Hotel New Akao

“We came for the onsen, but the buffet won us over”

It's important to know this hotel is two buildings with two front desks. Your taxi will expect you to know which one you are visiting: HORIZON or OCEAN. Our reservation described our room as "Horizon double" and so we needed the Horizon Wing. The buffet restaurant option was astounding. We loved t… more

It's important to know this hotel is two buildings with two front desks. Your taxi will expect you to know which one you are visiting: HORIZON or OCEAN. Our reservation described our room as "Horizon double" and so we needed the Horizon Wing. The buffet restaurant option was astounding. We loved the food. There were many choices of Japanese foods and a few foreign interpretations, as well as fresh vegetables, soups and children's food. One building is situated above the other, on a gorgeous sea cliffside. The bottom floor of the Horizon Wing connects to the 15th floor of the Ocean Wing via a covered walkway and spiral staircase (wheelchair access by elevator). Our room was on the top floor of the upper wing, and meals were served on the very bottom at 2F of the lower wing! This required a transit of up to four elevators and 25 different floors. As you can imagine, this meant we were at the mercy of the grandmas eager to embark/disembark at each floor during busy times, and so it takes a while to get around this hotel. My only complaint is there were NO stairs available between Horizon lobby and 2F. This meant, we had no option to climb stairs, we had to use the elevator which was congested between Horizon Lobby and Horizon 7F. There are a number of onsen options scattered around the various floors. In fact we had a private bath option just up on our floor, but I did not think it seemed a good value. If you want a mixed male/female onsen then that is your best option. We very much liked the SAIKAI big onsen on Horizon 3F. There are fancier options but the walk would have been longer for us. We also visited the children's indoor swimming pool, down on Ocean Wing 2F. It needs to be booked in advance which for us, was nothing more complicated than picking up a paper form and bringing it back filled out. There were floating toys available for a modest rental fee. A pleasant lifeguard was on duty. We greatly enjoyed our single night at New Akao. We wish to stay longer next time.

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“Beautiful Views, Great Food — Veg Markings Needed”

Beautiful ocean views all around… enjoy an open-air bath with the sound of ocean waves breaking at night and in the morning… impressive menus of breakfast and dinner buffets… my only suggestion is to clearly mark vegetarian options. I had to use my cellphone translator to figure out a lot of dishe… more

Beautiful ocean views all around… enjoy an open-air bath with the sound of ocean waves breaking at night and in the morning… impressive menus of breakfast and dinner buffets… my only suggestion is to clearly mark vegetarian options. I had to use my cellphone translator to figure out a lot of dishes.

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“Maybe history should stay in history”

There are many attractive hotels in Atami, I specifically chose to stay in this one because I heard it was built in the height of bubble economy, with an impossible scale at an impossible location. Some background: The hotel has two parts, Ocean Wing and Horizon Wing. You can really treat them as t… more

There are many attractive hotels in Atami, I specifically chose to stay in this one because I heard it was built in the height of bubble economy, with an impossible scale at an impossible location. Some background: The hotel has two parts, Ocean Wing and Horizon Wing. You can really treat them as two different hotels that have different entrances, front desks and styles. They share facilities and they are both high raise buildings built on the edge of cliffs that look into the sea. The Ocean Wing in particular stretches all the way down to the bottom of the cliff while the Horizon Wing is on a higher location. I chose the Horizon Wing because I heard the rooms are nicer and quieter. The lobby of Horizon Wing was actually a tunnel dug into the mountains. They decorated it like a modern art museum, but the space was fairly limited and felt a bit constraining. It smelled exactly like a cheap Las Vegas hotel, probably because the air was stale there so they needed to treat the air. The guest rooms of Horizon Wing was housed in two separate buildings built above the tunnel, so going up would take longer than expected. If your room is above the 7th floor you need to change elevator once. The complex contained many cool spaces, one particularly impressive place was the lobby of the Ocean Wing. The main banquet hall is also said to be stunning but unfortunately it was not opened to the public. Some floors with public facilities were built in such a classical style that I can see why they say this hotel can't be reproduced again. The room levels, however, were far less impressive. At the Horizon Wing, the hallways felt eerily empty and did not bear the same class as the public space. I booked a Deluxe Twin Room with Separate Bath. It's supposed to be a premium room type yet that room was a lot older than I expected. It didn't have a temperature control, so you have to choose between keeping the AC running and get frozen, or not running the AC and take the heat and stale air. I was really surprised that they couldn't improve the AC when they renovated the room. The interior of the room also felt cheap overall. While this is no longer a luxury resort today it's still considered as an upscale one. Yet the room just couldn't meet the expectation. The only good thing about the room was that I don't hear the waves (which is a common complaint for people staying in the Ocean Wing). For dinner and breakfast, I booked the buffet option at the main dining room. This dining room was the biggest reason I stayed in this hotel: A huge, multi-level structure that was built almost at the sea level. With floor to ceiling windows that looks into a stone arch on the sea. The structure was indeed impressive. The view, however, was not as good as I hoped. The buffet area blocked most of the view on the lower level. The view on the higher levels was much better, but getting food was difficult since you have to go down to the lower level. I read many good review about the food here. The truth is that they weren't nearly as good as what people are saying. The buffet may look big at the first glance, but they were really just displayed in a way that made it look bigger. Most food were greasy by Japanese standard and tasted more like a school or office cafeteria than a upscale resort hotel. Even the drink option was very limited. Definitely not satisfying. One thing I can't review is the hot spring bath. I injured myself before the stay and couldn't use the public bath. They have 3 public baths in the hotel which could be more satisfying than other things I reviewed. Also don't miss the rooftop garden during your stay. It's not listed on the map but the entrance is right next to the main dining room. The "garden" connects to a network of trails and viewing platforms that are partially closed, but can tell you what the resort was like during its prime days. Overall I think this hotel is has some old school charmless, but can no longer be that great hotel it once was.

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