if you want to travel to other parts of the island. Suggest to request for a sea view room (the breeze is nice and the view of the mountain in the background as well is superb) The meals were one of the best I had during my trip (which included onsen hotels). For dinner, it was Japanese-style, set up very nicely by the time I arrived for dinner. The ingredients were fresh with great variety and the service was great (even though the menu is there in English, the waitresses still try to point them out to you, as some are not as obvious). I requested for an earlier [to start at 5:45am instead of 6:00am] breakfast due to my itinerary, and they were accommodating. The breakfast was also Japanese-style. It was good, but the dinner was just better.

There are few places to stay on rishiri as most people come as day trippers from wakkanai. We picked the marine hotel as it was close to the ferry and for the views of mount rishiri. We arranged for an airport pickup which was nice. Our main concern was for our lack Japanese speaking but the man at the front desk spoke enough English to get us checked in. Like a lot of Japanese hotels we were given a paper with information in English about the hotel-dining and onsen hours. The food was half board and we were given a large seafood dinner every night. We stayed 3 nights and the food was different every night with a set kaiseki style meal with emphasis on sea urchin/uni. Fortunately our waitress Aoi was very nice and spoke enough English to explain what all the dishes were as well as a menu in English was given every night. Our twin room had a nice view of the ocean and we could see mount rishiri if we stuck our head out of the window a little. We watched the locals bring in their konbu/kelp every morning from our room and set it out to dry. There was a man at the tourist desk in the ferry terminal who spoke English and was very helpful with information and planning activities. Rishiri is for tourists looking for nature and not expecting the usual Hilton experience.