This was our second stay at Always Niseko and it was a great pick again for a very well priced hotel in the Niseko market.

We were impressed again with our room. It was modern and whilst it was not a huge room, it was very well thought out with respect to storage and airing/drying of items. There was underbed storage, lots of shelves next to the bathroom, other shelves associated with the hanging space, hooks on the wall, and even the TV was boxed in so that we could store items on top of the TV box. At so many ski hotels in Japan, you have to sprawl things out on the floor because there’s nowhere else to hang or put them, yet they could learn a lot from Always Niseko with respect to functional space that skiers and snowboarders need, considering the amount of gear.

The bathroom had adequate space and was modern in its design. The only downside of the room was the painfully slow internet and the data on our phones didn’t work very well either.

Breakfast was very adequate and had a mix of western and Asian fare, but the food items, coffee and crockery were very slow to be replenished.

The reception staff were amazing. Our check-in was very comprehensive and whenever we wandered through reception, they were very patiently assisting guests with a range of queries about Niseko.

Whilst not right in the thick of Hirafu, the location worked fine for those using the shuttle to the slopes, whilst we had a car and drove to different parts of the hill and to Rusutsu. In the early evenings we caught the hotel shuttle into central Hirafu and the stroll down the hill to get back to the hotel was very easy.

Always Niseko is our sort of hotel – modern and really, really functional – highly recommended.
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Always Niseko took care of us from the very beginning. We arrived early and our room wasn't quite ready for us. Hotel staff let us change into our snowboard gear and held our bags for us so we could get out on the mountain for our first taste of Japow. Our beds were pretty stiff and the room felt small, however it was actually pretty large compared to most japanese hotels. We booked the 2 queen standard room. Service was great, they helped us with the bus schedule and restaurant recommendations. The ski / snowboard storage room is a nice feature and i had no problem trusting my board there. We didn't have any issue with cleanliness during the trip. The location was perfect. A bus took you to town and to the lifts or you can walk and it was less than a mile. It's also all downhill on the way back so if theres snow on the ground you can ski / ride the sidewalk all the way back to the hotel which was a lot of fun. I found that Always Niseko was a great value for the location and the price being on the lower end of hotels in the hirafu area. We scheduled 2 cat-skiing days and neither of the companies van drivers had any problem finding our hotel. Theres a coffee shop with the on the first floor and we ended up having breakfast there
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We really enjoyed our stay at Always Niseko and would more than happily stay there again.

Our room was not particularly large however it was very cleverly designed with ample storage space, hanging space and hooks, and plenty of plugs for charging things including USB ports next to the bed side. And the huge TV with Netflix was a bonus!

The hotel was new and modern and the corridors were very industrial with bare pipes and concrete floors which was pretty funky but it facilitate noise transmission a little.

Whilst the location wasn't perfect, it was only 10 minutes walk to Hirafu Village (down hill on the way home) and the hotel shuttle runs every half hour. And we knew that to have a more convenient location would have cost us three times the price.

The restaurant/bar was nicely decked out and had lovely tables and a nice ambience. The buffet breakfast was pretty decent to get fuelled for a big day out, and it included mostly western friendly fare and a few Japanese items. Good happy hour specials were on offer and we also had dinner there one night which wasn’t that great. The service was close to absent (we had to keep chasing down a waitress) and we had a pizza that was very undercooked.

The hotel service was OK but not fantastic, and probably in line with what you’d expect for the price of the hotel.
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