I stayed at Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa (Kyoritsu Resort), a hot spring inn in Shuzenji.
I stayed at the Yumeguri no Yado Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa in Shuzenji the night before to go see the Kawazu cherry blossoms on the Izu Peninsula, which have been shown on TV every day, for the first time in my life.
I had only stopped by Shuzenji for about 20 minutes on a bus tour before, but had never really explored the area in depth.
Since I was staying in Shuzenji this time, I did some research and decided to stay at the Yumeguri no Yado Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa, run by Kyoritsu Resort, which has spacious rooms, delicious-looking food, and a certain level of quality that I was familiar with.
It’s not that far from the station, as it’s an 8-minute taxi ride or 10-minute bus ride from Shuzenji Station on the Izu Hakone Railway.
This time we were driving, so it was easy to access from Shuzenji Interchange.
This time I booked the “9:00 Check-out Plan – Great Deal! Up to 15% Off with 2 Buffet Meals” plan on Jalan.
Some rooms have open-air baths, but they didn’t seem to have hot springs, so I booked a standard Japanese-style room.
Check-in is at 3pm
Check-in at Yumeguri no Yado Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa was at 3 p.m., so I planned to arrive around 3 p.m.
When I arrived, a staff member wearing a happi coat guided my car to the driveway in front of the hotel.
There was a parking lot diagonally opposite the hotel, so he showed me there.
It seems there is free parking for 50 cars.
At the hot spring inn Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa, “you take off your shoes” at the entrance, Nono style.
After checking in, I put on my shoes and moved around the building.
The Yumeguri no Yado Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa is the same as Kyoritsu Resort’s Nono Style.
The foreign tourists staying there entered the building without taking off their shoes. The guide should have given a proper explanation.
Guests can choose between a samue or a yukata for indoor wear.
The building was quite spacious, and there was a welcome drink available in the front lobby. There was also a Daily Yamazaki on the same floor.
There weren’t any convenience stores nearby, so it was convenient to have one on site.
The welcome drinks for the day were chestnut tea and Unshu mandarin juice.
They were delicious after our walk.
The pot next to it contained warm soup stock, which had a comforting taste.
However, the cup was smaller than it looked, which made it inconvenient to carry the tea inside, so I wish the cup was one size larger.
You can choose from two different times for dinner and breakfast immediately after checking in.
Dinner on this day was in two sessions.
I chose my dinner time at the reception next to Daily Yamazaki.
There were two sessions, starting from 17:20 or 19:20, so I chose 19:20.
Breakfast the next day was also in two sessions, so I chose the earlier breakfast time.
There is an amenity buffet behind the reception, so you will need to pick up anything you need in the room, such as a toothbrush and tea, here.
Snacks are also available here, so it’s a good idea to take some with you to your room.
Just before heading to the elevator lobby, there was a games corner and table tennis area in the play area.
We head to the elevator hall via the corridor inside the building.
It was a weekday, so it seemed pretty empty, and most of the people there seemed to be elderly people and tourists from overseas.
9:00 check-out plan is slightly cheaper
This time, I chose the 9am check-out plan because I planned to leave early the next day to see the Kawazu cherry blossoms.
The normal check-out time is 10am, so this is an hour earlier, but it seems to be a little cheaper than the other plans.
I chose the 10-tatami Japanese-style room plan.
There were other plans with the same check-out rate that cost 2,000 yen more, but the room a little further from the elevator seemed to be a little cheaper.
When I got off the elevator, the view outside through the large windows was refreshing.
I didn’t want to walk too far from the elevator to my room, so I chose the 2,000 yen more expensive plan.
Maybe because of that, I got a room closer to the elevator.
When I entered the room, there was a bed already prepared in the Japanese-style room, and a sunken kotatsu table as well.
The room had a mixed Japanese-Western feel.
The room was quite spacious.
There was a church next door, and the view of the church building from the window was lovely.
In addition to the large public bath and open-air bath, there are apparently seven private baths, so I think I’ll check those out later.
The bath set is prepared in a special shopping bag.
There were two bathrooms and they were quite spacious.
Other people had commented that the facilities were old, but they had been nicely renovated so it didn’t bother me.
I used the open-air bath and the private bath so I didn’t use the indoor bath, but it didn’t feel particularly old.
Shampoo, conditioner, and body soap are provided in the bath in the room.
I found out later that the private baths only have body soap to ensure good turnover, so if you want to wash your hair, you’ll need to do it in your room or in the large public bath.
The toilet was also superbly clean.
No bottled water is provided.
You can drink the tap water, and you can boil tea and other drinks directly from the tap.
I boiled some tea with the snacks I got from the amenity buffet in the lobby.
Itoen Hotels puts a lot of effort into their selection of snacks.
I’ll use the private bath before dinner time.
This hot spring inn, Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa, has seven private baths that can be used from check-in until 1:00 a.m. and from 5:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
To use the baths, go through the noren curtain of the private baths and you will see a sign for the seven private baths to your right.
The signs for private baths that are already in use will be turned off, but you can use any bath that has the light on.
I thought this was a great system as you can see which private baths are available at a glance.
This is from a map of the building, but each private bath is a different type, so you can choose the private bath that suits your taste.
If the private bath you want to use is already in use, there are waiting areas for each bath so you can wait there. Please note that the waiting areas are different for each bath.
The estimated usage time for the private bath is about 30 minutes, and although there was a hair dryer in the changing room, there was no shampoo or conditioner provided in the bathroom.
