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. I had seen SUGINOI HOTEL in Beppu recommended for families on social media for a long time and finally went.
I regret going. This was, honestly, one of the worst stays we have had.
I did wonder whether it is right to publish a review of somewhere I cannot recommend. I decided that writing honestly about the places that do not work is more useful to readers than only writing about the ones that do.
I usually write conclusion-first and then break it down. This time I am going in chronological order, so you can see how the stay actually unfolded.
Beppu SUGINOI HOTEL
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Day one: from Oita airport to the hotel
It is about forty minutes by car from Oita airport. There are buses and taxis, but we had somewhere to be on day two so we hired a car. I would recommend Times Car Share — you book in the app, unlock and return the car yourself, and refuelling is optional, so there is none of the queuing at a counter and waiting around that makes ordinary car hire tiresome.
Day one: arriving, and the pools
SUGINOI has three accommodation buildings. I chose Sora-kan, because it is the newest and the description promised a calmer atmosphere.
We arrived at about 11am. Even at that hour the car parks were chaotic — we were told the nearest one was full and sent to the multi-storey, which was also packed. We eventually found a space, left our bags at the front desk and headed for the pool.
The pool opens at 11am, and the ticket office already had a long queue. Guests have entry included, so we walked past it with our room key card and did the entry formalities.
At around 11:05 the slide already had a twenty-minute wait. An announcement said the central pool was about to start its wave session, so my daughter, who loves a wave pool, headed straight for it.
There were so many people that there was barely room to float. You collide with someone constantly, and all around us children were snapping “stop pushing!” at each other. When we went back to the slide the wait had stretched to about fifty minutes. The slide itself lasts roughly thirty seconds.
The number of guests is plainly beyond what the pools can hold. It would be solved by limiting it to hotel guests — but the system lets people carry on using it after check-out, and day visitors are admitted on top. A management that considers this acceptable was, in hindsight, a warning.
My daughter will happily spend three hours in an ordinary 25m pool. Here she had had enough and wanted to leave early.
Problem one: impossible crowding, and an operating style that puts revenue above whether guests are enjoying themselves.
Day one: the garden and the room
We had time before check-in, so we went out to the garden. There is an inflatable dome trampoline, and with a good view it made a pleasant half hour.
Our room was the smallest category. No bath, shower only, which is a mark against it — but the building is new and everything felt clean.
Day one: dinner at the Sora-kan buffet
Dinner opened at 4:45pm. The front desk advised us to be in before 5pm, because by 5:30 it fills, so we went in at 4:45 exactly and walked straight through.
And then this happened.
My daughter has a nut allergy, so at a buffet it is essential to know which dishes contain nuts. I asked the member of staff seating us what I ask everywhere: could we have the allergen chart?
The answer astonished me.
SUGINOI HOTEL: “We are not able to answer questions of that kind. Guests with allergies should judge for themselves, at their own risk, what they eat.”
I could not follow what I was being told, so I asked again — that this would leave almost nothing she could safely eat, that I would accept the risk myself, but could they at least tell me the ingredients?
SUGINOI HOTEL: “As I said, we cannot answer questions of that kind. It says so on our website.”
Both the exchange and the policy behind it struck me as dishonest and left me upset. The person seating us could not help, so I raised it with head office, and the answer did not change. We ate some fruit that obviously contained no nuts and left.
Had I known there was no allergy support, I would not have booked this hotel — and the handling afterwards did nothing to restore my trust.
And yes: when I went looking, it is on the website. But nobody reads the restaurant FAQ when booking a room; there was no note of it in the booking confirmation email; and nothing was said at check-in.
The website says the hotel “places guest safety first and therefore refrains from preparing menus for guests with food allergies or from labelling allergens.”
If guest safety genuinely came first, the answer would be:
- Label the allergens.
- Then add: “our production lines are not separated, so complete removal cannot be guaranteed — please judge for yourself.”
- And if even that is felt to be insufficient, go nut-free, since nuts affect such a large number of people. Many international schools operate nut-free policies.
“There might be cross-contamination, so we have stopped labelling altogether” is not a defensible position.
The state of the pools had already given me a bad feeling, and this — a genuinely negligent approach to allergies — finished it. I could feel no hospitality at all, only a management style built around its own cost efficiency and self-protection. I will not go back, and I do not recommend it to anyone.
Day one: the onsen
After a poor dinner for my daughter and a dishonest exchange, we went to the baths in a rather flat mood.
This was the one thing about the hotel that was good. Sora-yu, the bath reserved for Sora-kan guests, was lovely, and I was straightforwardly happy with it.
Day two: Forest Adventure Beppu
On the second day we went to Forest Adventure Beppu, part of the adventure-course chain that has sites all over Japan. This was a good day — the courses are well built and my daughter loved it.
If you are heading to Beppu with children, I would happily recommend Forest Adventure. The hotel, I am afraid, I would not.
Beppu SUGINOI HOTEL
Rates and reviews on Agoda
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