Hotel Futaba

Hotel Futaba, also known as Futaba Ryokan, is one of the top-rated hotels in Echigo Yuzawa. It's a yellow building, and from the large glass windows in the lobby lounge, you can see a magnificent mountain waterfall, which is perfect for photos. This same view is also accessible from the hot spring baths on the second floor. The hot springs offer a great variety of baths, and the water quality is excellent. The 'one night, two meals' plan was unexpectedly delicious and highly recommended. To get there from Echigo Yuzawa Station, turn right upon exiting and walk along the street for about 5 minutes. Then, turn left onto a small road and walk uphill a bit until you see the yellow building with the large 'Futaba' sign on its entrance.

This hotel is quite popular, and I managed to book it two months in advance at a great price, which included breakfast. I highly recommend the traditional Japanese tatami rooms – they're spacious, have fantastic views, and I even got lucky enough to capture a photo of the 'sun-kissed golden mountain'! Plus, the hotel offers a dedicated shuttle service to and from the station at set times, and their dinner was unexpectedly superb. We had a private room for our Japanese meal, which was both refined and delicious. There are over 10 types of hot springs (onsen) available, and they were clean and not crowded. All in all, I highly recommend this place.

Absolutely loved this onsen hotel! The Japanese-style room was really spacious, with separate areas for the traditional Japanese setup and Western beds. The room was spotless, and both breakfast and dinner offered a great variety of delicious food. The staff were all incredibly attentive; even with their limited English, they went out of their way to help me with all my questions. There are four onsen baths on the 6th and 7th floors, each with both indoor and outdoor pools. The two onsen on the 6th floor even have special medicinal baths, which were so relaxing. The scenery is beautiful, and there are designated times for men and women to use the facilities.

Our family had a wonderful vacation! The hotel offered a half-board package with generous food portions, and my child even received a welcome drink. The hotel was very clean and conveniently located close to the ski resort, which was perfect for taking my kids out to play in the snow.

I can't give this a good review! I've stayed at so many ryokans with dinner and breakfast included, but this Futaba really left a lot to be desired! First off, the guy at the front desk checking us in was so quiet, he didn't even give us the most basic information like which floor the hot springs were on; he just handed us an all-English hotel guide. Second, this is the only onsen hotel I've ever stayed in where the bathroom smelled, and even the carpet in the entryway by the toilet had a urine smell... Then, the hot spring was just a regular public bath, and there wasn't even an ice pop after soaking. Finally, when we left, the staff didn't help us bring our luggage from the lobby to the shuttle bus. I had to drag it to the bus myself, and then the staff finally came out to open the door and help us load it in. (We were the only family on the bus at the time) It's just a really hard experience to rate...

Even though the hotel is a bit old, it's very clean and the service is excellent. The gentleman at the front desk was a little slow, but extremely polite and patient. There are hot springs on both the sixth and seventh floors, and it was so relaxing to soak in them after skiing. The food was also great; the breakfast was varied and delicious, especially the miso soup – it was exceptionally good. I'll definitely consider staying here again next time! 🤭

Still pretty good. The dinner was especially excellent. There was so much food, we couldn't even finish it all. The first night was even more lavish, with snow crab and Wagyu beef, but I forgot what we had on the second night. The onsen had many different pools, and I tried them all over the two days – it was so relaxing! I really want to go again.