Lotte Arai Resort

Lotte Arai Resort offers an exceptional experience for those seeking breathtaking views and excellent skiing opportunities. The resort’s stunning surroundings and convenient location make it an ideal destination for winter enthusiasts.

We booked this hotel for 4 days 3 nights and ended up checking out early. Lotte Arai resort is still about 30 mins away from JoetsuMyoko station. The resort offers free shuttle ride to the train station but it will need to be reserved in advanced. It's located in a remote area away from the city. It takes about 10 min taxi ride to the nearest convinence store so you are pretty much stuck in the resort. The resort does not have the feel of Japanese hospitality that we were accustomed to while traveling in Japan. The resort is filled with foreigners and feels like an average ski resort back at home. The resort is fairly large and consists of couple buildings accessible through internal walkways. The resort is kept well but it is not luxury as other reviews have mentioned. The most annoying thing is that there is a wood burning fireplace in the lobby. The smoke is trapped in the lobby area through the 2nd floor making it hard to breathe. A good size room and the bathroom is large. The room is equipped with an annoying automatic sensor foyer light that turns on automatically whenever you are in the foyer area. The rolling bathroom door is also annoying since it makes a lot of noise. Both items makes it hard to stay quiet while sharing your room with others. Our room was in the hallway of going to the onsen so noise is an issue with the foot traffic. There is a sign that tells guest to be quiet but nobody pays attention. It does have different things you can do but most of them cost money. The room costs comes with breakfast for adults only. There's a charge for children. The onsen facility is included in the cost of the hotel room. Lotte charges for the indoor pool even for hotel guests. They also have billards, ping pong, karaoke, adventure park, washer/dryer all for a fee to use. One note about the laundry facility, it is constantly packed with people. Especially guests who forget to pull their clothes out of the machines. Their dryer is also completely useless! It doesn't even dry your clothes with 1 hour drying time. This causes a huge delay of people waiting for dryers. Since there is nothing around the resort, your option is to find dinner at the resort or take a taxi to a restaurant. For lunch there is a food hall at the village. It is pricey and food is medicore. We did the dinner buffet at The Plate and it was abosultely disappointing. Our reservation time was at 6:45 and when we arrived there was no food left. Many of the plates/displays were all empty. The restaurant could not keep up with the demand of the idea of a buffet. The buffet is expensive and we barely got to eat anything decent. The best part of this resort is the onsen. You can tell there are some bathtubs that are not kept up but overall the facility is large and has a beautiful outdoor soaking tub. This was the highlight of the stay. Overall, if you are there to hit the slopes the resort is fine. But if you are not hitting the slopes and trying to pass the time, it w