Kurokawa Onsen Satonoyu Waraku

Our hosts were gracious and helpful, and ever aware of what they could do to make out stay even more pleasany. The food was AMAZING: overstuffed myself throughout our two-day stay, and everything was presented beautifully as well. Kudos to the chef!! Very nice to have our personal hot spring tub. Interiors of the property were well designed. Our room was huge, and also had a balcony (which unfortunately looked out at a back hoe fixing up the river). The extra heaters in the room came in handy with cold nights (and for drying our shoes which got tremendously muddy after a spring hike in the local mountains).

The hot springs (both in our room and the public/outdoors one) could have been hotter at times, particularly when the cool winds was blowing outside. Nice to have our own hot spring tub, so even when it was cooler than it should have been, we could just hop out, wait for a few minutes while the cold water cycled off, and then hop back in. It was very very difficult getting to the ryokan for the first time--even the English GPS had problems with the address. That view off our balcony was particularly unfortunate.