The Westin Rusutsu Resort

I've been to Japan a handful of times and this 4 star resort must of been the most inefficient service straight from check in. Only a few understood English well enough. The process took forever and the line up was long. Breakfast and dining in the lobby area, also line ups and inefficient. 3 slow elevators for too many guests. The room was nice and large. Great views and very clean. Murphy beds were made as well. The layout didn't make much sense and was inconvenient that the washroom is downstairs and not much space upstairs. Onsen and sauna was nice. Zero extra services to compliment. Overall I would not recommend because I'm sure there's way better services all around Japan. And the value for this definitely wasn't there.

We visited the Westin Rusutsu last year 2024 for the first time, and the experience was truly unforgettable. Waking up to a quiet, peaceful world covered in fresh white snow felt almost magical. The view from the hotel, especially during breakfast, was absolutely stunning — calm, clean, and picture-perfect. Skiing was fantastic with easy access to the slopes, and relaxing in the onsen after a day in the snow made everything even better. Every moment felt pleasant and well taken care of. Japan itself is such a wonderful country — incredibly clean, filled with polite and helpful people, delicious food, and breathtaking scenery. We fell in love with everything about our stay. I’ve already planned my trip for the 2025–2026 season because we enjoyed it so much. Highly recommended to anyone looking for a peaceful, beautiful, and memorable winter holiday.

The Westin Rusutsu Resort is an outstanding place to stay — combining luxury, comfort, and the natural beauty of Hokkaido perfectly. The indoor and outdoor onsen facilities are excellent, with relaxing views of the surrounding mountains and fresh air that makes the outdoor soak especially refreshing. The sauna and aromatics bubbling hot pool were just what I needed after a day on the slopes — clean, modern, and well-maintained. The food here was also top-notch, offering a great variety of dishes with high-quality local ingredients. Service was consistently friendly and attentive, making the whole experience smooth and relaxing. The loft-style rooms were spacious, stylish, and designed with functionality in mind — ideal for families or groups. The convenient on-site sports and food stores made things easier, though it’s worth noting they aren’t tax-free. Overall, The Westin Rusutsu Resort delivers a truly premium ski and relaxation experience, blending warm hospitality with fantastic facilities. Highly recommended for anyone visiting the Rusutsu area!

Please think twice if you’re considering the Westin Rusutsu. Currently staying here. Had a bad experience right from the start - was given a twin room despite booking a king room. The hotel receptionist didn’t inform me at check-in regarding the switch. When we went back to the counter, they simply told us that they ran out of king rooms despite us booking this in advance back in March (9 months ago). When we arrived at the room, the additional (Murphy) beds were not made (ie. No bedsheets). On the next day, Housekeeping did not clean our room by the time we got back around 5 pm. Had to inform the reception counter to clean our room which was only done by 7 pm. Today, Housekeeping still has not cleaned our room at 4 pm despite us leaving a message at the reception to clean it by 1 pm, as we wanted to rest in the afternoon. This is the first time I’ve encountered such poor level of housekeeping service at a Marriott hotel, which is highly disappointing. While this is peak season for the hotel, you would expect a Marriott Hotel to do better. Considering that this is a ski hotel during the winter season, guests would expect the rooms to be done by the afternoon so they can rest after skiing. It’s hard to get rest when one has to keep chasing and wait for the housekeepers.

This hotel had some of the most inefficient check-in process we’ve seen for Marriott hotel. We are Titanium Elite member but had to stand in line for 1 hour since there is no dedicated line for members. Multiple faults/inconsistencies from the check in process: - staff held our luggages but they were not put in the room by the time we got in. They first told us they couldn’t find the suitcases. They took a few minutes to tell us they “found” our suitcases (???) - locker did not work and we needed to tell someone and then another person came to manually reset (???) - staff suggested us to get the wrong type of lifts tickets (we needed either 4 day or 25-h but were suggested 3-day pack). Luckily we double checked. - one staff also told us while our room is not ready for early check in, we could use the ski locker. However another staff told us we can’t use the ski locker. We ended up not being able to use the ski locker. All in all we stood in line for 1 hour to check in and again later to get our suitcase and locker issue resolved. Our room was not made two days in a row. We messaged them the first day. They assured us this won’t happen again. And yet here we are. The ski-in and ski-out advertisement is also misleading because there is a lot of uphill hiking to get to the lift. The welcome note and gift in the room was also generic. We got the same pound cake that everyone else got.

