This was probably the worst stay I’ve ever experienced in all my years of traveling to Japan. For a family-oriented resort hotel (upscale, upperupscale?), many aspects were simply unacceptable. The general service quality and offering relative to the ADR charged was poor (midscale-like) and predominantly characterized by a distinct lack of attention to detail and English-speaking proficiency from staff members. Considering the hotel target segmentation is mostly leisure, family, as well as foreign guests, the hotel is sorely lacking the expected service quality and offering. The only positive is perhaps its proximity to the ski slopes, where ski-in ski-out is available. However, I would add that the nearby Westin is just 5 minutes away connected by a mini monorail as well as regular bus service. So if you’re looking for proper brand standards, strong English proficiency, and great service, and you don’t mind paying a little more, you would be much better off staying at the Westin.
But let me explain what happened. My family and I stayed for 4 nights at the south-wing of Rusutsu Resort Hotel. We’re 4 and stayed in one room (the hotel charges per head). Of the four beds in the room, one of which provided was a sofa bed, and let’s just say that bed was beyond sleep-able. You can clearly feel every spring underneath when you lied down, which could’ve been easily fixed if the housekeeping staff had added some bed mats beforehand (attention to detail). When I went to complain, clearly distressed from the poor night of sleep I had just had, the hotel staff promptly said they would fix the issue, however, not one word of apology was offered, and that I feel is inexcusable.
The hotel has a decade-old card policy of only 2 cards per room (honestly, where’s the capex??). If I am paying per head for a room, I expect the right to access my room unhindered, but ofc this was not the case. One day I returned from skiing before the others, and I didn’t have a card. I went to the front office staff asking for a card to access my room. The front office staff without explaining anything handed me a new card. Little did I know, he had cancelled both previous cards, which consequently left my other family members without access and only one card for the 4 members of my family. This is ridiculous and of course I only found out when I desperately needed to access my room, only to discover I needed to head back down to the front office. When I complained, once again no apologies were offered… What a waste of time.
On my final day I brought all 4 suitcases down to the bell desk. No one was around. I asked front office staff where is bell staff to keep luggage? All he said was “no”. (For a leisure family ski resort hotel, no bell luggage service? This is frustrating). When I asked front office what then I should do? They offered one word “coin locker” and pointed in the direction of the coin lockers. Ok fine. I go there with my family, tried every single coin possible, wasted more time, only to then find out you needed a token from the front office. To add insult to injury, I then discover, the family friends we were travelling with were able to keep their luggage at the bell desk. Now I’m seriously questioning their service standards, whether there is any at all.
At this point I was honestly angry, I called for the front office manager. Mr. Yuji [-] came to speak with me (unfortunately he did not speak English either, however another staff helped translate) and I told him all the issues I had experienced. At last the first apology for all my complaints. He apologized sincerely, offered lounge access and also took care of our luggage. However I worry that nothing will change beyond that…
