Thank you KI-NRT San and all of the incredible information in this thread! I wanted to post a (somewhat belated) review of our May 2024 stay at Yama No Chaya in Hakone in order to give back to this community and in hopes that it might help other participants. I am a travel and hotel "optimizer", and spent countless hours searching for and scrutinizing various lodging options, and we couldn't have been happier with our choice. TLDR: Highly recommend!

We are a family of four; My husband and I (middle age) and our two college-age children. We had spent 5 days in Tokyo and spent a night in Hakone en route to Kyoto. We were looking for an "almost-luxury" level ryokan; something where we would feel pampered and luxurious but that didn't seem stuffy or fancy. Top quality food was a priority for us. This was our first trip to Japan and our first stay in a ryokan, so we didn't have any prior experience with which to compare. We felt like we struck the perfect balance with Yama No Chaya between feeling rustic and luxurious.

We're foodies, and the meals exceeded our expectations. Everything was delicious, fresh, and varied, and beautifully presented. Our daughter is a pescatarian and doesn't eat raw fish; they served her fish courses when the rest of us were served meat, and they even brought a mini hibachi for her to grill her own fish when the rest of us were served raw fish.

We were there in summertime, and they provided air conditioning in the rooms.

We reserved two separate rooms, each with their own in-room open-air onsen. Our kids stayed in a ground floor room Yama no yube, which was a bit humid compared to where my husband and I stayed in Yama no ashita, which was on the second floor. I think that was because the yube room onsen was a bit more enclosed than the ashita one. I'd recommend ashita over yube.

The property has 3 onsen; two are inside and one is outdoors. The outdoor one was beautiful, and one has to walk up a small path to get to it. The hotel provides outdoor slippers and umbrellas for the walk. It was raining while we were there, and we loved sitting in the hotel's sitting room just watching the rain and the trees.

In addition to the fantastic multi-course kaiseki dinner, they presented inari as an evening snack. We were very full, but of course had to taste it.

Our son awoke early to go for a run; the ryokan management gave him directions for how to get to the path, and had his running shoes out at the entrance ready for him when he woke up!

The multi-course breakfast was equally as delicious as dinner.

We were given a choice of breakfast time and dinner time; both were served in our room, which we really appreciated as a special family experience. They served all four of us in one of the rooms as per our request.

I booked a massage through the hotel on our first day, and it was very reasonably priced and extremely thorough.

We stored our bags at the ryokan when we checked out at 10am (latest possible), and took the train up to the Open Air Museum. Don't miss this if you are in the area.

All in all, a fantastic respite from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, and a wonderful time to rest and relax with our family.

Pro tip - be ready to go at checkout time!