This review is specifically for Kazahana Japanese Restaurant. The Yotei Dinner Set was particularly disappointing, the dishes lack quality expected of any Japanese chef. We are not impressed, it’s just a fast food restaurant expensively priced! If you would like to spend such money in a resort, the buffet downstairs is better!! Not kidding! To makes things worst than this poor rating, seasonal dessert is a ripoff with 3 slices of fruits. Be thankful it’s a 2 stars for the nice staffs! It could be worst. Highly NOT recommended.

Very inefficient check in process. Took more than 1 hour to check in as titanium elite. No special lines for marriott elites, or concierge, or general help desk- just one long line. But also full of errors: wrong check out dates, they said ski lockers would be ready to use but it wasn’t, took forever to get someone to help. next, they said our luggage would be in the room but it was nowhere to be found and they couldn’t even locate it! their front desk is extremely inefficient with conflicting information left and right causing us to go back and forth to the chaotic front desk. long lines at elevator to the room no less. not a good start for our 3 day stay esp after a long day out skiing. Good location though Edit: Day 2, room wasn’t made. They said it won’t happen again. Day 3, room also wasn’t made. Something is seriously wrong with this hotel’s management

It is a really disappointing experience at Westin especially with house keeping. House keeping always comes in before dinner when we were supposed to clean up after a long day of ski after we specifically requested cleaning in the morning. There was one day where they completely skipped cleaning even after I made the call after discovering no cleaning was done. The room is two floored with multiple beds for big families. However, you have to climb downstairs to go to washroom. This is really not kids friendly or for those who suffer soreness from a long day of skiing . Buffet dinner is same pretty much everyday so don’t expect large variety of food. The quality is much lower compared to October Feast which is on the other side of the mountain. Again, it is definitely my least favorite stay at hokkaido so far.

