Husband and I stayed here with our two teenagers, so we booked two rooms. We arrived on Dec 21, before the snow, and Mieko and staff kindly drove us to Togakushi and back each day so we could ski before we left on Christmas Day. Kogakuro breakfasts are excellent, and the Japanese and Australian staff couldn't have been better. Rooms are lovely, and happy hour in the lounge, complete with tap beer, is not to be missed. Nor is the onsen. Great after a day on the slopes. Host Mieko is incredibly helpful and runs a very tight ship.
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The hotel looks a little daggy on the outside especially if it hasn’t snowed in a while (it’s since had a major make-over), but it’s a bit of a surprise package inside. Sure it’s not modern and shiny, or glamorous, but it’s nice enough, particularly for a Japanese ryokan experience.

We stayed in one of the renovated rooms which was lovely. I love sleeping on the floor, but I’m not great at thin futons but thankfully they had extra futons in the cupboard to make the sleeping experience very comfortable.

Breakfasts were amazing, and even though we stayed there for 11 nights we didn’t get sick of the food because it was so varied. It’s nice to experience Japanese culture but dried fish for breakfast is one element that grows old very quickly, so it was nice that the breakfasts included lots of western food. Dinner was entirely a different matter and rather traditional Japanese (although thankfully we didn’t have to sit on the floor). Regrettably we only had dinner two nights at the hotel because it was fantastic and included multiple courses of all sorts of interesting treats. We even wore our yukata to dinner to get right into the Japanese experience.

I heard someone complain that they didn’t have a shower in their room, but it wouldn’t have bothered me (we had a shower in our room) because it was awesome to soak in the onsen each night. Both the indoor and outdoor baths were small, but they did the trick and were certainly great for the tired muscles.

Kougakuro is in a very convenient location to get to the restaurants and to Akakura Onsen Ski Resort, although it’s a 5+ minute walk to get to the bus stop to get to the other Myoko ski areas.

The legendary Mieko and her team went out of their way to make sure we had a great stay!
See our video here