Hakone Ashinoko Hanaori

We really appreciated the transfer from odawara station to the hotel. The view is pretty good, although we didn’t realise there was a road between the property and the lake so it’s not as close as it seems. The Onsen were fantastic but no tattoos are allowed so if you want to enjoy this hotel book a room with a private bathtub or hire out the private Onsen. Food options were good (traditional style Japanese buffet with western options for the less adventurous), the waitress didn’t ask us to try the wine/check for faults and just just poured two glasses and then when we asked to take the unfinished bottle from dinner back to our room (standard practice in any hotels we’ve stayed at in the past) it caused confusion from the waiting staff and took 10 minutes to get the okay from management. All in all a good stay but requires some refinement

Whilst really helpful, the luggage allowance on the transfer from the train station to the hotel is a single bag per person. I can understand that as the seat space in the minivan is limited, however I’d expect a luxury hotel to have equipped their transport with a roof rack to take excess baggage at no cost rather than paying a surcharge to have bags taken up in a separate transport. We opted to leave our additional bags at odawara in the coin lockers.