Alpine Route Hotel

“Perfect place to chill after the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route”

This place is a hotel with a lot of potential. You can see that the owners just opened up shop when they bought an older hotel, and they are trying to make this work. Rooms were very spacious and clean. Staff spoke perfect English (at least the son did) and they are very flexible and helpful. The h… more

This place is a hotel with a lot of potential. You can see that the owners just opened up shop when they bought an older hotel, and they are trying to make this work. Rooms were very spacious and clean. Staff spoke perfect English (at least the son did) and they are very flexible and helpful. The hotel offers a free onsen and spa for their guests and that was the nicest place in the hotel. A large area to unwind after a long and exciting day on the Tatayama Kurobe Alpine Route. Please keep in mind that there are no shops or restaurants around, so be prepared for that. However, the hotel has a small size shop where you can buy drinks and snacks for your stay. Please go here, so that the owners can make money and start renovating this quaint hotel which has so much potential. We would 100% certainly go back here!

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“Old Day Hotels”

Japanese style room is worth to try as you can feel the old days Japan from the decoration and the home appliances. All the rooms are named after the mountains in Japan. As a whole, the hotel is a bit old and it will give you an old day Western and Japanese fusion feel. The hotel has Wifi at th… more

Japanese style room is worth to try as you can feel the old days Japan from the decoration and the home appliances. All the rooms are named after the mountains in Japan. As a whole, the hotel is a bit old and it will give you an old day Western and Japanese fusion feel. The hotel has Wifi at the lobby (no Internet access in the room) which is different from what the online hotel booking web site said, which should be recent upgrade. We booked one hour onsen spa (no extra charge) during our stay for private use only and it was opened from the afternoon until mid night. So, you can enjoy a big onsen with your family or pal privately; and the onsen is good. It is worth to try. During our stay, may be due to the low season, we only saw the owner and we did not see any other staff. It appeared only the owner doing all the job (manning the front desk, serving dinner, cleaning, making room, …etc) and he is over 70 (feeling a bit uneasy to have the elderly serving us). Anyway, he is helpful and reachable most of time. If he is not around at the front desk, you can call his mobile from the front desk. We can communicate with the owner using simple English but we did not see any other staff speaking English as mentioned in other post. So far, we did not encounter much problem. The hotel is about 10 - 15 minutes walk from the bus stop (and the main shopping/restaurant street). The location marked by the online booking web sites are incorrect. Please use the hotel address and the google map to locate the hotel before you visit the hotel. Otherwise, you will going to a total different direction. The route path is easy to walk even with your suite case. My wife and I explored quite a lot of interesting spots on the way between the hotel and the bus stop. We found a small statue right in front of the hotel. Later on, we found that it is the “大町温泉平成道祖神”; and there are total four of them. Try to locate all of them on the way from hotel to the bus stop. We compared the price of snack, food and gift and they were more or less the same as what you get from the shops at Murodo of Alpine Route.

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