Hi — I’m Tabiiku. I travel around Japan with my daughter on the principle that experience is the best thing you can give a child. This time we went to Shigira Resort on Miyakojima, in Okinawa. It was my first visit to the island, and I came away convinced it is the single best place in Okinawa to take a family with primary-school-age children or younger.
Why Miyakojima, and not the rest of Okinawa
We were celebrating my daughter’s birthday and had decided on somewhere in the far south. Miyakojima won for one simple reason: the island is compact, so the airport, the hotel and the things to do are all close together.
There are plenty of beautiful hotels on Okinawa’s main island that I would love to try, but almost all of them are an hour or more from the airport. If you are flying three hours from Tokyo and then adding another hour in a car with a small child, that is a genuinely hard day. We also looked at Ishigaki, which is deservedly popular, but Ishigaki really rewards you when you can add the surrounding islands, the mountains and some shopping — so we are saving it until my daughter is older. Miyakojima was the right call.
Where we stayed: Shigira Resort
Shigira Resort covers about one million square metres and contains eight separate places to stay and more than thirty restaurants, with the beach directly in front of it. We wanted a trip where we could stay put and still have plenty to do, so a resort this self-contained made sense. And because my daughter loves swimming, we booked the Pool Villa Premier at Hotel Shigira Mirage — a room with its own pool.
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Three things made this stay:
- The hotel facilities, which are genuinely comprehensive
- How close the beach is, and how good the activities were
- The food
The one thing that fell short was the service. It was not what I would call first-class hospitality. Measured against somewhere like Park Hyatt Niseko or the Ritz-Carlton Osaka, this is a step behind.
The hotel
The lobby is handsome and calm, staff help you in with your bags, and you get a cold drink while you check in.
Then the room. The private pool on the terrace was the whole point, and I think we spent something like six of our three days in it. There is a small raised tatami nook off the living area that works well as a nap space, which makes this a good room for babies too. The fridge is stocked with beer, spirits and soft drinks — all free, and they will refill it as often as you ask.
Certain room categories at Shigira Mirage also get access to a private lounge, which was lovely. Two things to know: pre-school children cannot go in at all, and even from age six, under-eighteens can only use the tea-time slot from 10am to 4pm, not the cocktail hour. You can use it before check-in and after check-out, which is a real advantage when your flight times do not line up with the room. It is not just sweet things — there are savoury snacks too.
The site also has a golf course and a garden pool, and it is enormous. Guests at Shigira Mirage get their own golf cart, so getting around is easy — for my daughter, riding the cart was an activity in itself.
The beach and the activities
The beach is a few minutes’ walk away. Non-guests can use it, but almost everyone there was staying at the resort, and it was never crowded — another point in its favour. We went in the middle of the rainy season and got lucky with a clear spell, and the water was extraordinary.
We tried snorkelling for the first time. Children can join from age three, and it is not badly affected by the weather, so I would call it unmissable. I could not carry my phone, so I have very few photos — but if you are lucky you will see sea turtles.
We had also booked parasailing, which was cancelled because of high winds. The call came at around 6pm the evening before, and by then almost everything else was fully booked. Cancellation is free up to 5pm the day before, so my advice is to plan a fine-weather version and a bad-weather version of your itinerary before you arrive.
Eating
There are so many restaurants that choosing was genuinely difficult. My guess is that they are all decent — but my strong recommendation is a yakiniku restaurant called Ryukyuen. Go.
Three reasons: the quality of the meat is high and the price is not, you get to eat Miyako beef which is local to the island, and even the vegetables are Okinawan varieties you will not find in Tokyo. Miyako beef is nicely marbled without being heavy, and we cleared the plates. There are private rooms, so it works with a baby too.
Stardust Garden (Italian)
The appeal here is the view. There is sea grape on the salad, which is a nod to Okinawa, but otherwise it does not feel especially local. The food was straightforwardly good — my favourite was the deep-fried octopus.
Luna Rossa (Italian and garlic shrimp)
We came here for lunch. It sits inside the food court right beside the beach, and you can walk in still in your swimsuit. The pasta and pizza were both fine. Garlic shrimp is supposedly the speciality, but I thought it was ordinary, and the Agu pork sausage did not taste noticeably different from a regular one.
Clubhouse Restaurant (Okinawan food)
This one is inside the golf course clubhouse, so most of the customers were there for the golf. The menu is proper Okinawan home cooking — goya champuru, soki soba — and it was both cheap and good.
Breakfast
You choose between a Western buffet and a Japanese set breakfast. The buffet is served in a restaurant with sea turtles swimming alongside it: you order the eggs you want and help yourself to the rest. You can feed the turtles, and my daughter was beside herself watching one eat the food she had thrown in.
That said, on food quality alone the Japanese breakfast wins by a distance. It is on another level, and everything on it is good. Children can order the adult version or a kids’ set with more fried chicken and sausage, and natto and nori are unlimited.
The verdict
As a property, the raw potential here is high and I would rate it well. Where it falls down is staff attentiveness and initiative. One example: the lobby counter is a fair walk from the rooms, and at check-out you are asked to walk the key all the way back there — which left me wondering why the operation is set up that way. These are easy things to fix, and I hope they do.
One more thing to do nearby
Worth a detour: Shirou Farm, a goat-petting farm. I would not recommend it in high summer or in the rain, but in walking weather it is a lovely stop. You take a goat for a walk, and there are dogs and rabbits to meet as well. The goats stop constantly to eat grass, which is very funny. My daughter was so taken with it that we walked the same loop three times — there is no time limit, so take as long as you like. The café on site is good too. I had the mango and aloe frappé, and I will say it beats the one from the well-known coffee chain.
That is our Miyakojima report. If you are bringing a family with younger children to Okinawa for the first time, I think this is the place to start. Comments and questions very welcome.
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