Shiki wo Ajiwau Yado Yamano Chaya

Yama No Chaya has its own beauty and serenity. I personally don’t find it hard to locate - 2 bus stops away from Hakone Yumoto station + a 5 minutes walk are worth the stay. (Bus service stopped for one of the days due to bad weather and we walked for 20 minutes to Hakone Yumoto Station - all good) The team is very hospitable - they also have some English and Chinese speaking staff otherwise simple English is not an issue to communicate. Our butler - Sandip always carry a smile with him, and he ensured we are very well taken care of. Every morning, the team will prepare heat pack and umbrellas for us (it was raining and snowing). In the evening, they made tea and prepared snacks (vary from mochi to sushi) for us upon our returned. The room we booked is Yamano Ichigo (main wing) - just nice for 2. The viewing platform was where we relaxed every evening and we soaked our tiredness away in our very own private onsen at the basement. Despite of having our own private onsen, I still went to visit 3 other public onsen within the Ryokan - you will not be disappointed. Our room came with daily breakfast and we added on dinner for 1 night. I must say the chef and culinary team put in their passion and effort to prepare all the dishes. It’s not common for a visitor like me to taste Kaisekai cuisine which I enjoyed very much. You need to take time and an empty stomach to full experience it :) However, my partner and I weren’t used to heavy breakfast and our butler noticed it - we get to change to western style for the rest of the stay which was equally delicious. We are thankful that we minimised food wastage. Overall, we felt pampered during our stay at Yama no Chaya :) I will return again in the future when I visit Hakone.

Wonderful experience in this quite and pretty ryokan

Stunning ryokan with world class service. If you are lucky enough to be able to visit, I could not recommend it highly enough. I was brought to tears from the hospitality and care that was exhibited throughout every experience. During check-in, we were able to reserve a private time slot for one of the baths. The onsen left our skin so soft! If you’re not familiar with ryokan and onsen, I’d recommend watching some videos to brush up on some basics. The staff does a wonderful job guiding you regardless. Take a taxi from Odawara Station if you’re not driving in with your own car. Getting dropped off by the bus on a winding mountain road was scary! The staff at Yama-no-Chaya thoughtfully helped arrange our taxi before we checked out. Thank you to Takeshi and the Yama no Chaya staff for taking such good care of us. We hope to stay again!

So far so good, staffs are super nice while there are rooms of improvement on hygiene

Overall an ok stay. A bit hard to find, very limited English spoken by the staff which led to some confusion (even for the representatives who were assigned to us by English speakers). Felt quite formal and not that warm Room was more or less as expected, and the dinner and breakfast meals were quite elaborate. Felt that breakfast was actually the stronger meal of the two, so wasn’t necessarily worth it to pay extra for dinner. I’d likely skip doing dinner in the future. The room attendant who helped us was very kind and attentive, although we had a bit of language barrier given we don’t speak Japanese. The big disappointment was even though the ryokan is advertised as allowing guests to book one of the larger hot springs on the property for private use for 45 minutes, we weren’t able to do this. We arrived within the designated check in time and were told that it was all booked up for the day. There was no way to book in advance and we were only staying for one night, and they didn’t try to accommodate allowing us to book at all for the next day before checkout. This really hampered the experience overall - we weren’t that interested in using the gender segregated facility (was traveling with my partner who is the opposite gender) as we wouldn’t be able to spend time together, and the tub in our room was quite small. They should amend this policy to allow all guests to book a private hot spring time or not advertise it as part of the room! Feels like we got cheated out of the service and we weren’t offered anything else as an alternative. I would have booked another ryokan had I known this were the case - there are many others in Hakone which are much better value and have nicer / newer private facilities for around the same price. I wouldn’t recommend Yama no Chaya given this was a big part of what we thought would make it a good experience

Awesome Ryokan with pristine service. Hot spring was great too, albeit one was abit too hot. Rebecca was an awesome attendant where she made sure we enjoyed our meals and stay. The only letdown would be the location as there is a slope to get up to the Ryokan which is quite dangerous. One note is that it is hard to get taxi to yama no Chaya where they may reject to drive passenger there. The view is also a bit disappointing. But all in all, an awesome stay!

Excellent location, convenient and yet quiet. 15mins walk to town. Very attentive and friendly hotel staff. The food and services were all very good! We had an awesome stay!

English speaking staff with excellent service. Quite a nice walk from Tonosawa station but some parts are very close to the road, which can be dangerous for families with young kids. Use this bridge to reach Yamanochaya.

Not the easiest place to find, nestle between the river and the mountain we had the most amazing experience. Friendly staff that speaks English with the most amazing breakfast and dinner. Not the cheapest hotel but you are paying for the experience and I would definitely recommend you try this hotel out. Our room had its own private hot spring and we were more then impressed with the level of detail and service that the owner(s) put into running of this inn / hotel.