Hotel Dengan bar di Shiga Prefecture, Japan

The location is very quiet and calm. For those who want a break from the main cities this place is highly recommended. The hotel picked us up from the nearby station and the communication was very active and accommodating (I emailed them when we were in Kyoto station in advanced and once we reached the local station, their shuttle was already waiting for us 🥹). Biwako Valley is near so it was our only planned big activity in the area aside from walking along the quiet road and trying convenience store food and using the 24 hour laundry place nearby. The food is very healthy and you will experience traditional Japanese service (they prepared colorful Yukatas for us and we wore them for bfast and dinner in their restaurant) . The private onsen was great and you can also use the public bath in the hotel itself. I cannot list everything but our experience here was truly amazing!

Gosh, where do I even begin? This stay was frankly perfect. The view was amazing, the open-air private bath was amazing, the service was amazing, the food provided was amazing. There’s even a shuttle bus from the nearby station. I loved it. My friends loved it. The staff even ran across the whole lobby lounge from the check-in counter, and did a full dive into the souvenir store counter for us. Most memorable icecream buying experience.

This is a Japanese onsen hotel. The service and food were great, but the rules are a bit rigid. My husband came to drop us off and was planning to leave the same evening without staying. We just wanted to chat as a family of three in our room for a bit. To our surprise, the staff told us we could only talk in the lobby. They said only the person who made the reservation could enter the room, based on how many people were booked. I offered to pay extra so my husband could rest in the room before leaving, but they still refused. Then, to ensure I didn't take my husband into the room, the staff watched us all the way as we put our luggage in, making sure he didn't enter, and then politely escorted him back to the lobby. Alright, I guess we have to follow the rules of Japanese onsen hotels.

Yumotokan was our first stay at an onsen and first trip to Otsu and Lake Biwa. It blew us away at how amazing and wonderful everything was. We took a local train from Kyoto Station to Ogotoonsen Station. The views of the mountains on one side and the lake on the other were stunning and the shuttle service from Ogotoonsen Station to Yumotokan was much appreciated. We reserved two of the Kotone suites with their own private baths attached to our rooms for one night and we were not disappointed. The rooms included breakfast, dinner, and a hour later check-out time with the reservation. The staff were very kind and accommodating, helping us with whatever we needed (so glad we asked for help with the yukata! It became a cute memory for us). The rooms were comfortably spacious with a gracious amount of amenities and the attached private onsen baths were incredibly healing. We utilized them as many times as was healthy. Both the breakfast buffet and course dinner were amazingly delicious and something that'll be on our minds for awhile. Even our check-out was stress free and we were able to buy souvenirs from a little shop they had inside the lobby. I wish I knew what shampoo and treatment they use or where I can purchase it because it left our hair super soft and silky smooth, nothing like what we use at home. Our stay was amazing and we would highly recommend Yumotokan. We'll definitely visit again on our next trip to Japan, hopefully for a couple more nights!

This hotel offers incredible value for money! It's located right by Lake Biwa in Otsu City, boasting stunning views and an affordable price. Getting here is easy: from Otsu Station's North Exit, cross the road directly and walk about 20 meters to your left. You'll spot a small platform – I've included the train schedule in the photos for reference. There's a convenient mini-mart on the first floor for snacks, drinks, and souvenirs. For breakfast, you have a choice of two floors. The 36th floor offers Japanese-style breakfast, but by 8 AM, it was full. The 37th floor, however, has plenty of Western and Japanese options, so you won't have to wait. Near the hotel, you'll find a large supermarket and a fantastic, highly recommended BBQ restaurant – delicious and budget-friendly. Taking a stroll along the lakeside is incredibly relaxing. You'll see many eagles 🦅, people fishing, and dog walkers – it's wonderful to experience the laid-back town life. Staying here makes it easy to visit the Lake Biwa observation deck and Kyoto.

Excellent location, right at the station. Check in 16h00. No wifi offered. Hotel access via public restaurant - feels weird to walk between diners to go out / return. Lockers far too narrow even for airline carry-on. Bathroom is clean, shower has small dry area, and water pressure varies. Capsules are spacious with power socket, lights, shelf, etc. The mattress is a few cm thick piece of soft foam and is so worn that it feels like a slab of concrete wrapped in a sheet. Very uncomfortable! And I am 77kg, not overweight. The pillow is a bag filled with what feels like gravel stones. Breakfast comprises one hot / cold drink, a small pile of lettuce leaves with dressing, a thick slab of white bread that is scored about half way deep into a small chessboard and very lightly toasted, and a thimble-size serving of sweet fruit yoghurt. They do offer to hold luggage until 16h00 after check-out, and collecting it is easy and fast.

We stayed two nights in the hotel with breakfast and dinner. The web page of Trip.com showed that there was onsen in the hotel but when we check in, we were told that it was a ”mistake”. There is no onsen and the photo is a public onsen half an hours away. It was very disappoining that the Trip.com include photos irrelevant to the hotel. Dinner was also diffferent from the web photo. We have to pay 2500 yen each to upgrade the dinner to shsbu shabu. Breakfast is Japanese style with limited choice. Other than these, we had lake view room and shopping mall is nearby which are the advantages.

The views are absolutely stunning, but this hotel has quite a few downsides. First, the good points: The scenery is incredibly beautiful, and you can see Lake Biwa right from your window. The public bath isn't crowded, and the views from there are also lovely during the day. This was the hotel with the best views during our entire trip to Japan. The room itself is huge, with plenty of space for multiple suitcases. Now for the cons: 1. It's an 8-minute shuttle bus ride from Otsu Station. However, the shuttle bus is a mid-sized vehicle, and I always felt bad for the driver struggling with luggage, especially when it was full during peak hours (packed, with just enough seats for everyone). The bus's air conditioning wasn't very strong, so it got quite hot when there were a lot of people in summer. It would be great if they had a larger bus, similar to the Biwako Hotel. 2. The hotel has a very strong, unpleasant odor, almost like body odor. It lingered for several days and was really off-putting. I'm not sure if all rooms have this issue. 3. You absolutely cannot open the window at night. They should really put up a warning sign, because if you do, a swarm of small, light-seeking insects will fly in, and you won't be able to get rid of them all. On our first night, we didn't realize and didn't close the window tightly, and we were incredibly bothered by bugs all night. Even though it's an older hotel, I really hope they can address these issues.

This hotel is literally a stone's throw from Kusatsu Station, right next to the station exit with the elevator. It's incredibly convenient for getting to Otsu, Ishiyama, and even Kyoto, truly a prime location. The room was surprisingly cheap and incredibly spacious, especially compared to rooms in Osaka and Kyoto. If you're exploring the Higashiyama area of Kyoto, staying here offers fantastic value for money. However, the facilities felt a bit dated, and the air conditioning was very slow to respond.

The bath was spacious, and it was great to be able to bathe in the open air! I was lucky to be the only one there, so I had plenty of space to use. The surrounding restaurants closed early, so I considered skipping dinner, but I ended up using the restaurant inside! The hamburger and fries made by the chef were incredibly delicious ^ ^ The washroom was also very clean! However, the road to the station is very dark at night with no streetlights, so it can be scary. I recommend coming early! It felt great in the mornings and evenings.