Risonare Yatsugatake
unscored · Ikyu 4.3 / 5no first-hand write-up in the thread
Hoshino's Bellini-designed alpine-village resort at Yatsugatake has 172 rooms, a design pool and wine education around a 2,000-bottle cellar, and it is family-friendly and lively, the counterpoint to the quiet inns, at the bottom of its price class at $300–600 a night. The Ikyu crowd (4.32 across 74 reviews) is lukewarm and pool-shy, marking the bathing weakest at 3.69 against food's 4.62, and couples without children should expect a resort run for families.
Scores
Food
The food program is built around wine, with a cellar of about 2,000 bottles, a daily Wine School and winemaker's dinners. At the YY Grill Ikyu guests praise the cooking and the wine that goes with it, and the buffet lets you choose your main. After dinner the Awa Lounge pours wine and grape juice free of charge. Ikyu guests give the food 4.62, the property's best mark.
Bath
There is no hot spring. Bathing is an all-weather design pool and a spa with heated water, and some rooms have a private open-air bath, the one private soak at a 172-room resort. Families praise the pool as clean, big and child-friendly, and Ikyu reviewers write about the pool far more than the bath; most of them are there with children, so expect children in the water. Ikyu guests give the bath 3.69, the property's lowest mark by far.
Service
This is a 172-room Hoshino resort, and the service is resort operations at scale for families with children. Ikyu guests repeatedly call the staff lovely, and those booking through Ikyu mention small perks waiting in the room. Ikyu guests give the service 4.46.
Room
The rooms are spread through the resort's alpine-village complex. Nobody has written about the rooms themselves. Ikyu guests give them 4.35, middling next to the food and service.
Place
Italian architect Mario Bellini designed the master plan, a walkable alpine village at the foot of Yatsugatake on the Yamanashi-Nagano wine border. It is overwhelmingly a family and children's resort, and the Ikyu reviews come almost entirely from families with small children, so couples travelling without them should expect a lively, child-filled lobby.
Getting there
- Tokyo — 2h, 0 transfers. Reverse of: JR Chūō Ltd Exp 'Azusa' Kobuchizawa→Shinjuku direct (~1h50–2h, ~hourly).
- Kyoto — 3h30, 2 transfers. Tōkaidō Shinkansen Kyoto→Nagoya (~35 min), Chūō 'Shinano' Ltd Exp Nagoya→Shiojiri, then Chūō (Azusa/local) to Kobuchizawa + shuttle — the Nagoya cross-country beats routing back through Tokyo.