GRANDVRIO RESORT ISHIGAKIJIMA Ocean’s Wing & Villa Garden

It is oceanfront, a short distance from the city center of southern Ishigaki Island. However, it was more like a rocky shore than a beach. There are two separate buildings, Villa Garden and Ocean Wing, which are completely separate as hotels rather than different buildings. The entrance is also different. I stayed at the Ocean Wing, but there was a gap because it was somewhat like a villa garden. It's older overall, and this one has a smaller pool. I was very happy that there was a sauna bath in the public bath, but I was concerned that there was something generally not clean. There are three restaurants available for dinner: Teppanyaki, Shabu-shabu and Bar. I ate shabu-shabu, which has an a la carte menu. I chose the cheapest course of shabu-shabu, but it was not only shabu-shabu, but also sashimi, which filled me up. After all, I ordered only sea grapes a la carte. Breakfast was 2800 yen, I think, but there are many variations, and I am very satisfied with the Ishigaki Oden and Yaeyama squid ink pasta. It's old in general, but it's reasonably priced, and it's right in front of the sea, even though it's not on the beach, so it's good for a stonewall feel.

Loved the spacious Family Suite at Ocean Wing: - Was comparing ANA, Club Med, Fusaki and this resort - so we found this resort with the largest Family Room and at a better price. The kids have their own "tatami bedroom" within our suite which they loved. Adults have proper Western beds which we liked for good back support. - While we did consider Fusaki since it was newer with more amenities and was thus more popular, we still chose this resort precisely because it was less popular and therefore less crowded and felt more relaxing, even at peak weekend breakfasts. - Talking about breakfast - grateful for the good variety of tasty Okinawan dishes and that they had new ones rotating for the four mornings we were there. Eggs' live station, kids' corner, free-flow mango soft serve machine were pretty cool too. - While most staff couldn't speak much English, one of them could, and the others tried their best to understand and used their translation devices/ Google translate. We could tell they tried hard, and appreciated them for that. With proper planning, we thoroughly enjoyed this resort because: 1. Proximity to oldest restaurant It was just 600 meters to "Funakura-no-sato", which translates literally to "Village of Boat Warehouses", that is probably the oldest famous restaurant on the island, with traditional Okinawan cuisine and live singing. That was our first dinner on the island. 2. Proximity to town/pier Being relatively close to town/pier, our day adventure tour company could pick us up a little later. With half a day of snorkeling and boat ride to Taketomi island covered, we had good time exploring and enjoying good meals in town before a short cab ride back to the hotel. 3. Proximity to car rental 700 meters to the car rental - we were fine to walk there, but the car rental company manager come over to fetch us instead after a call. Used the rental car to explore plenty of famous beaches on this island for two days, so it didn't matter to us that this resort didn't have beach access. 4. Evenings (pools, onsen, gift shop) Indoor pools were warm, had a jacuzzi and had inflatable slides! The warm pools were great for relaxing after whole days out. The pool area had the same entrance as the hotel's onsen, which had both indoor and outdoor, 40-degree and 20-degree baths. Hotel was nice to provide free Blue Seal (Okinawan ice cream brand) popsicles at the onsen's entrance. Gift shop had a very good variety of souvenirs, which we found to be same pricing as the other touristy places we visited on the island. Good job on the island's tourism board for standardizing prices, and for the hotel's gift shop for not overcharging. We even got a Ryukyu Black Pearl necklace at the hotel's gift shop since we liked a design here not found at the island's main store.

Very nice location / vire (but NO beach!) Very friendly and helpful staff Hotel caters to Japanese guests, so if you expect a resort feel by international standsards, you will be disappointed Small pool, very few deck chairs, no utilization of great outdoor location by restaurants, cafe/bar etc - you are expected to spend the time out of the sun !! (indoor pool much larger than outdoor) Rooms uncomfortable beyond reason (rock hard bed, bag of rice disguised at pillow) and in need of refurbishment Location is convenient for both city and touring island, but you definitely need a car. Can recommend the “Coconut Rental” 5 mins up the road, great selection of fun Kei cars, perfect for four touring the island at leasure pace