TOKI RESORT HAKUBA in Hakuba

Hotel Abest Hakuba, from a skiers perspective. Staff 5 stars, hotel 2 stars A mixed bag of a hotel. It is not ski in/ski out, as claimed on some websites. The walk to the lift station is a few hundred yards uphill and can be challenging in snow and ice. There is no housekeeping, let alone daily, again as claimed on some websites. You have to get clean towels at reception and the rooms are not cleaned or serviced during your stay. With people leaving and arriving daily the corridors are often strewn with dirty laundry, which isn't ideal in a relatively small area.. Our room, with en-suite shower/bath and toilet was small, which is fairly typical of ski resorts, but there was no storage. No cupboards or drawers, at all, just 5 coat hangers in an open space, and only half a toilet roll in the bathroom. The toilet roll is shockingly flimsy and cheap, disintegrating as soon as it comes into contact with anything remotely moist (although this may be common in Japan rather than a hotel specific issue). There was nowhere to put wet ski gear on return from skiing. The ski storage room has no heat and does not even have heated rods to put ski boots on, so if you return with wet boots then that is what you have to look forward to in the morning. The beds, and pillows were rock hard, like sleeping on cement. Bedding was stained. The food is a mixture, some decent, some less so, but always let down by most of it being cold, even if you arrived dead on time for breakfast or your evening meal. The food is buffet style and is laid out in open plates, so immediately loses any heat. Surely a simple fix to put it out in catering style containers with lids? Some positives: The staff were all really excellent – relentlessly cheerful, helpful and hard working. They were happy to help resolve any problems and provided padded mattress toppers to help with the concrete bed issue. One staff member even took my wife to hospital after a fall, which was much appreciated and went well beyond what you would normally expect in terms of customer service. At the end of our stay we were driven to the station, again much appreciated. The miso soup and rice got my wife's approval, and the dim sum and freshly cooked to order shrimp tempura on a couple of nights were excellent, as were the mini croissants at breakfast. The onsen was very good, the toiletries in the bathroom were of a good quality. The beds are really spacious. I would expect to pay a premium for a hotel so close to a lift station, and with its own onsen, but the overall quality of accommodation on offer does not justify a charge of £250 per night.