The Westin is an exceptional hotel with Apartment style rooms. Our apartment was huge. Ours was a loft with bedrooms upstairs and downstairs where we had a big lounge, kitchen, separate toilet, bathroom and shower. We had incredible views of the snow and mountains. It was extremely comfortable particularly after a big day of skiing. The staff were amazing and couldn't do enough for you. In partular Faustine Chadaillac on reception was wonderful. She checked us in and provided us with all of the information we needed. She even helped us hire Ski gear and arranged our lift tickets. Nothing was a bother and she always did it with a smile. The location was great but you needed to catch the monorail to the slopes. The breakfast and dinner buffets in the Atrium were exceptional. Even room service was quick and tasty albeit a lot of the meals were small. The Japanese restaurant Kazahana was delicious. The hotel and the restaurants were well worth the splurge.

Kitchen amenities e.g. plates and cutlery were lacking

Room was a loft, for our family of 3 - 3 beds upstairs only (entry level) and a living room/kitchen/bathroom/toilet downstairs. 2 large bay windows with breathtaking views. In-house dining and room service prices were excellent for this 5-star hotel. December/January seafood buffet was well-priced (6600 yen per adult). Loved the jacuzzi as it was infused with different scents each day, eg Grapefruit & Lemongrass, Lavendar & Camomile, etc but the onsen is located at the other end of The Westin. Rusutsu Resort is connected via monorail (more activities for kids from primary school to high school age, ie games arcade, wave pool, dancing water lights, two onsens, more shops and dining, etc). The activities at that hotel are free for Westin guests. I found that resort to be kitsch (think Las Vegas hotels' lobbies) and found the Westin quieter and away from the hustle and bustle. Rusutsu Resort has direct access to the West Mountain whereas at the Westin, there is a short hike (tiring on skis & snowboard) to the gondola which takes us to the East Mountain.

Very limited English speaking staff. Shout out to Wakana Ohno (Front Desk) for looking after us. She explained lack of workers post-Covid. One of the difficulties we had was ordering food from a picture and getting something totally different (we found out Afternoon Tea selections were at the chef's discretion, despite advertising the December/January special). I tried explaining to staff it would have been nice to be told at the time of ordering. Outdoor onsen faces a high wall (on the other side was a distant view of a carpark). We were spoiled at the outdoor onsen at The Hilton Niseko hence the harsh comparison. The child in the upstairs loft thumping up and down the stairs until 11:00pm most nights and first thing in the morning. The toilet being downstairs, especially if you need to go in the middle of the night.

Good Ski Slope Good Ski resort Good Hotel Staff

Close to the ski lift

waiting time too long for breakfast table

Nice views, great breakfast, available tea and coffee. Wonderful Onsen.

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Location, facility, hospitality, Onsen.

No fan in bathroom. The toilet paper is not doubled.

Really nice sized room split across two floors, really good breakfast and dinner. Great location and really beautiful onsen.

The fact there was only one toilet in the room and it was on the bottom floor of the split level room when the bedroom is at the top of the stairs.

Overall, the facilities of the Westin are the best in the area. As compared to the older Rusutsu Resort Hotel across the street and even the new Vale (which was too far from the ski slopes we loved - on Mt Isola), the Westin has the best location and is quieter (which we liked). We also really appreciated the overseas staff at the hotel, who were not only happy to help but were solution oriented. They were able to understand our situation and quickly come up with suggestions, on numerous occasions.

The hotel is not truly ski-in/ski-out in that there is quite a hike - in your ski boots while carrying skis (and for those of us with young children, also carrying their skis) - walking for a good 5-10 min to get to the chairlift. The path is fairly flat but at times at an incline too - so on both the out and in journeys, you may be going uphill at various stages of that walk. So quite tiring especially at the end of the day, or in the morning while dealing with kids and your own equipment. Not sure what the Westin can do about it immediately - but as soon as they are looking at an upgrade, would suggest they think about how to improve that linkage between the hotel and the chair lift. Given covid, the hotel management need to train their staff to adapt more to the new times and the changing demands from customers, especially during this (continuing) pandemic year. The staff (especially the local Japanese ones) will need to be more flexible and more capable of dealing with situations different from their past experience or outside of what they were trained to do. For example, there will be more customers who need to work from their rooms (while the family is out skiing) - so room cleaning staff need to adjust their usual routine. We had one local cleaning crew who continued to say the usual Japanese phrases that they always say when entering or leaving the room, and coming to ask how many towels we wanted etc etc., while i was on a Zoom work call. All we wanted was for the cleaner to just clean the room and avoid talking to the working parent (who was in the middle of an important meeting) - and if they had questions, “do the best they can” and figure something out. (On the towel question - they can perhaps guess based on the number of beds in that unit, or the number of dirty towels they were swapping out). Another example. Past customers must not have ordered room service that much, neither did we when we visited this hotel pre covid.

Sweet & happy staff. Would definitely recommend & love to go back!

Great, spacious accommodation. Easy access for skiing and plenty of food options available

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