The Kiroro is a lovely hotel that’s been well maintained and has access to extensive facilities, but it’s probably the service that lets the hotel down. To check in we had to wait in a small queue for 30-40 minutes and observe some classically inefficient Japanese processes. On check in, the staff member painfully explained the hotel amenities and covered exactly what was in the English brochure.

Trying to make a dinner reservation was also a bit of a process. We went to the Italian restaurant and the service was really absent. We saw our waiter only twice: to order a wine and a main meal; and to have these delivered. Luckily we didn’t want to order another glass of the expensive yucky wine, or another spendy tiny course.

There were plenty of options for dinner but all of them very pricey. Like the hotel room (and any extras such as the onsen), dinner was incredibly expensive without providing particularly good value for money. There were a lot of Chinese staying at the hotel, and it appears that The Kiroro is successful at capturing the affluent Chinese market who don’t mind the cost.

The breakfast buffet was excellent with a large range of fare on offer. The only limitation was that it is not a very big restaurant, and whilst we didn’t experience it, it sounds like there are often times when you have to queue to go for breakfast (which would be annoying on a powder day).

Another highlight of the hotel was the public bath on the 8th floor, which provided nice views.

We stayed in a superior twin room which was lovely and incredibly spacious and had large windows. The bathroom was large also, which is something you never take for granted in Japan. The room cleanliness was a bit of a problem. In the bathroom many of the tiles had mould on them and there were long black hairs in the bath as well as on the bed (I don’t have dark hair) which made us wonder if we even had clean sheets on the bed.

You’d probably be better off staying down in Otaru at the place such as the Grand Park Hotel which is lovely and about 1/6th the price.
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