Name: Nanadaru Onsen Hotel
Address: Japan, 〒413-0501 Shizuoka-ken, Kamo-gun, Kawazu-chō, Nashimoto, 河津町梨本３７２, Kawazu, Kawazu, Kawazu, 413-0501, Japan
Rating: 7

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Nanadaru Onsen Hotel

Me and my family stayed at this onsen for 2 days. The personal was so kind and lovely. The scenery was beautiful and the hotsprings are great for relaxing. It is surrounded by the 7 falls, I highly recommend testing amagiso and taking a hot bath under the water falls. Truly a one of a kind experience. 

Wow! What an amazing, blissful experience! Great energy here. Lovely friendly staff that we managed to have some conversation with in some English. Great location easy to get to via train(to Kawazu) then bus to within 150m walk to hotel. Easy access to walk up and back to 7 waterfalls which is soo peaceful and energising, so beautiful! Followed by trying all of the private and public onsens within hotel; including an open air onsen which was amazing to sit outside in the warm onsen listening to the waterfalls and looking out to Mother Nature and the first onsen my partner and I could enjoy together. Our room was beautiful! very comfortable and roomy and had everything we needed, and warm enough even in winter. Minibar was impressive with beers and soft drink. So nice going to sleep with the sound of waterfall. Our dinner was to die for! So delicious! And it looked as good as it tasted! 
My partner ran out of cigarettes and we couldn't find any to buy but the lovely man at desk (who could speak some English) offered for us to buy a pack off him. Highly recommended! 

We have spend 2 incredible days at this simple but very cosy hotel, with an unique atmosphere. If you want to breakout from your busy life for 1-2 days, i highly recommend this place. Wonderful nature just outside the door, excellent onsens inside the hotel and outstanding japanese kitchen. Nice hotel staff, with sufficient knowledge of english language. 
We loved it.

In short:

They have a number of onsen baths and that’s very convenient.  Three of them are available for private use and they don’t restrict your usage.  Food served in room was excellent and they cater for reasonable adjustment in case of personal dietary preference.  The location is easily assessable on public transport all the way to the hotel; although they offer pickup and drop off at Kawazu station.  The hotel is right next to the bus stop, the seven waterfalls and a few village shops and eating places.  The manager speaks English.  Price is very reasonable given the facilities and food.

Here’s the long story.

We stayed at Nanadaru Onsen Hotel for on Christmas night last year (2012).  It cost 8,800yen per person inclusive (limited offer per day).  The plan included a night in large Japanese-style (tatami) room, dinner and breakfast both served in room and unlimited use of private bath whenever vacant.  All baths in the hotel has continuous flow of natural hot spring.  Besides public baths (one for male, one for female), it has an open air and an indoor bath for private reservation, 24 hours.  Our first onsen experience turned out a relaxing and great experience.  The Nanadaru Onsen Hotel was a wonderful place, where we were served dinner and breakfast (banquet, Kaiseki ryōri) in our room; they prepared our futons; they have good number of onsen baths both indoor and outdoor.   We tried all their private onsen baths and we love onsen from now on!  We are giving Nanadaru Onsen Hotel 5 stars plus. 

We don’t’ speak Japanese.  We started from Tokyo.  We started from Shimbashi station on Tōkaidō Main Line to Atami station.  The seats were full.  We realized the starting station of the line is Tokyo station, where we should have better chance to get a seat.  Shimbashi is second station on the line.  We eventually got our seats after Kawasaki and Yokohama station.  Many passengers get off at these two stations.  Cars 4 and 5 are green cars with reserved seats.

At Atami station, we changed to Ito line.  We got in wrong train, but was fortunate to get out before it depart.  The right train was at platform 1.  It was spacious with comfortable seats, some oriented to view the large windows; the side facing the sea.  It has toilets on it.  The train from Tokyo to Atami also has toilets in it.  It was a comfortable 1hr+ train ride to Kawazu Station.

