Hoshino Resorts RISONARE Atami in Atami

We regretted travelling from Tokyo to stay at this hotel for four nights. We are a family of four with two small children (4 and 1).

The positives:
- Nice views from the lobby
- Good selection of activities and play spaces for young children (**although non-Japanese speakers - please read my note below**)
- Spacious room, with separate tatami area so child(ren) can sleep separately from parents, and a large bathroom
- Amenities for children provided in the rooms, such as Lego-like blocks, potty and step stool.

The negatives, which far outweigh the positives:
- The hotel does not provide any form of lunch at any of the restaurants or cafes. Not even basic things like sandwiches or onigiri! This is despite the fact that the hotel is not within walking distance of any restaurant or place to buy food. I genuinely don’t understand how this can be deemed acceptable for families with children.
- The restaurant requires pre-booking for dinner, but the hotel doesn’t bother to inform you of this until you arrive, at which point you can’t get a reservation for dinner on the day of arrival. They also only offer two seatings - 5pm or 7pm. We would prefer to eat at 6pm, but that wasn’t an option. There’s also often a massive queue to get into the restaurant for breakfast if you don’t arrive as soon as it opens. I don’t understand why they don’t make the restaurant space bigger. Next to it are a bunch of unused conference rooms. What kind of family resort needs conference rooms? Repurpose that space and expand the restaurant so guests can eat when they want to!
- While the food is good, the selection is exactly the same every day, so after a few days it gets extremely boring. I suggest they rotate through one special main dish to provide some variety to those staying more than one night.
- Kids activities have to be pre-booked in advance, which I understand, but if you wait until you've arrived, it's too late for any of the more popular activities. If you are going to run a family-friendly hotel, find a way to make the popular activities available to all guests staying at the hotel
- The hotel has a 'gift shop' but it’s precisely that - only sells souvenirs and nothing practical, such as kids' snacks, basic lunch items (as mentioned above), baby items (e.g., diapers), etc.
- The hotel offers a free shuttle bus to/from the station, which is a good service, but the times are roughly every hour and scheduled around check-in / check-out times so not that convenient for going into the town to have lunch, for example.
- No ‘do not disturb’ signs provided, so housekeeping often ring the doorbell when your child is taking a nap.
- Curtains in rooms are not blackout so in the summer, a ton of light seeps in at 4:30, waking everybody up.

**Note: we are a Japanese-speaking family so this was not an issue for us, but all the children’s activities are in Japanese so I would imagine it’d be very difficult to fully enjoy this hotel if your children don’t speak Japanese.**

I don’t understand who this hotel is catering for. It is meant to be a family hotel but the lack of certain basic amenities and thoughtfulness make it inconvenient and undesirable for families with small children.

I cannot in good conscience recommend this hotel.

The rooms are big but sparsely decorated. Bed mattresses are hard and uncomfortable. They provide very limited amenities in the bathroom. Finally, considering that is marketed as a family resort, there are very limited and simple number of activities.

On the positive side, staff are very professional and dedicated to improving customer experience. Additionally, breakfast is abundant and with great variety.

Overall, this place is not worth the price. It would be rated at best a three stars in international markets.

I felt it wasn't worth the price. The facilities were old and not well-maintained. Even when the room was cleaned, towels were left out and not collected. I love and trust Hoshino Resorts, so this was very disappointing. The staff were also third-rate. No matter what I asked, they would only reply, "We can't do it." Even at the buffet, I was bothered by the fact that they were talking to each other while they were working. I was surprised that the dinner buffet was exactly the same for 6,000 yen, even though it was a three-day weekend. For this quality and price, and without dinner included, it's really poor value for money. I don't think I'll ever stay at a RISONARE again. It was a waste of money. I really love Hoshino Resorts, so this is a real shame.

As a loyalty member of Hoshino that have been coming to Rinsonare for many times , this is very acceptable and I have requested to cancel this dinner . When I arrived hotel within the dinner time , they said the food is no longer available and hotel still insist to charge me 100%.

I don't understand why a hotel classified as a high-class hotel would have a 100% cancellation fee. Is that the management policy? You can't make reservations with peace of mind, and it's not customer-oriented. There are many reasons why you might not be able to go, such as poor health, business, pregnancy, or accident, but please think about how people would feel if that were to happen. It's strange. I would never stay at a place like this. It's too risky to make a reservation with my family, and it's too painful to imagine not being able to go. The cancellation fee is in the hundreds of thousands.