Sosennoyado Suhaku

Location: The hotel is located in walking distance from JR Kami Suwa station (about 10-minute walk). It is possible to drag luggage from train station to hotel, but consider taking taxi if you don't mind spending some money. I don't think this hotel provides shuttle service to/from train station. Service: Kami-Suwa is a hot spring town that is under the radar from foreign visitors, so it is totally understandable that hotel staff could not speak English. In fact, only one lady in the front desk could speak a little bit English. Nevertheless, their service was hospitable and genuine. The biggest language challenge was the introduction to hot spring hotel etiquette by hotel staff (an old lady with zero English skill). We frequently misunderstood her words, but at the end the body language worked out. Dinner service, breakfast service, room service, and hot spring service were all very considerate. I was pleasantly surprised that they offered free beer, free tea, and/or free ice cream sweets at the entrance of hot spring area (located on top floor). They provide a few Wagashi in the room for guests. Food: We had the "Suhaku set dinner" (朱白膳) as part of the half-board package. The food pictures on their official website looked like you can hardly fill your stomach, but in reality, it was a 12-course meal, and by the time we finished the full dinner, we were very full. The meal was spectacular. The breakfast (7-course meal) was also amazing and very filling. They use a lot of local food for meals (local rice, local beef, local fish, local miso soup) Overall: This was one of the best hot spring hotels I stayed for my trip. I would recommend this hotel to foreign visitors who can speak some Japanese and have previous experience staying at traditional hot spring hotels (so that you know the etiquette). This happened to be my first ever hot spring hotel experience, and we spoke very little Japanese, so there were quite a lot of communication challenges.