At Kawazu station, we looked for the Tokai Bus bus to Shuzenji station.  The bus stop was easy to find, just outside the station.  The bus ticket boot is a small wooden hut right next to the bus stop. There were many elderly waiting for the bus to Shuzenji station direction, which would pass by Nanadaru Onsen Hotel.  The lady at the ticket hut was helpful although couldn’t speak English.  We bought the ticket, 1,160 yen for two of us to the Nanadaru (they called it Nanataki) bus stop. We asked for the bus timetable.  When boarding the bus, the kind ticket lady came all the way to the bus to show us that we had to pull a numbered ticket each from the machine in front of bus door, next to the driver.  When disembark, we dropped all the tickets (one payment, two numbered) into the coin box on top of the same machine next to the driver.  The machine accept only exact amount and would not give change.  It has a “change” machine (front slot) where passengers can put in a 1,000 yen note or large coins for changes (come out bottom tray); and then make the payment in the top slot.  A lady in front of us, who did not speak Japanese, had only 5,000 yen note and eventually the kind driver pulled out his envelope of cash to change smaller notes for her.  This part of the bus journey could be avoided if we speak Japanese.  We could call the hotel for pickup.  Now that we know the manager speaks English, we will call him in our next visit.  So, go ahead and call the hotel and look for Kazu-san.  He speaks good English.  He does ham radio with people around the world.

We arrived the hotel well before check-in time (15:00).  Kazu-san attended to us and allowed us to check in early.  Kazu-san speaks good English.  He is a family member of the hotel owner.  It was really good to be able to communicate.  I inquired about the food menu and kashikiri (private) bath.  We also booked the hotel bus to Kawazu station at 10:00 tomorrow. He was helpful to accommodate our food request and showed us the many nice baths they have.  There were only three group of guests and so they were quite free.  We could use three private bath anytime they were available. Basically, just enter and lock it up. One of the private bath is outdoor.  Two of them are actually family bath, which are also for private use.  They are indoor baths.  There were also one male and one female public baths. These two can be used for private between 19:30 to 7:00. Within this time period, we could just lock it up for private use.  Their baths are also available for non staying guests, or called day trip use or day spa bath.  We were surprised with the comfort of outdoor bath in cold winter; we were worried of the cold outdoor.  The water of the onsen can be high (54 deg), we learned to add water (from tap, with hose) to bring the temperature to comfortable one (usually 40 to 44 deg).  The ideal way to lower the temperature is without adding tap water, however it is common to take the easier option to add cold water; no big deal, just enjoy.

The room was large and air-conditioned.  Both breakfast and dinner were plenty and tasty.  They provided large flask of hot water in the room.  Tea making pot was provided.  Yukata for both of us were provided.  The lady who served our food does not speak English.  That wasn't problem to us as we know how to eat the food -- just eat our way.  Once we finished the meal, we called the reception through the phone to clear the place -- again, they understood the purpose of the call even we didn't speak common language.

The seven waterfalls are easy walk from the hotel.  The hotel is also right next to the bus stop (a station actually since it is the location of the seven waterfalls).

On check out, we wanted to visit iZoo and planned to take a taxi from Kawazu station once Kazu-san drop us there.  However, Kazu-san was kind enough to drive us to iZoo.  We used the iZoo free shuttle bus to go to Kawazu station.

Note:  In the rating, we considered "Swimming Pool" the baths, and "Restauratnt" the food served in room.

The hotel is in a great location at the base of the 7 waterfalls.  The Deai Daru and Oh Daru (2 bottom falls) are so close to the hotel that we could hear them from the onsen and our room.  The hotel is in the center of the small town and its handful of shops and restaurants.  

The hotel's onsen is great.  Not sure how many there were in the hotel, but at least 3.   The one we tried was large and partially outdoors with the most serene rainforest scenery and sounds.  So far, the most relaxing onsen I've been to in Japan.  The hotel let us lock the door behind us so we could share the onsen privately with our party.  Very cool.

The hotel itself looked kind of old with its faded/worn red Chinese-style carpet.  The room was clean, modern looking, and comfortable though.  The staff was super nice, and wanted to make tea for us and roll out the futons for us.  

Highly recommend getting the dinner along with your hotel stay.  The few restaurants in the sleepy town of Nanadaru all close at 3pm.  We drove to the largest town in the area Kawazu to avoid going hungry and drove all around Kawazu for 30 minutes trying to find an open restaurant.  We only managed to find one.  I'm not sure what the food in the hotel is like, but anything's better than driving around with a hungry belly hunting for food.  

When visiting the falls, also recommend taking the public bus to the top of the 7 falls and walking downhill back to the hotel.  Unless you want/like exercise, it's more enjoyable walking downhill rather than uphill the whole way.

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