WOW! I am beyond impressed with this hotel. I knew this hotel would be top-notched when I received a welcome email from a hotel staff days before my arrival to prepare for my stay. I'm so grateful that my Marriott Platinum status can be used at the Westin as well after the merger. As a member, I was able to check in early, check out late, entitled for a free breakfast each day, and access to the lounge every day at almost all hours. What a treat!! We arrived early Saturday morning, and a staff immediately came out and greeted us with a luggage cart. She was super friendly, seated us at the lounge area to help us with check in, explain the hotel facilities with us, and answer all of our snowboarding questions. Another staff even brought out two glasses of welcome fresh-squeezed orange juice! I felt so spoiled! :) Then another staff guided us to our room, and even explained all the room amenities to us. We were so grateful! The room was insane! It's a two-storied maisonette with two bedroom areas, huge living room with a spacious kitchen and a huge bathroom. The view was out-of-control amazing; we got a clear view of both the East and West Mountains and the amusement park. I was in awed. It was so comfortable! And what really warms our heart was a handwritten note from the general manager welcoming us to the hotel and a delicious box of chocolates. Not to mention, each night, the hotel staff would leave us a weather forecast card and two biscuits by our bedside. Seriously, we were beyond touched by the thoughtfulness. First thing we did was rent winter attires and snowboards. The staff were very patient to help us find the right size jacket, pants and other sports gears. Our assigned locker was huge! We were very impressed at the locker system. Just pushed a card in, and we can set our password for the next 3 days! Heading to the mountains was beyond easy; we can access the West Mountain by a short monorail or to the East Mountain by a quick pair lift. The staff were so nice too! Always there to greet us with a smile! The snowboarding experience was incredible! Even though the weather condition was not the best, we still had loads of fun! The lifts and gondolas were really well-maintained, and the lines were almost non-existent. Even though there was a student trip during our stay, the mountains were almost vacant. We have never witnessed anything like that before. An uncrowded mountain during the start of the season?! We were in heaven! After our many snowboarding trips, we relaxed in the hotel onsen. The onsen was separated by male and female, and they were HUGE! All the washing stations were equipped with shampoos, conditioners, body wash and there were so many baths to choose from! The bubbling jacuzzi-like bath was so comfy, and the outdoor bath was so amazing! There were reclining seats within the outdoor bath so I can lay down and enjoy the view. The food at the hotel was incredible! I expected to get rip off at resorts, but the food here were very reasonably priced and incredibly delicious! There are many Hokkaido themed food and most of the food were sourced locally. So delicious and so satisfying! The breakfast buffet had so many choices and again, servers were incredibly friendly. Lastly, a huge huge huge shout out to Mr. Daichi Sawasaki. Our rental car was unfortunately scratched by another car during out stay (No fault of Westin at all! It's completely the fault of some careless driver). Daichi helped us call the rental car company, and coordinated with the police. During the entire process, he was so friendly, professional, and kept everything under control. Though the accident was unfortunate, we felt very fortunate because we made a new friend during the process! Daichi was just so amazing, it really made our overall experience even more impressive and more personal. I will never forget his kind gesture. Please give this man a raise and a promotion! He's the man!!! Overall, I am seriously in love with Westin Rusutsu! Not only was this the place where I learned snowboarding, Westin Rusutsu Resort's hospitality, facility and overall stay was just over the top wonderful. Marriott and its chain of hotels continue to impress me more and more each stay. I swear I am going to host all my future life events at all Marriott hotels, and I will be a loyal member till I die. I can't wait to come back to the Westin. Expect me to be back whenever there's a cheap ticket to Hokkaido!!!!!

When I booked my hotel, it stated that it was at the Rusutsu Resort and Hotel (RRH). So you can imagine the nervousness I felt when we arrived, asked them to confirm if we were in the north or the south tower, and when they attempted to find my reservation, they were unable to locate it. I stared at my phone, double checked the dates and showed them that it, indeed, said I was at the right place. As the sweet gal at the front desk scrambled, I checked my email to see if I could find a confirmation number for the hotel and realized I had an email (from RRH) and as I scrolled down, it said The Westin and it provided a different address. I was completely confused, explained myself and the gal stated that they used to be one hotel but they recently "split" and the towers (as it used to be called) is now managed by The Westin, located across the street. I asked if we could walk there and she said it would be a 5-10 minute walk but seeing all of our luggage, she recommended we take the monorail. Once we arrived at the correct hotel, I was completely relieved when they pulled up our reservation with no problem. We had two rooms booked for the eight of us, four per room. When you first enter the hotel, there's a bedroom on the left, which had two double beds in them. You'll immediately see stairs leading down to a living room area with a wet bar, small fridge and cups. There are two twin sized murphy beds that were set up for us. There are two single seater lounge chairs and a love seat. The room is very spacious but there is only one bathroom. The awesome thing is that there's a public bath located on the second floor of the hotel, which is free of charge so a couple of us ended up bathing there. Be sure to take your towel from your room since there are no attendants or towels. There are mini lockers to put your valuables in but they're not much bigger than a tiny shoe box so don't bring your purse down. You won't need any money while you're down there. If you've never experience a public bath, definitely check it out. There's an outdoor area where you can sit in the warm water and (if it's winter like it is now) you can see the snow on the trees. super cool! After we settled in and went back to the original hotel to explore, it was a short 7 minute walk across the street. There's an East mountain so even if you stay here, there are slopes that you can access from here, although the West mountain seems to be where lessons are held and all the food options are.

Nice rooms and super helpful staff. The GM was awesome. He came and introduced himself at check in and said hello throughout the stay to make sure everything was cool.