Hakone in December
 

My sister and her partner are coming to visit Japan in December; I was planning to take them to a nice ryokan near Hakone -- somewhere like Gora Kadan -- but a bit unsure about if bad weather could really take away from the experience.

Anyone stayed in one of the high-end places near Hakone during the winter? How was it?

Haven't done this, but it certainly is true that early AM winter is often the best time to view Fuji from Tokyo, so it might turn out that while it's cold in Hakone, the viewing may be excellent.

Looking for a bit more info. May be in Tokyo for five/six days in December and was wondering if a day trip to Hakone would make sense.

Do all the trains, boats, cablecars, and ropeways operate/remain open in the winter, particularly the boats?

Is it possible to do the Hakone circuit? Or, perhaps more to the point, is it recommended/enjoyable at that time of the year?

Thanks.

The boats and ropeway close down when the weather is bad, which can happen throughout the year.

I think they stay open in winter on a reduced schedule, but Wikitravel says, "Portions of the above circuit may close for a short period of time in the winter for maintenance, but shuttle buses replace the closed services, so this won't ruin your trip."

Actually I think it would ruin the trip a fair amount since the collection of transport is a goodly part of the fun. I'd suggest contacting JNTO to find out when closures are planned.

I was in Hakone last year early January (right after the ekiden road race) and everything was open e.g. ropeway, cablecar, boats etc. Weather was good though. While it wasn't super crowded, there were quite a lot of people there as well. Also IIRC wasn't that cold - I thought it was just nice with all the walking that we did (Owakudani, the Tokugawa-era checkpoint route etc)

Honestly, consider some of the other onsen resort like places in place of Hakone. This is just my personal experience, but I found Hakone to be a bit too touristy, and a real anti-highlight of my time in Japan. Kusatsu onsen comes to mind first as a possible alternative, though admittedly I haven't physically visited there yet!(coming up on my next trip!)