After travelling and skiing all over Japan for the past 20 years, I love Naeba so much that I bought an apartment resort adjacent. When combined with Mitsumata, Toshiro and Kagura (Via the Dragondola - a journey with the most spectacular views) it is one of the largest resort areas in Japan. Kagura with its high altitude and location has one of the longest seasons in Japan and Powder Quality arguably the best in Japan. Kagura is covertly known as the Niseko of Honshu - but without the hefty price tag and tracked out powder runs. The Prince Hotel with all the bells and whistles at the base provides every service you could dream of. And Apres a plenty. There are also a vast array of non skiing activities - Skidoo tours, Huge childrens outdoor playland, banana boat rides snowshoeing tours and the list goes on. You can even do the very popular Jigokudani Snow Monkey Tour from Naeba. (You can also see them running around town) The Neaba Prince Resort has recently been sold so looking forward to some modernisation. And the somewhat sleepy but very Authentic village is certainly picking up pace every year. Naeba is a no brainer for an awesome holiday package 😃
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As a ski and snowboard instructor based in Yuzawa with snow country instructors I instruct at Naeba and the resort local to Yuzawa throughout the winter with snow country instructors.
Naeba has some of the best snow in the area due to the higher elevation and offers steeper more open slopes than many local resorts. There are some very good non groomed runs which can be lapped continuously for fresh lines when open (not as often as you would hope) and the top chair lift also offers access to a non groomed run at high altitude (also not open very often).
Be aware in incliment weather there are often high winds due to the exposed high terrain, and there are fewer trees so visibility is often poor, there are better places for tree skiing than here such as kagura.
Outside of Christmas and Chinese new year school holidays the resort is generally quiet and most holiday makers stick to the groomed runs.
I would definitely recommend but you can explore the whole area in a day if you're an experienced skiier or snowboarder, best combined with going to kagura on the dragondola and trying some of the many other local resorts to Yuzawa
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My opinion of Naeba has risen compared to our last visit, when the key features of Naeba seemed to be piste terrain, underwhelming buffet meals, and cheesy kids’ music blaring from speakers.

The visit has strengthened the view that Naeba is one of the Yuzawa ski resorts that powder hounds should visit, so long as you can be flexible and have access to wheels in case you need to head to another ski resort on a stormy day. Or perhaps it seemed more powder hound friendly because there was powder, powder and more powder. It felt like I’d dug out the car multiple times.

Despite being busy at the base area, the off-piste areas higher up were not heavily hit. The sidecountry was also very good, although on most days lift access to it wasn’t an option. A big snowstorm smashed the area, and it snowed and snowed and snowed. On a couple of days all of Kagura was closed, so it was good that Naeba at least had the base lifts running which offered a few short powdery pitches.

Previously in the season, it seemed that the chair lifts and gondolas also had sporadic opening hours, and that cost cutting was possibly in play.

On this visit I stayed in town at the Kinta Naeba and it was such a refreshing change to the Prince Hotel which was not that adult friendly and lacked soul. You can see the review of Kinta Naeba here.

The town still looked very tired, although at least it didn’t look like a ghost town anymore. It seemed to be coming alive again and there were more than a dozen evening dining options, and quite a few required a booking to get a table. Pricing wasn’t cheap like you’d find in more rural parts of Japan, yet still quite reasonable.

You can see how we rated Naeba compared to other ski areas on our Honshu ski resort ratings.
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Naeba is the most famous resort in Japan, yet not well known outside of Japan. It has its downsides - snow quality is not all-ways consistent, the large hotel can lack charm and it can be busy on weekends.

Yet Naeba also delivers. The two Gondolas are super efficient and there is quite good black piste run options to the base. You could ski all day without taking the same lines down. There is also easy access to Kagura. On other hand there is plenty of beginner and intermediate options that work for my kids. There is good night skiing and also regular fireworks.

If combining Naeba and Kagura (incl. side country) I believe it likely is the largest ski resort in Japan by surface area. Naeba does not really have off-piste options, yet of course Kagura can be accessed via the same ticket using a gondola - and it has some amazing off-piste options. Naeba and Kagura have good elevation at ~1800m. The base of Naeba is fast 900m. Much higher than the other famous Yuzawa ski resort of Gala which is the third highest in the area yet only 1200m tall.

The accommodation is ski-in/out and great for families. There are many food options. There is also no need to speak Japanese. English and Chinese speaking lessons are available. There are also many non-ski activities available.

The resort is very close to Tokyo - perhaps the closest large mountain by car or bus.

