Originally Posted by
gnaget
Check out Hakuba Cortina. Hilarious bubble era relic of hotel at the base.
Hakuba Cortina Ski Resort | Cortina Japan Review
Adults can maybe drive over to Happo One for one day of skiing, which is 30 min away.
I went there once when they supposedly got 50 cm of snow while Happo got 20 or 30. However, it was like cement, so can't call it powder skiing.
I'm considering this place for this Dec, especially now that my family is advanced beginner (I've been intermediate forever).
A nice, clean ski-in/out hotel is still a must. So it'd have to be Cortina rather than Happo One.
Cortina seems small, but I understand that it adjoins Hakuba Norikura resort for which you can buy a combined lift pass. Do you remember this? With those two areas combined, it becomes a pretty big terrain. How would you regard this place in terms of rental quality and crowd/queues and for beginner/intermediate skiers?
Btw, the hotel at Cortina is 175,000yen for 3 nights, 4ppl, breakf & dinner included. Lift passes are not included, and kids don't ski free.
On the other hand, Shizukuishi is <100,000yen for the equivalent package. And kids ski free. And easier to get to.
The hotel seems to be better at Cortina. I'm reading reviews on Shizukuishi that are mixed, but the lift layout doesn't look great. But, when it's all said and done, Cortina will end up costing almost 100,000yen more than Shizukuishi. This place is so expensive. It'd be a major bummer if I showed up at Cortina, having paid that kind of money, to find that the snow is "cement" as you'd experienced. I've run into quite a few days of packed ice condition at Whistler (truly not enjoyable), but so far I don't think I've yet to encounter packed ice slopes in Jpn.
Another place we're considering is Tomamu, but it will take good part of a day just to get there from Tokyo. (Forget Tomamu... turns out what I thought was the grand total was actually per-person!)