Report: Gora Kadan, Luxury Ryokan in Hakone, Japan

100   Recommended
October 4, 2014 by EXPERT

 Map | 2 Reviews | 50% Recommended
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Gora Kadan
 Map | 2 Reviews | 50% Recommended

Save

Share
Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
Stats

Some background

Gora Kadanis a ryokan in Hakone, Japan, just over an hour by train from Tokyo. It’s a Relaix & Chateaux property with 38 rooms, including (I believe) 17 suites. The ryokan has hot spring baths (onsens), and suites also have private baths....some are open-air rock baths (with no views), while others are indoor wooden baths with panoramic views.

Overall

GK is a very special place. It’s gorgeous, serene and private, and we enjoyed every deeply relaxing minute of our stay.

Check-In

We got to Hakone early to spend some time visiting the sights, and so we dropped our bags off at the hotel at noon. Service was warm; as we entered the lobby, multiple employees -- all dressed in yukatas -- stepped forward to greet us, take our bags and lead us to chairs. The woman who ended up helping spoke terrific English, and processed our check-in then so that we wouldn’t need to do it later. She gave us some helpful tips on navigating Hakone, offered us a couple of bottles of water and led us back to the entrance of the grounds to see us off.

When we returned at check-in time (3PM), the staff recognized us, and the team member who would be our room attendant -- who would be serving us for the entirety of our stay -- stepped forward, introduced himself and took us to our suite.

Room

We stayed in the Ajisai suite on the third floor. It was beautiful.

Living/dining room:



View from the living/dining room:



Balcony:





Bedroom:





View from the bedroom:



Private bath:



Shower (adjacent to the bath -- there was one more shower in the full bathroom)



Lots of little touches...the amenity bags were his and her’s and included a variety of soaps, lotions, creams and hair products.



Yukatas were laid out for us, and our room attendant -- Hiroshi -- showed us how to properly put them on:



Property

The property is in great shape. I didn’t get any photos of the public baths (folks go nude here, so I wasn’t going to bring my camera), but I did get a few of the rest of the spaces.

The walkway to the family (mixed-gender) bath:



Massage chairs in the reading lounge:



Iced matcha and hibiscus teas in the reading lounge:



The walkway that runs through the ryokan, with a nice seating area at the end:



View from the seating area:



Dining

For suites, meals are served in the room. Two meals are included: dinner and breakfast.

Dinner is served kaiseki style...ours was a nine course event. It was both beautiful and delicious, though probably slightly more beautiful than delicious. Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful, memorable meal; but as far as taste goes, not the best kaiseki meal I’ve had.























If that extravaganza wasn’t enough, when we got back to our bedroom after the meal, we found that Hiroshi had left us a pitcher of water and some green tea candies (which we were far too stuffed to eat, though I took them home and look forward to trying).



The next day, we had the Japanese breakfast, which was very good -- the salmon was especially tasty.









As he served breakfast, Hiroshi mentioned that he knew this was a lot of food, that they simply wanted us to have a chance to try what we wanted, and that we shouldn’t feel obligated to finish everything. I appreciated that, as it was far, far too much food to comfortably eat...and, it being Japan, I probably would’ve tried

Spa

We didn’t visit the spa itself, but we had an in-room shiatsu massage before bed, which was very good and if we weren’t already totally melted from our stay, the massages finished the job. We slept like babies afterward.

Room for improvement

There’s not much I’d improve here. It was a close to perfect stay. Two things come to mind: I wish the grounds of the property were larger, as it would’ve been nice to spend some time strolling outside. We tried to explore a bit and kept wandering into maintenance areas (think generators, water heaters, sheds, etc...). And 2) the electronics in the room are dated, but this was not an issue at all as we didn’t come here to watch TV.

Tips

- The hotel offers a fixed-price taxi (I believe it was 3300JPY) to/from Hakone-Yumoto station. We took this on the way back, and I recommend it, as the last thing we wanted to do after our stay was get on the crowded railway car that the Hakone Pass takes you on. Caveat: the drive to the station is very winding (down a mountain), so if you get easily carsick, then opt for the train.
- The dinner is huge; if I were to go back, I’d skip lunch that day.
- After checking out, we had a delicious lunch at Nobu’s restaurant around the corner. I recommend it. (Will post some photos in my TRheresoon).
- Gora Kadan arranged for our taxi to get our bags from the ryokan and then come pick us up at the restaurant before taking us to the station. There was no extra charge for this.

I didn’t see many posts about this wonderful property when I was planning our stay, so hopefully this inspires some of you to consider making a short, relaxing trip out to Hakone on your next visit to Tokyo.

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