Noboribetsu Spa Hotels

The hotel has a grand appearance. You can see it immediately after getting off the Noboribetsu Onsen Bus Terminal. It can be reached within a 5-minute walk. There is a convenience store near the hot spring street. The space in the room is large, but the only air-conditioning equipment is heating. Although I visited in winter, the heating was relatively strong and hot, so I needed to open some windows for ventilation. The large bathhouse has two floors. Men and women exchange entrances in the morning and evening. It is very large and has multiple hot spring pools. The large bathing room on the B2 floor is very beautiful, so it is recommended to go to the open-air couple.

Noboribetsu, Hokkaido Prefecture. Filled with the mists of the North Pacific Ocean deep in the forrest valley lies the home of the thermal volcanic “hell valley”, all-natural hot springs, lakes, and the cuddly Bear Mountain Park. This is a tourist’s escape from whatever burdens them in the city, into the natural wonderland of mountains, hot spring streams, and warm local hospitality. The Noboribetsu Grand Hotel was opened in 1938. What was the Noboribetsu Guest House now revolutionized and expanded into a 300 plus room hotel with a finished off with a hot spring spa. Now a popular holiday getaway for the tourists both from Japan and abroad, this hotel packs itself to the brim both during the hot summers and the freezing winters. As part of our adventures down and around Hokkaido, we experienced this hotel and here’s our honest review of the Noboribetsu Grand Hotel: Our stay occurred from July 22nd to 23rd, this was our first night in Hokkaido after a long flight from Shanghai. A long hour drive from the highly trafficked New Chitose Airport would lead you to the Grand Hotel. Upon driving up, you would see how old the hotel is with its grey tiled walls and white drive up area. Greeting us at the hotel were the bellmen bowing as they would in the Japanese-style etiquette as you enter the lobby filled with one of Noboribetsu’s gift shop, monster figures, and marbled front desk area. None of the staff members spoke much English, so our lovely tour guide helped us in translation. Our check-in agent guided us through the specific details of the hotel facilities, breakfast facilities, and tatami installation times. We were given a 4-person Japanese-style “VIP” room, which consists of an at most 30 SQM space with a tatami floored living/bedroom space combination, a sitting room, a toilet room, a sink area, and a compact bathroom with separate shower & bathtub facilities. During the daytimes, living room acts a place for dining and seating with tatami chairs and a table. The TV stands at a corner. At around 7PM, the room attendants would turnover the tatami beds by moving the tables and chairs into the closet space and setting up the tatami beds. The tatami beds were rather inconvenient for us because of the size of the pillows that made of the tatami rather hard to sleep on. Don’t get us wrong, tatami beds are an efficient sleeping beds for families, but a single small sized pillow per bed makes the difference between authentic Japanese comfort and discomfort. Much of the challenge during the sleeping process was making sure your body stayed on the mattress when getting used to the firm yet small bean-filled pillow. I would recommend rooms that they provide that caters to a more westernized style with full beds. The tatami issue is a situation the hotel needs to revamp on. If they can start providing extra pillows in the closet or thicker sized pillows, it would be a great turnaround. The Japanese Hot Spring SPA concept is quite bizarre. Unlike mos