Shuen
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After rounds of research, I decided to stay at Hotel Green Plaza Hakone.
There are few main reasons why I chose this hotel. Its location is not too close to the main station, and this gives the tranquility to the guests who stay here. However, it is just a few minutes walk from Ubako station. There are many other good hotels but could be far off from the train station, even though the guests can still take buses to go around and the hotel provides shuttles (I do still strongly prefer to take train throughout my trip, especially to and fro from hotel). Staying at this hotel is very convenient and we went around using the Hakone freepass without any issue. Ubako station is also not that busy compared to other stations like Owakudani station.
Apart from that, the price it offers for a room that comes with a private hot spring is competitive compared to the others. In addition, the price covers both breakfast and dinner buffets in the restaurant at the hotel. This feature really brought us lots of enjoyment and convenience during our stay. The buffet they offered includes international food and to our surprise, they still provided big varieties of Japanese food. We tasted so much of them and felt very satisfied with the options. And not forget to mention, the food quality was very great! There were also lots of drinks and desserts options. We always had to complete our meal with a cup of Americano, which was extremely authentic to our liking.
The room we went for was Japanese-Style Room With Semi Open-Air Bath. We really wanted to experience a room that has its Japanese vibe and setup. Also, we knew very clearly that we were looking for a room that comes with private hot spring, which gave us high flexibilities and convenience. The hot spring was far warmer than the public bath at the hotel, but manageable . The room came with zaisu and kotatsu setup (I tried to use the most suitable terms here but I could be wrong, basically a chair with arm rest and a table on the floor), which we two really enjoyed and decided to have the similar setup at home in future.
The room was amazing and huge. The shower area, the bathroom, prepping area before we enter the hot spring, the yard, the bedroom, the zaisu and kotatsu area etc were all perfect! The soap and shampoo provided were gentle too. I wished they provided body lotion! They also gave many types of tea options with good teapot and tea cups.
During our check-in, we were told that we needed to set up our futon as they wouldn't come to our room to do it. There are many places that offer this service (make the bed) but we did appreciate that we could do it ourselves. We had fun setting up our futon for the first time.
Furthermore, the hotel provides few sets of yukata in the room too. When we needed more, we could just grab some from the shelf near to the counter at the lobby. The yukata came in few sizes. That was our first time trying out yukata and it was so comfortable. At the end, we wanted to buy 2 sets for ourselves but too bad, the souvenir shop was closed when we checked out.
The hotel has a strategic observation deck for the guests to enjoy the view of Mount Fuji, and depending on the weather, Mount Fuji might or might not be seen. We were lucky that we could see the Mount Fuji many times during our stay (in the morning around 7am, before sun set around 4.20pm). To add on, we could see the very top of Mount Fuji from the backyard of our room too. We had taken so many mesmerizing photos of Mount Fuji at the deck.
The hotel lobby is huge. There is also a corner where the guests could enjoy some hot tea and coffee (not too sure if the drinks were served during specific time but they were always available whenever we were there).
Coming to the service of the hotel staff, they were fantastic. They were very polite, friendly, professional, helpful and patient. We had great experience during our check in and check out time.
This hotel is really great. The moment we left our room on our last day, we knew we wanted to come back to this hotel again.