Okunoin Hotel Tokugawa

The hidden gem and the highlight of our stay in Japan. It was excellent service and hospitality from the first step! We were sitting in the dining area with a fantastic view of a Japanese garden and enjoyed our complimentary drink when checking in our room. The food: we ordered kaiseki dinner and breakfast, and everything was fresh and delicious. The private bath offers an amazing view for 2000 yen for 45 minutes. And the Japanese garden is a beautiful & peaceful garden with bird songs and water flow sound. I highly recommend this place; we will definitely come back next time.

Booked the room with outdoor bath, and also a session of private bath in the building. Room was super and sufficient space for more people to lodge. Dinner and breakfast represent local style of cuisine and ingredients. Garden and surrounding area were beautiful and tranquil. Highly valued ryokan compared with others across the country. Special thanks to the gentleman at frontdesk, who drove us back from the hotel, and helped arranging our itinerary.

After a few days in Tokyo, my friend and I took the Tobu express to Nikko from Asakusa Station (Tokyo) was picked up by the hotel shuttle. The hotel was two miles away - just off the Main Street. It was quiet, clean, and just a lovely setting. We had a beautiful room with a deck right next to the lovely creek. We loved the second floor - easy to meals (private room and yes you can wear your kimono), and easy to the baths. We paid extra for the private baths, but the others are just as lovely with two indoor baths and a beautiful outdoor stone bath as well. I can’t tell you how nice, gracious, lovely, pleasant, sincere and responsible the staff was! They were Japanese hospitality at its very very best. The one thing to know is that you can’t check in until 3 or 4 pm - we arrived at 11 am so we put our luggage in our locker and walked around. We found a great lunch - Giglio (we were ready for Italian). We met the shuttle at 2:45 pm. We stayed for 4 nights so we could hike and really explore the area. We also had an early train back to Tokyo for one night before flying home. There were no taxis in the morning for our 8:50 am train departure. We either had to take a bus (they are very very efficient). Or wait for the 9 am shuttle and book a later departure. I bring this up so you can coordinate or train arrivals and departures with hotel transportation. I will say that most everything does not open until 10 am so getting there early may not work to your benefit. Anyway, we loved our accommodates including the authentic Japanese breakfasts and lunches - one morning we did have a western breakfast. Enjoy … a special place. PS It is also walking distance to the world heritage shrines/complex (go early to avoid the crowds).