Kiroro Resort

What People are saying

Great Hotel

JandJSydney on 05/09/2017 12:21

Stayed for one night during our (organised) 5 day trip in Hokkaido. An excellent hotel where sadly our stay was not long enough, in saying that the location is a little remote (but very visually impressive). Would be fabulous in the ski season.
Our stay continued to add enjoyment to our short trip, with all amenities that would be expected in a large impressive hotel such as this.

Maybe better in high season

Rick M on 04/08/2017 05:38

This is a lovely and huge hotel. Very modern feel. We had a wonderful room with a mountain view. But we always felt like we were the only guests, except when we went to breakfast. Went to the bar at happy hour, no one there, just the staff and the sumo wrestling on big screen TV. To be honest that was pretty entertaining. The hotel has multiple restaurants, but only 3 were open in low season. We chose the robata restaurant, apparently the only guests to do so. It was OK but way too much food, and the first and only time I want to eat that way. Too much work! When we went to breakfast the buffet was spread in a banquet room that could serve as an aircraft hangar. None of the food was cooked to order, so you got rubbery eggs, etc. We saw some very large bus tour groups eating together, so they must have dined together buffet style the night before also. The hotel is in a ski resort complex with another hotel and the grounds at the base of the mountain makes for a lovely walk.

Excellent hotel with a slight lack of variety of restaurants

Johan G on 24/07/2017 09:39

I've stayed at this hotel two years in a row for skiing in the winter holidays; you can find my review of the ski resort as a whole (which is amazing) in a separate article.

I noticed a slight change in restaurant offering between the 2015-2016 season and the 2016-2017 season, and in my view it was a negative one, hence my rating of this hotel as "very good" instead of "excellent" (although for sure it's on the borderline.)

The Tribute Portfolio is one of a pair of sister hotels (the other one is the Sheraton Kiroro Resort) in the Kiroro Ski World Resort. (They are the only hotels, basically.) It's a large hotel with a large lobby which feels rather majestic. Check-in is a bit time consuming, due to the fact that most people check-in at once, arriving together in the airport shuttle. Since I've only been there doing high season, I cannot say whether it is true for the rest of the year. It was not possible for us to get access to our room if we arrived in the morning, for example. We had to store our luggage in lockers and then check in later in the evening after a day's skiing.

The location is quite good - it's not next to the slopes, but there's a shuttle bus that runs between the ski slopes and the hotel basically every 10 minutes or so (less often in the evening). The trip just takes a few minutes, so it's very convenient. The hotel offers free storage lockers for ski equipment which is great, but understand that the shuttle bus is not really specialized for skiers, in the sense that there is no space to put skies, so you have to bring your gear on to the bus and hold it while riding to the slopes. It can be a quite inconvenient, especially in rush hour so we always rented a locker up at the ski resort instead, and left our skies there (not very expensive).

I felt that the rooms were quite spacious for being a Japanese hotel. The room we stayed in last time had twin beds in one end of the room, then a seating area separated from the beds with chairs & a table. Lots of space for suit cases etc. and did not feel cramped at all. The bathrooms are "standard Japanese deluxe" i.e. a slightly larger version of the standard Japanese bathroom (bathtub & shower room separate from toilet) you will find in every Japanese hotel.

Service is great, I had no complaints on this matter - although we did not also utilize it that much so it's not based on much interaction. Ordering for example extra pillows or towels was no issue, and we got the new items fairly quickly. Although, last stay, for some reason our key cards stopped working *twice* during our stay, prompting us to have to go all the way down the lobby and have them reprogrammed.

Now to my only complaint - regarding restaurants. This hotel has, if I recall correctly, three restaurants which server breakfast. One buffet style, the rest are a la carte. Previous season, the buffet restaurant had extra seats (and buffet) in one of the large event halls, which meant that it never got over crowded. This season, they only had the main restaurant, and the waiting line to get in at around 8 o' clock or so, was absolutely horrible! We chose to eat at the Italian restaurant instead, which served "egg dishes" for breakfast. It was OK, but the waiting time was ridiculous as well. We saw many people in line after us give up waiting.

The buffet restaurant served Japanese-style food for breakfast, with just a few "western" style dishes. The restaurant pamphlet stated this, but when I inquired at the front desk whether its food variety was western in style, and same as the breakfast at the Sheraton, they claimed it was. (It isn't! The breakfast buffet at the Sheraton is much more International!) Disappointed, we opted to take the shuttle bus to the slopes the next mornings to have breakfast at Sheraton instead.

They also had removed some of the options for dinner at the hotel, compared with last year. I believe there were 2-3 less restaurants, which made dinner choice "easier" because of less choices :-( The dinner buffet is OK, but again it's fairly Japanese so if you're looking for more International fare, I'd again recommend taking the shuttle to the Sheraton to eat.

There is a hot bath in the hotel which is free for all guests (NB! I have not tried it) but there is also a swimming pool and a hot spring spa in the building next door. Some room packages include free use of the facilities - do double check that it's included, because I bought a package where I did not think the pool/spa was included, but it turns out it was! So the first night I paid for the swimming pool, where I actually shouldn't have. The pool is about 15 meters long I think, with a connected childrens pool. Any time we went there, it was almost empty which was great for the kids. The hot spring consists of two pools of hot water inside, and one small pool outside. It also has a dry and wet sauna. The 2015-2016 season, the spa had a second floor with a large outside area, however it was gone for this season. I don't know if they are rebuilding or what happened to it.

All in all, it's a great hotel, but the way the restaurants work and offer could be improved. Further, and I don't know if this only applies to domestic vacation packages, but when booking a trip & stay, you could choose "including dinner" which basically gives you a set of coupons for 5,000 JPY each. Those coupons can be used at any restaurant to eat their basic course. Don't order dinner for kids, because the package only offers the 5,000 JPY coupons, whereas the price for kids in most restaurants is actually lower - so you end up losing about 1,500 JPY. (Some restaurants acknowledged this, and gave us drinks to cover the difference.)

Great hotel in a nice location.

sugimgoh on 19/07/2017 08:52

Great service especially for a Platinum SPG member with suite upgrade and late checkout. And free breakfast which is a nice spread of Japanese breakfast. Rooms are clean and equipped. The lobby is very grand and beautiful.

In the month of June, the resort is a quiet. But it means you have everything to yourself. The grounds are beautiful around the golf club as the flowers are blooming this time of the year.

Onsen is also great which the hotel will include a daily pass as a hotel guest.

Location is about 30 minutes drive away from Otaru. You will definitely need a car staying here!

Nice hotel

Christian K on 12/07/2017 07:30

Good hotel, lots of restaurants with different cuisine. Close proximity to the slopes. Not the best spa. Great with kids. Very big hotel with 2 receptions. You need to prebook your dinners but that's easily done