Hoshinoya Karuizawa Hotel

After having stayed at Kai for a few times, I decided to try Hoshinoya, their top line hotels. We booked for two nights and arriving when there was rain. We checked in near the main entrance and were taken to our room by the hotel transportation directly to our room which was facing the pond/water cottage as they call it. Our room was seeing our water cottages over the other side of the pond. The room was not small, but you do not find it spacious, probably due to the layout. And it was very dark, even in the day time. We need to use the torch inside the room to search for things. The half outdoor onsen was also facing other water cottage too. We then walked back to the reception building to have some drinks and snacks. Then headed to the onsen for residents only. This residents-only onsen has indoor onsen only and no outdoor onsen. However, there is a dark “room” inside the onsen where it is very very dark you need to feel in order to move around. It is actually not very hot inside the dark room even you are in the onsen water but feel quite comfortable. You can enjoy a fresh milk from local or drinks outside the onsen. There is another bigger onsen located a bit far from our room which is exclusive to staying guests only from 9am- 10am, after which it is open to public paying a fee at the entrance. That onsen is much bigger and has an outdoor onsen. The restaurant serves both dinner and breakfast. The restaurant overlooks a terraced garden on one side. The food served is good, though outstanding. For a ¥ 200,000 room night I would expect the dinner to be better. The service at the restaurant is, however, very good. We visited the the Harunire terrace and Stone church which are also located within the Hoshino group property area. The Harunire Terrace is very nice and offer good restaurants, shops and coffee to hang around. On the second day we had our breakfast in our balcony which is quite a unique experience with the pond by your side. Overall, it is a very good experience. However, with the service level, dinner menu and price point, Hoshinoya has a quite low price-performance ratio.

Horrible service. The manager - Momona Kusugaya, was absolutely unacceptable in her behavior and tone toward a guest. I’ve lived in Japan for 10 years and traveled around the world for business and leisure and had never never experienced this level of poor service. I’d highly caution anybody who is thinking about coming to this hotel, or Hoshino hotels in general. It’s actually shocking how they treat their guests, especially toward foreigners. The level of discrimination and hostility towards foreigners is absolutely shocking and unacceptable. The numerous 1 star reviews here speaks for itself. Visit at your own risk…..

We arrived with a confirmed reservation that had already been fully paid using a redeemed gift card (¥200,000). This gift card had been applied during the booking process, and the reservation was accepted and confirmed. Upon arrival, staff claimed the payment was “invalid” because we did not present the physical gift card—despite the fact that the gift card had already been redeemed and used to secure the reservation. They then demanded an additional ¥200,000 to allow us to check in, effectively attempting to charge us twice for the same stay. Our friends whom purchased the gift certificates also provided receipt and proof of purchase of the said gift certificates. Despite remaining calm and repeatedly providing multiple evidences that it was us whom used the certificates we were denied Check-in. Due to how hostile and unreasonable the situation became, we made the decision that we no longer felt comfortable staying and asked to leave. We felt losing the original 200k yen gift certificate was unfair but the check in experience was so bad that we don’t even want to stay there any more and just willing to forfeit our claim. At that point, staff escalated the situation further by demanding the full cost of the stay as a cancellation fee, despite refusing to honor the original booking or allow us to check in. Effectively, they were asking us to pay 400,000 yen without us staying there otherwise they would call the police. We refused such unreasonable and offensive request and requested our luggage. The staff refused to give us our luggage back until we paid them another 200k yen. Ultimately we told the staff it was illegal for them to hold our luggage hostage and keep us there. Regardless the staff did not give us back the luggage until the arrival of the police. The police arrived around 10:40 pm, at that time we have already been in the hotel since 6:30 pm, and trying to leave the hotel since 8:30 pm. When the police came, they made it clear this was a civil matter, and that any payment dispute should be handled through proper channels (e.g., a demand letter). The ordeal did not end until past midnight with the staff still ultimately threatening lawsuit against us. Meanwhile we had to scramble to find another hotel room in the middle of the night. This was not a simple misunderstanding—it was a complete breakdown in customer service, basic guest rights, and professional conduct. The tone throughout was rude, aggressive, and intimidating. Not only did it ruin our weekend, costing us a lot more money as we lost 200k yen in gift certificate we had to spend a lot more money to book another hotel last minute for the weekend. Causing great emotional and financial distress to us. We have been living in japan in over 10 years and had never had such experience. Not only did It ruined our weekend, it also fundamentally changed our perception of what foreigners living / traveling is like in japan for the worse. We will never stay at another Hoshino Resorts property again. Travelers should be extremely cautious—this experience was not only disappointing, but deeply concerning. And we plan to make complaints to japan tourism board.