I've been skiing in Japan for over 15years and have skied all the usual well known resorts. However Naeba is by far my favourite. When combined with Kagura, Mitsumata and Tashiro - there is plenty of varied terrain to keep all levels of skier happy, both on and off piste. Gorgeous ever changing views from the Dragondola interconnecting all the ski areas. I spent 8 weeks in this area in 22/23 season and absolutely fell in love with it. Plenty of shops, restaraunts/bars to choose from, both at the Prince resort and in Town. Weekly Fire Works displays. Plenty of non skiing activities to enjoy for both the young and young at heart - Skidoo and Snow shoe tours and great kids play areas. The world's only indoor/outdoor learn to ski area for the young ones. A variety of Indoor/Outdoor onsens to choose from. Plenty of cheaper accommodation options available in town through all the well known booking sites. Very convenient commute via direct 70 minute Shinkansen from Tokyo - then 30 minute public bus or shuttle up the mountain. Naeba and Yuzawa is definitely where I will be skiing for my northern hemisphere winters.
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After my first awful trip to Naeba back in 2012, I decided to go again after a few people told me I was just unlucky. My experience has only marginally improved. The problems I pointed out a few years ago still remain. Way too many flat spots in Kagura, but luckily I am a skier. This would be a snowboarder nightmare. Prince Hotel is still way overpriced and there were only a few shops in town with no nightlife. The top of Mt Naeba was windy for the entire week which blew away all the fluffy soft snow. Some lifts are old and lack safety control. Remember to sit down quickly when the lift approaches otherwise it will bruise your calf! While the ski centre had good kids facilities outdoor it is completely different. Besides the two small chairlifts in front of building 4, everything else is too big for kids. Twice is too many. It would take a lot for me to go for a 3rd time.
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Naeba has lots of things going for it and lots of convenient facilities, but it’s not a relaxing holiday with general chaos going on everywhere on the slopes and around the Prince Hotel.

It is fantastic for kids but if you don’t want to be with kids when you’re on holidays it is a nightmare. There’s no sleeping in past 6:30am because there are kids clomping up and down the corridors in their ski boots and yelling. Breakfast is mayhem with lots of little kids running around unsupervised. The Japanese are so paranoid about germs and wear masks, yet they’re happy to let their kids put their hands in all the buffet breakfast food. The crowded locker room in the mornings is also a horrible place to be. The Pandaruman areas should be called Pandemonium, and if the cheesy Looney Tunes music constantly blaring from the speakers doesn’t drive you to distraction, then the “adults music” further up the mountain might (although this is somewhat typical of a lot of Japanese ski resorts).

If you want to go on a Japanese ski holiday and are looking for a “Japanese experience”, you won’t find it at the Prince Hotel. Even though the hotel is huge it feels a little claustrophobic You might need to escape from the Prince Hotel and head up the road to town for a little while to find a piece of the real Japan and find some peace and quiet.
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Christmas day.


We arrived to find no snow. Yes we understand that this does happen. They did have three small trails open but it was granular fake snow. Upon arriving we asked to cancel to with we received a very quick "da-me" (nope in Japanese) so we then asked what they could do for us. If this was Colorado, Canada or in the EU the hotel would have given us free lift tickets, meals or something else to make our stay enjoyable. The manager refused to give us anything. His excuse was that the mountain, hotel, restaurants, and other amenities were all separate businesses even though they all had the "Prince" name on them.

The building is old and dated with visible cracks and damage on the outside. The rooms are small and they have a strange layout. You have to crawl across the bed to access the light switches. T.V. is in Japanese only.

There is a decent food court open from 12-5 with a few choices from pasta to Japanese food. If you are staying in the hotel dinner is VERY expensive. There is a "pizza-la" but it only serves Japanese pizzas (corn and mayo). The rest of the restaurants start at 5,000 yen ($45US) per person and go up from there. There are only Japanese style drinking restaurants in the town and they aren't very family friendly.