We chose the Doukab no Yu bath, which was a very large semi-open-air bath with a sense of privacy that was very nice.
It seems that from 2022, this private bath will be available for use free of charge!
Dinner is served in a buffet style.
We chose a late dinner time this time, so we were starving by the time dinner time rolled around.
We had dinner at the buffet restaurant “Yuraku.”
You hand out your dinner ticket at the reception, so be sure not to forget it.
When we arrived at the buffet venue at 7:20 p.m., there was already a line.
After we told them our room number, they showed us to our table.
This restaurant also offers all-you-can-drink alcohol, and if you make a reservation in advance, the “60-minute all-you-can-drink alcohol” plan will cost 1,680 yen instead of 1,980 yen.
Now, it’s time for the long-awaited dinner.
There was a wide variety of menu items, including appetizer rice bowls, small appetizer dishes, and sashimi, and they all looked delicious.
I just took as much as I could fit on my plate.
On the right are small dish dishes that are often served with meals at Dormy Inn.
There was a wide variety, including yuba, pork stew, and chawanmushi!
To the left, there were local specialties such as sushi and simmered golden-eyed snapper, so it was fun to choose.
The steaks here are cooked by the chef in front of you and served immediately, so you can eat them warm.
This is apparently the inn’s most popular menu item.
I ended up having a second helping.
The second most popular dish was sashimi.
There were 3-4 types of sashimi to choose from, so there was plenty to choose from.
I like sweet shrimp, so I had a second helping of that too.
There were also many other options, including fried chicken, tempura, mapo tofu, rice, and miso soup.
For the soup, I chose fishball soup.
The broth had a strong flavor and was delicious.
After filling our stomachs, it was time for dessert.
There was a wide selection of cute and delicious looking desserts, including fruits, cakes, strawberry pudding, and Mt. Fuji rolls.
We had them with coffee.
Thank you for the meal.
It was a buffet style, but perhaps because the venue was spacious it didn’t feel too crowded and was quite comfortable.
After dinner I retired to my room early and went to sleep.
If you have room in your stomach, you can also enjoy the late-night noodles, which are served from 10:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
This is a service common to all Kyoritsu Resorts.
They also provided ice cream after the bath, but it was set up next to the welcome drinks on the lobby floor, which is on a different floor from the hot springs floor, so it was difficult to access and I wasn’t able to eat any.
You can also use the large communal bath and the open-air bath.
The next morning, I tried out the large public bath and open-air bath that I hadn’t used the day before.
Apparently the baths are open from 5am, so I went to the baths around 6:30am, but there were two or three people there before me.
I happened to miss them, so I was able to have both the large public bath and the open-air bath to myself.
The open-air bath was great, as it had two large tubs.
There were plenty of rest areas in the post-bath area, so it was convenient for meeting up with friends.
There is also a wide selection of drinks available.
In the same space there was a health check corner and free massage chairs.
The massage chairs were not crowded at all, so I was able to use them without having to worry about other guests.
Usually, Dormy Inn offers free lactobacillus drinks in the morning, but I didn’t see any free morning service at this Yumeguri no Yado Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa. It might have been on the first floor. If I have to go downstairs, it’s a hassle and I don’t want to go.
Breakfast is also served in the same dining area.
Breakfast started at 7am, so I headed to the dining area almost at the same time breakfast started.
Guests were free to choose their own seating for breakfast, so I secured a table at random and headed straight to the breakfast buffet.
I chose a few small breakfast dishes, including soft-boiled eggs, nametake mushrooms, and raw seaweed.
There is a wide variety of hot meals and sashimi, so your plate will fill up in no time.
We recommend trying local specialties such as kamaboko and shirasu.
And this is Shizuoka oden.
Each ingredient was compact in size, which was great for me as I only wanted to eat a little at a time.
The boiled quail eggs were adorable.
This is grated yam soup.
I thought it would be delicious with rice, so I was greedy and got a lot.
You can add your own clams to make the miso soup into clam soup.
The clams and miso soup were served separately, but it seemed like the broth would come out better if they had served the clams and miso soup together.
And of course, there was dessert.
There was also ice cream, but we carefully selected these four items.
I had them with coffee and they were delicious.
My impressions of staying at the hot spring inn Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa
I don’t usually go to Shuzenji, so this was my first time at the Yumeguri no Yado Shuzenji Onsen Katsuragawa. The rooms were spacious, the private bath was spacious and comfortable, and the food was delicious, so I had nothing to complain about.
It seems that this was originally a fairly large hot spring inn before it became Kyoritsu Resort, so the building was spacious and sturdy.
It was convenient to have a convenience store on-site, and it was nice to be able to quench my thirst with a welcome drink.
In particular, the private bath was easy to use, with easy-to-understand instructions for use.
The fact that it was free to use was a big plus, and was one of the reasons I wanted to return.
The food was also very delicious, and the steak and sashimi were very tasty.
I couldn’t eat everything, but my family said that the sushi with a weak vinegar was better.
It was also good that there was a wide variety of food, and I was grateful that they served the steak and tempura that I wanted to eat warm in the live kitchen.
Personally, I like to eat a little bit of everything, so I prefer the style of being served in small bowls.
The chawanmushi was warm, fresh and delicious.
The breakfast was also delicious, of course, so I was very satisfied.
If I ever visit Shuzenji again, this is a place I would definitely like to stay at again.
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