Hello! Me and 4 other close friends are planning a trip to japan in mid summer of 2022 (hopefully. Part of our itinerary is to hike Fuji and to stay at Kozantei Ubuya afterwards.
Quick questions
1. Would it be per person for a room? Or would it be we pay the room and it covers all 5 of us all together.
2. Is there any outdoors activity near the hotel, like swimming and fishing?
3. If possible is there a better alternative to ubuya that offers the same experience? Cheaper or same price we only plan to stay a night or two.
4 comments
I stayed at that hotel and would definitely recommend it. Breakfast and dinner were excellent and waking up to the view of Fuji in the morning from our room was very memorable. There are limited number of hotels on the eastern side of the lake and thus have the best view of the Lake and Fuji. I think they had a couple of larger suites that could accomodate families.
However I’d say if you want to stay there you probably have to book very soon. I got very lucky and was able to get 2 nights there only booking a month ahead a few years back. I tried looking at availability just now with the booking sites and plugging into July 2022 dates and couldn’t find a date.
I would recommend at least two nights and focus mainly on spending time close nearby or at the hotel.
1. Kozantei Ubuya (and most other ryokan) charges per person. Note that maximum room occupancy for packages offered by that ryokan is 4.
2. Kawaguchiko is renowned for bass and rainbow trout fishing – you will need to buy fishing permit and pay local fishing tax in one of the local tackle shops.
In Japan accommodation is charged per person. Charging per room is very rare.
Just go on their website and click on reservations. If you put your mouse over the price, it clearly show that the price is by guest (but it goes down the more people you are). [https://www.ubuya.co.jp/en/](https://www.ubuya.co.jp/en/) And yes, it is common to have hotel/ryokan prices by person, especially when it is a room with two meal. Just for reference, starting price for ryokan with two meals included would be 12 000 to 15 000 yen by person. Of course it will go up if you go in luxury ryokan or if you have a private bath in the room. So yes this place seems to be a bit on the luxury side and the meal does include wagyu beef and the room have a Mount Fuji view.
To rectify on what other people said, the place does have different rooms, some that accept up to 4 or 6 people.
I’ve not been, but the place I often see people naming is Kononso that seem to have room starting at lower price, starting around 20 000 by person by night and more.
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And yes, many ryokan open for booking only 3 to 6 months in advance. It seems that Ubuya does it with 6 months. The way it often work is that they will open a full month at a time. So right now you can book until end of December 2021 and at the start of August, they will likely open booking for Jan. 2022. So for summer 2022, you will likely have to wait until the start of next year to book.