노자와 온센 노자와 그랜드 호텔

It was difficult to find any accommodation in Nozawa for mid-December, but Nozawa Grand was available at a reasonable price, including breakfast and dinner. (Most of the town, restaurants, and local accommodations are not open yet.) It was my first time to Nozawa, and I read that the ski resort is accessible via Yu Road (a long elevator ride), which was apparently a 5-min walk from the hotel, but in fact, it was more like a 10-15 uphill slow walk in the snow and in snowboard boots. As it was early in the season, the Hikage base was not open during my stay, so I had to walk to the Nagasaka base instead, which was a 25-min 1.5Km uphill slow walk, not that I mind the walk, but do make sure you ask the hotel for shuttle or other means of transportation to the ski resort if you are a skier and/or if you have kids. If you take the Nozawa Onsen Liner from Iiyama station, it is a 10-min uphill walk to the hotel (not recommended if you have luggage and in the snow, but if you travel light, it should be fine). There are no laundry facilities, but they do offer laundry service at JPY300 per basket (a big basket, very reasonable) without drying, so you have to hang dry the clothes in your own room yourself (there are no dry room facilities at the hotel, not even for ski equipment/boots). Aside from that, the hotel is nice; it felt premium for such a small town, and the size of my room was good with my own private onsen. The public onsen is a bit worn down but acceptable; the outdoor onsen is on another floor from the public onsen, which means you have to get dressed and head up to access the very special outdoor onsen. Breakfast buffet is fair only, so don't expect much in terms of variety of food offered. Dinner, on the other hand, I found to be good quality.