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. If you have small children in Japan you have probably considered RISONARE Atami at some point. I had known about it for years and kept putting it off precisely because it is close — “we can go any time”. We finally went.
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Why this one
Reason one: how easy it is to reach from Tokyo. From Shinagawa the Shinkansen gets you to Atami in a little over forty minutes, and it is another ten to fifteen minutes by taxi to the hotel. If this is your first trip with a child and you are nervous about a long journey, this is the one to start with.
Reason two: the rooms are large. Even the smallest category is over 60 square metres, so it works even at the crawling stage.
The building
Arrivals come in at the tenth floor, and the lobby opens into an atrium down to the ninth. There is hammock-style seating, craft activities, and a large climbing wall built into the atrium wall.
The climbing wall cannot be booked before you arrive: on the day, you write your name on a sheet near the wall. It is extremely popular and the slots go almost immediately, so write your name down the moment you arrive.
The room
We stayed in the smallest category, the Superior View, and it was more than enough space. I liked that the tatami section can be closed off — once your child is asleep you do not have to sit in the dark.
The bathroom has a separate washing area and is generous, and there is a communal bath as well. The building itself is showing its age in places, but the interiors have been fully renovated and were beautiful.
Activities: book them immediately
If you take one thing from this post: book the activities at the same moment you book the room. The number of slots is clearly far too small for the size of the hotel, and they fill instantly. A child who does not get to do the thing they wanted has a sad trip. I am labouring this deliberately.
You walk through a tunnel that would not look out of place in a Ghibli film to reach the activity area.
Treetop walk. A proper harness and a genuinely high ropes course. Minimum age is five, so check that. The instructor explains the harness carefully and helps if anyone gets stuck partway, so there is nothing to worry about. My daughter loves heights and thrills and was ecstatic; I like moving about too, so I was as bad as she was. Three other families were doing it at the same time and by the end she and another girl her age were inseparable. One note: I was bitten by mosquitoes even in autumn, so bring repellent and something for the bites.
The pool. I forgot to photograph it. It is neither large nor elaborate, so I would allow twenty to thirty minutes before children lose interest. Swimsuits are hired for a fee; rings and kickboards are free.
The climbing wall. We changed quickly and went back to the lobby for our booked slot. Harnesses again, with an instructor who explains how to use them properly, and indoor shoes are lent to you so you need not bring any. Adults can climb too — if you want to, put a name down per person when you sign up.
We ran out of time, but there is also fruit barbecue and a forest exploration group among the other activities.
Dinner, and a pastry chef
Dinner comes round quickly. During dinner there is a patisserie session, so my daughter changed clothes for it and made a dessert. The content varies by season; hers was a sweet potato and apple tart. The difficulty was pitched about right for a six-year-old and it took around ten minutes.
Then straight on to the buffet at Mogu Mogu. The range is enormous, Japanese through to Western, and there is rice porridge and vegetable puree for babies. The fish dishes were surprisingly good; the meat is standard family-buffet quality. My daughter became fixated on the clam miso soup and had three bowls.
And the day is still not over
After dinner comes fireworks. It is called the Fireworks School, and it starts, as the name suggests, with a lesson: the history of fireworks in Atami, why fireworks burn red or blue, all delivered as a quiz.
Then the hand-held fireworks themselves. They all appear to be RISONARE’s own, and they are spectacular. There is nowhere in Tokyo to do this, so my daughter was thrilled.
Day two: the treehouse and a fishing trip
We started with the treehouse, which needs no booking, and then went out on the “fishing and lunch” tour.
You drive about twenty minutes from the hotel, then take a boat for a minute or two out to a fishing pen set on the sea. The sea was rough the day we went and the pen rocked considerably — if you are prone to seasickness, be aware (though it is not the sustained motion of a boat journey).
There are pens for sea bream and for horse mackerel. The horse mackerel would not bite at all. My daughter started saying “is it not going to happen? Can we go home?” and I began to panic — and then the sea bream took the bait within seconds and it was fine. If nothing is biting, ask one of the men working there: they have all sorts of tricks and will help you.
After the hour is up you move to a restaurant right beside the pen, where they cook what you caught. You choose the preparation — salt grilled, sashimi, simmered, deep fried. And if you catch nothing they provide the fish anyway, so nobody goes hungry. My daughter loved the deep-fried horse mackerel and ate a whole one by herself.
So — RISONARE Atami, which is packed with things to do. The one thing to remember is booking the activities early. There will be a test.
Book Hoshino Resorts RISONARE Atami
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