The room looks very run-down and jam packed if travelling in a group of 4. Food quality would be best described as unimpressive considering how much we paid for this accommodation. Onsen is ok but definitely avoid the foot massage machine on 1/F, which was found full of dust and dead skins of other people. Ew!
The two of us stayed at ryokan Reimei at the end of March and we booked the reimei room with an open bath. We had the best experience ever. We could go in for a dip whenever we felt like it. The shower is on the outside with the open bath and the coldness of the weather wasnât a problem for us since the water of the shower was quite warm and you jump into the onsen right after⊠(I see lots of comments complaining about that). Dinner/breakfast service time and shuttle bus leaving time was chosen at checkin, we could choose between the times that were convenient for us. The dinner and breakfast were not true kaiseki but it was still delicious and fulfilling. We also brought some pudding from downtown before going to our ryokan and I definitely recommend doing that as thereâs no dessert component in the dinner kaiseki. This is not our first ryokan and having an open air bath definitely made the experience 10000 times better!!! We will definitely choose the same room again if weâre coming back to yufuin!!
My stay was not good at all. In spite of reserving the best room (it was our honeymoon), there were couple of issues in our stay:
1. no water running in the bathroom (the plumbing system got frozen) - had to go to a shared bathroom
2. Dinner space was crowded and its half board meal didnât even include miso soup or desert. Did not look like a ryokan
3. Staff in the restaurant was not friendly at all. All the ryokan Iâve been to would explain the menu but on this one they were would only serve it as if we were in a canteen
4. The worst was the shuttle service to the train station: the driver would drive like crazy and very aggressively. Iâve never seen such a drive before in Japan. It was even dangerous to the pedestrians and other cars around
5. In spite of all the issues in our room, they would not even offer a small âsorry noteâ, or a token of appreciation
Overall, this has been the worst hotel Iâve ever been in Japan! Wouldnât recommend it for anyone. It did not offer the Japanese omotenashi and it looked like being run by foreigners