This one still feels like a secret. ANA InterContinental Appi Kogen Resort opened recently enough that word has not fully got out, which means rooms are not hard to get, prices are nowhere near Niseko levels, the hotel is lovely and the skiing is excellent. I expect we will be back next season.
Book ANA InterContinental Appi Kogen Resort
Check rates and availability on Agoda
Check rates and availability on Booking.com
Getting there
Appi Kogen is a ski resort in Iwate, up in northern Tohoku, and I know it sounds far. From Tokyo there are broadly three routes:
- Shinkansen to Morioka (130 min), then about 60 min by car — just over 3 hours in total
- Fly to Iwate Hanamaki Airport (70 min), then about 90 min by car — around 2.5 hours
- Fly to Odate-Noshiro Airport (70 min), then about 90 min by car — around 2.5 hours
So in both clock time and effort it is closer than Niseko. We took the third option. In winter there is a direct shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel, which is very convenient and worth using.
The short version
What is good:
- The building and the rooms are genuinely high quality
- It is ski-in ski-out, and the ski valet means getting from your room to the snow is effortless
- The mountain has a properly varied set of runs
- The food is very good
- It connects directly to a large mainstream hotel next door, so you can use their convenience store and pool
- It is considerably cheaper than Niseko
What is not:
- Service standards are low and hospitality is thin
One more thing that is worth knowing if you are reading this from overseas: unlike Niseko, most guests here are Japanese and so are almost all of the staff. English support is noticeably thinner. If you want the Niseko experience without Niseko prices, this is it — but bring a translation app.
The rooms and the building
The ANA Crowne Plaza next door is a large, old-school mass-market resort hotel, and InterContinental guests can move freely between the two buildings — your InterContinental key card opens the connecting passage. Even the passage looks good.
The lobby is the hotel’s signature space and gets pride of place on the official site. High ceilings, generous seating, and furniture chosen with real taste — the atmosphere is not far off Park Hyatt Niseko. In the room, as you would hope at a ski resort, the closet is huge. The bed has a properly comfortable sprung mattress and I slept straight through. There is a bath and shower in the room, but the communal onsen bath is good enough that I would encourage you to use it.
The ski valet
This is the ski valet at the base of the slopes. If you are staying two or three nights, or stopping for lunch, or going back to the room for a rest, you leave your gear here and a dedicated member of staff puts it away and keeps it in a locker — so you never wrestle with equipment. You can also buy lift passes here, which means skipping the queue at the ticket window. Park Hyatt Niseko has the same setup, and it is a wonderful thing.
The mountain
Appi has a well-built set of runs covering everything from first-timers to advanced. The Central Quad lift near the hotel entrance opens earliest and runs latest, and warming up there seems to be everyone’s routine. The Appi Gondola in the middle is what most people take to reach the summit. Yamabato, over on the right of the map, is a lovely beginner run — 5.5 km long but gentle and wide almost all the way, which makes it ideal for practising.
The layout is good, but what I appreciated most as a parent was that it was not crowded, there were few complete beginners, and the general standard was high — so we never had a near-miss. There are Black and Gold passes that let you skip the lift queues as well as the standard Blue pass, but the queues are short enough that I think Blue is plenty.
Food
There is only one restaurant at the InterContinental, but the standard is high. We ate lunch on the day we arrived, dinner on the second day, and breakfast (included with the room), and all of it was very good. Afternoon tea is available too, and again the food itself was excellent.
And yet. The service is slow and inattentive. Staff movements are inefficient, everything you ask for takes an age, and I ended up irritated. On top of that, we were told that children are not allowed during the aperitivo hour because alcohol is served — which I could not follow, since drinks are ordered individually and you could simply not serve alcohol to a minor.
Breakfast is a half-buffet: you order a main from the menu and help yourself to starters, bread and fruit from the middle. Here too the buffet was restocked so slowly that most of it was empty most of the time, which took the pleasure out of it. The gap in staff training is obvious.
The Crowne Plaza next door has several restaurants including its own buffet, so we tried it. I would not recommend it — though my daughter was thrilled by the chocolate fountain, so I will call that a draw.
The upside of being attached to the Crowne Plaza
Having direct access to the Crowne Plaza was genuinely useful: we could use its pool and its convenience store.
For an extra fee you also get the gym facilities — pool, table tennis, bouldering. Nobody else was using any of it, which was the best part.
Room rates, ski rental, airport transfers, meals — all of it came in well below Niseko. If you are weighing up a Japanese ski trip and the Niseko price tag has put you off, Appi deserves a serious look.
Book ANA InterContinental Appi Kogen Resort
Check rates and availability on Agoda
Check rates and availability on Booking.com
So, ANA InterContinental Appi Kogen Resort. It might be my favourite ski resort in Japan. If you have thoughts or questions, I would love to hear them in the comments.
コメント