There are many people traveling to Hokkaido who would likely have a better experience at Naeba.
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I've been skiing in Japan for over 15years and have skied all the usual well known resorts. However Naeba is by far my favourite. When combined with Kagura, Mitsumata and Tashiro - there is plenty of varied terrain to keep all levels of skier happy, both on and off piste. Gorgeous ever changing views from the Dragondola interconnecting all the ski areas. I spent 8 weeks in this area in 22/23 season and absolutely fell in love with it. Plenty of shops, restaraunts/bars to choose from, both at the Prince resort and in Town. Weekly Fire Works displays. Plenty of non skiing activities to enjoy for both the young and young at heart - Skidoo and Snow shoe tours and great kids play areas. The world's only indoor/outdoor learn to ski area for the young ones. A variety of Indoor/Outdoor onsens to choose from. Plenty of cheaper accommodation options available in town through all the well known booking sites. Very convenient commute via direct 70 minute Shinkansen from Tokyo - then 30 minute public bus or shuttle up the mountain. Naeba and Yuzawa is definitely where I will be skiing for my northern hemisphere winters.
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After my first awful trip to Naeba back in 2012, I decided to go again after a few people told me I was just unlucky. My experience has only marginally improved. The problems I pointed out a few years ago still remain. Way too many flat spots in Kagura, but luckily I am a skier. This would be a snowboarder nightmare. Prince Hotel is still way overpriced and there were only a few shops in town with no nightlife. The top of Mt Naeba was windy for the entire week which blew away all the fluffy soft snow. Some lifts are old and lack safety control. Remember to sit down quickly when the lift approaches otherwise it will bruise your calf! While the ski centre had good kids facilities outdoor it is completely different. Besides the two small chairlifts in front of building 4, everything else is too big for kids. Twice is too many. It would take a lot for me to go for a 3rd time.
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Naeba has lots of things going for it and lots of convenient facilities, but it’s not a relaxing holiday with general chaos going on everywhere on the slopes and around the Prince Hotel.

It is fantastic for kids but if you don’t want to be with kids when you’re on holidays it is a nightmare. There’s no sleeping in past 6:30am because there are kids clomping up and down the corridors in their ski boots and yelling. Breakfast is mayhem with lots of little kids running around unsupervised. The Japanese are so paranoid about germs and wear masks, yet they’re happy to let their kids put their hands in all the buffet breakfast food. The crowded locker room in the mornings is also a horrible place to be. The Pandaruman areas should be called Pandemonium, and if the cheesy Looney Tunes music constantly blaring from the speakers doesn’t drive you to distraction, then the “adults music” further up the mountain might (although this is somewhat typical of a lot of Japanese ski resorts).

If you want to go on a Japanese ski holiday and are looking for a “Japanese experience”, you won’t find it at the Prince Hotel. Even though the hotel is huge it feels a little claustrophobic You might need to escape from the Prince Hotel and head up the road to town for a little while to find a piece of the real Japan and find some peace and quiet.
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Christmas day.


We arrived to find no snow. Yes we understand that this does happen. They did have three small trails open but it was granular fake snow. Upon arriving we asked to cancel to with we received a very quick "da-me" (nope in Japanese) so we then asked what they could do for us. If this was Colorado, Canada or in the EU the hotel would have given us free lift tickets, meals or something else to make our stay enjoyable. The manager refused to give us anything. His excuse was that the mountain, hotel, restaurants, and other amenities were all separate businesses even though they all had the "Prince" name on them.

The building is old and dated with visible cracks and damage on the outside. The rooms are small and they have a strange layout. You have to crawl across the bed to access the light switches. T.V. is in Japanese only.

There is a decent food court open from 12-5 with a few choices from pasta to Japanese food. If you are staying in the hotel dinner is VERY expensive. There is a "pizza-la" but it only serves Japanese pizzas (corn and mayo). The rest of the restaurants start at 5,000 yen ($45US) per person and go up from there. There are only Japanese style drinking restaurants in the town and they aren't very family friendly.

There are better places to stay down the road in the Yuzawa area. Avoid this place if you can.
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I have visited 36 ski resorts across Japan so far and this is one of the most disappointing resorts I have visited. There are plenty of flat spots in the mountains (Kagura area), so you need to traverse up hill very often, especially painful for snowboarders. Transportation is awful around town, and no shops open at night, so there is no where to go at night. Shops are not visitors friendly. The resort is owned by Prince Hotel, so everything is overpriced and poor quality. A must avoid area!!!
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Visited Naeba on a guided trip with Epic Ski Adventures. We arrived to ski on a Sunday which is probably not advisable, however there was new snow so there was fresh turns to be had. Majority of people are learner/intermediates so they kept to the groomers.

Our guide was very creative and found mostly untracked lines for us all day.

We loved staying at Pension Heidi and the meals were out of this world. Got to shake hands with Kintaro who owns the lodge and is a world cup ski racer for Japan.
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