There are better places to stay down the road in the Yuzawa area. Avoid this place if you can.
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I have visited 36 ski resorts across Japan so far and this is one of the most disappointing resorts I have visited. There are plenty of flat spots in the mountains (Kagura area), so you need to traverse up hill very often, especially painful for snowboarders. Transportation is awful around town, and no shops open at night, so there is no where to go at night. Shops are not visitors friendly. The resort is owned by Prince Hotel, so everything is overpriced and poor quality. A must avoid area!!!
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Visited Naeba on a guided trip with Epic Ski Adventures. We arrived to ski on a Sunday which is probably not advisable, however there was new snow so there was fresh turns to be had. Majority of people are learner/intermediates so they kept to the groomers.

Our guide was very creative and found mostly untracked lines for us all day.

We loved staying at Pension Heidi and the meals were out of this world. Got to shake hands with Kintaro who owns the lodge and is a world cup ski racer for Japan.
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Naeba was the first resort I visited in a recent trip to Japan. Although the mountain seemed to have limited access for advanced riders/skiers it was still well worth the visit. We had one day at Naeba which was a bluebird day after 20-30cm fresh and then the second day we visited Kagura.

They seemed to have quite a restrictive out of bounds policy/limiting terrain that was in fact not steep at all and very close to existing trails. Some runs seemed spoiled by winding cat-tracks going down to the next lift/s when it could be great open fall line skiing/boarding. We had to duck some ropes at the very top of the mountain (Takenokoyama Pair Lift) to get amongst it and this led to an interesting encounter with local patrol.

After boarding down in an area off piste but quite close to the groomed trail I was stopped by a local patroller. I thought here goes...first day in Japan and ticket is gone....What transpired was he was letting skiers/boarders go down the slope one by one but I could not see the reason why; it was a medium slope right next to main trails and people were just turning up and going down. There was another patroller at the bottom.

Quite a well laid out mountain with access to Kagura - see next review.

Stayed at an awesome pension called Pension Heidi who offered a pickup and drop off service and meals/accomodation were superb at very good prices.
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Naeba is good for intermediates and lower end advanced riders with plenty of steep groomers. Beginners will also be kept happy. Combined with Kagura it gives adequate variety for a 5-7 day holiday, unlike many other Japanese ski resorts that are only good for a day or two.

The Prince Hotel and the resort are amazingly family friendly and have a perfect set up for families. The Prince Hotel might not offer a traditional Japanese experience, but the convenience that it offers is hard to beat. The proximity to Tokyo is another great advantage.

For powderhounds there are probably much better places in Japan to go, but if you’re at Naeba for the family you’ll still find enough off-piste riding to keep you entertained.

For more detailed ratings of Naeba and to see how it compares to other Japanese ski resorts see our powderhounds resort ratings.
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Spending a week in Naeba after being at Shiga and Nozawa we had good places to compare with. Even though day one was coming of age Sunday (pretty much the busiest ski day in Japan), the sheer size of the resort coped well with the crowds.

The terrain at Naeba is superior to that at Kagura which is great for families and green run seekers. The terrain parks are well developed but alas no half pipe and it suffered somewhat in heavy snow falls.

The main downside is difficulty in arranging non Prince Hotel accommodation especially in the more modest cost end of the market.

If you are like many Aussie skiers and like to cover distance during the day, there is plenty of terrain, but you may have to catch the shuttle bus back home. The "Dragondola" linking Naeba and Tashiro (Kagura) is pretty long at 23 minutes, but it did not feel appreciably longer than the gondola at Sunshine (Canada) because of the spectacular scenery.

Tashiro and Kagura are accessed by a ropeway (cable car) which can also be a bit of a drag, especially if the ski out is closed because of too much or too little snow.

How hard is the decision? There's better terrain and skiing than Myoko, but there are significant advantages to be enjoyed in Akakura village (and you have to read that review to know how it rates against other places.
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