Does the sky cable have a station at the Kanko hotel?

[nottsgirl]

Does the sky cable gondola have a station at the Akakuba Kanko Resort Hotel or is the chair lift the only way up / down?

[myokoguy]

Hi Notts Girl and welcome.

The Sky Gondola only has a main station at the bottom. It's an easy ski down from the Kanko Hotel. I think the hotel has a shuttle from the car park but you'd have to check with them.

I've never stayed there but have been very impressed when I've visited. See a little description here - http://myokokogen.net/myoko_resort_report.html (scroll to the bottom).

Cheers, MG

[nottsgirl]

Thanks for the info. We're wondering how we get down to the restaurants and bars in the evening if the gondola doesn't go from the hotel. I guess the answer is to taxi. The hotel isn't easy to communicate with; I'm trying to make the booking through Myoko tourist office but haven't managed that yet. Will be gutted if can't get it sorted as we took ages to decide on the resort and the hotel ...... there as SO many and we've never skied in Japan before.

[myokoguy]

If the weather is okay I think it would be easily walkable - at least downhill. There is an access road to/from the car park (see here) that is kept cleared as far as I know.

[Method]

Yeah I wouldn't walk it in winter, the road's quite narrow with 2 metre ice walls either side. A cab was only about 1200 yen each way from memory. Save your legs for hiking the awesome myoko backcountry.

The hotel has 2 restaurants, 1 french and 1 japanese. The french one is quite nice, one of the most amusing restaurant experiences I've had. Black tie clad waiters, like you imagine an old-school high class french restaurant. The menu is in japanese or french (no english). Linen napkins. At one stage I think I counted 10 utensils per person on the table. Japanese wine (not bad). The food was quite good, budget about $100 (aussie) per head including wine.

I never ate at the japanese one because you had to book, at the time of booking you had to decide which menu you wanted (out of 3 choices) and I never knew what 2 of them were, and you had to book by 4pm in the afternoon for that evening. I never had my sh*t together 'cause all I could think about was the epic off piste and where I was going the next day.

I loved sitting in the onsen at the hotel in the early evening after a long day of epic deep off piste face shots, watching the last ray of light disappear from the valley below with a can of asahi in my hand (trying to ignore the fact there was a naked man next to me) whilst musing over the epic snow conditions.

The only slight negatives for this hotel is that there were only a couple of people that spoke any more than a few phrases of english. Also, they have a ski room (with lockers) but no dedicated drying room which means drying your gear in your room. I generally left my boots on top of my locker and pulled the inners out. They were always dry in the morning.

The bar is very beautiful, although everytime I went in there in the evening there was virtually no-one in there.

If you take your lady friend she will love the in-house clarins spa, although, like everything at this hotel, your credit card will take quite a beating.

[myokoguy]

Excellent feedback Method, thanks. I will link this over from our hotel listing. Might also pass it on to the powers that be at the hotel if I can.

Have to agree - the onsen there is really an incredible experience. Unfortunately it's not something I get do too often as it's meant to be strictly guests only.