Hokkaido Hoshino Resorts Tomamu Review — Worth It?

Last Updated on September 21, 2024 by Kay

Hoshino Resorts is a popular hotel chain in Japan and among their most famous hotels is Hoshino Resorts Tomamu.

When we decided to go on a family trip to Hokkaido, my husband and I looked up various hotels separately. We have different tastes when it comes to where to stay so we thought it was a sign when we both had chosen Hoshino Resorts Tomamu as a potential accommodation in Hokkaido. In particular, we were excited about seeing the incredibly famous and stunning unkai (Sea of Clouds), which I’ll talk about later (we had quite an unexpected experience!).

Naturally, we booked it and it was something we were really looking forward to before our trip.

So was Hoshino Resorts Tomamu worth it?

In this article, I’ll share an honest review of our experience staying at Hoshino Resorts Tomamu so you can decide whether it’s worth your time and money.

Where is Hoshino Resorts Tomamu?

Hoshino Resorts Tomamu is located in Furano, about two hours away from Sapporo by both car and train. It’s an hour from the touristy part of Furano, so I wouldn’t stay here if you want easy access to the lavender fields.

If arriving by public transport, you need to take a shuttle bus from Tomamu Station to get to the hotel.

What to Know Before Booking

This resort requires that you stay for at least two nights. At first, I thought this was ridiculous, but as you’ll see in this article, it’s absolutely worth the two-night stay. There’s so much to do that it would be difficult to cram everything in a single day.

It’s also in a bit of a remote area so don’t expect anything to be nearby. However, the hotel provides almost everything you need, from a (slightly overpriced) convenience store to several restaurants and souvenir shops.

Another thing to note is that there are two places to stay in Hoshino Resorts Tomamu.

One is Tomamu The Tower, which is closer to the outdoor areas, courtyard, and free lounge. The other is RISONARE, which is a bit farther but has far more spacious rooms (all are more than 100 square meters!) with jet baths and saunas.

Lastly, the resort grounds are massive. It’s walkable but you may need to take a shuttle bus that runs every 15 minutes.

Facilities and Activities at Hoshino Resorts Tomamu

There are a ton of facilities and activities at this resort. Below are just a few of them:

• Indoor pool
• Public open-air bath
• Farm with animals (summer)
• Outdoor activities during summer and autumn such as riding carts and buggies, tennis, fishing, horseback riding, hot air balloon rides, rafting, etc.
• Snow activities in winter such as snowboarding, skiing, sledding, ice fishing
• Unkai Terrace from May to October (I’ll go in-depth about our experience later in this article)
• Ice Village from December to March (you can try ramen in an ice bowl, skate, go down an ice slide, try ice drinks and desserts, etc)
• Many, many, restaurants
• Small indoor play areas

Our Stay and Review

We stayed at Hoshino Resorts Tomamu, specifically Tomamru The Tower, at the end of August.

Check-in is from 3 PM but we arrived at 6:30 PM. I wish we had arrived earlier because it would have been nice to enjoy the resort grounds more, especially because it rained the next day! You can also use the resort facilities, such as the pool, before check-in, just check with the front desk. My advice is to either check in an hour before or after 3 PM because I imagine it must be quite busy right when check-in starts.

While my husband checked in, my five-year-old daughter enjoyed a free popsicle in the lobby, which is available for guests of all ages during summer.

A Look Inside Our Room at Tomamu The Tower

Once we got our room keys, we chose our amenities from the lobby. They had toothbrushes, combs, hair ties and razors, but I couldn’t find any toothbrushes for kids. Later we found that RISONARE had the children’s toothbrushes, but not Tomamu The Tower for some reason.

We stayed in a Family Twin Room, which was spacious enough but I thought it was a little worn and there was a stain on the wall that looked like someone had spilled some juice. But the bathroom was clean, and for me, that’s good enough. We wouldn’t be spending much time in our room anyway!

The view of the mountains from the room was quite lovely despite the bad weather. Personally, one thing I love about Japan is when the weather is rainy and the mountains are kissed by clouds. I find it beautiful, maybe a little mysterious.

For families with babies and toddlers, the hotel has a Baby’s Room that comes with a diaper bin, potty ring, step stool, baby wipes, and other amenities for kids.

And for large families, they have a Family Quint Room that fits five people.

The Courtyard and Dinner

After dropping off our luggage, we quickly headed down to the courtyard to enjoy the bonfire, which is something I really miss doing as a Canadian. If you’re from a smaller city in North America, you might not be as impressed as I was with the courtyard because it’s something you likely see every day.

For me, all the trees and greenery reminded me of my hometown in Canada.

My daughter enjoyed running on the lawn and around the trees while my husband and I enjoyed some free sparkling wine from the lounge. The lounge also has Hokkaido milk (which my daughter had), coffee, and tea, and best of all, it’s all you can drink (just don’t go too crazy)! It was really nice to sit outside, smell the bonfire, and sip from our drinks while admiring the night sky.

Guests staying during the summer can also enjoy fireworks. The fireworks are twice in July and only once in August. We didn’t expect much but the fireworks were very impressive.

After watching the fireworks, we headed to Hotalu Street, which is an area with small restaurants. It’s a little bit of a walk away (a little less than ten minutes from the courtyard) but you can reach it through connecting passages in the resort.

I loved the ambiance of Hotalu Street, which had rows of restaurants in small cabin-like buildings. There was even another bonfire outside.

Hotalu Street has popular Hokkaido chain restaurants like SOUP CURRY GARAKU and Ramen TAKEZOU as well as original restaurants featuring Hokkaido specialties such as Hokkaido Jingiskan KING, so there’s plenty to choose from. However, these restaurants can be busy during peak times such as around 6-7 PM.

We decided to have dinner at CAMARO Steak Diner, which had high reviews and offered Hokkaido beef. My husband got the HOSHIZORA sirloin steak and I got the fillet while our daughter got a kids’ hamburger steak plate. We all thoroughly enjoyed our meals and I would gladly get steak from here again. It was so tender, juicy, and flavorful!

When we were happily stuffed, we headed back to our room to sleep.

Breakfast Buffet

Sadly, it was going to rain the entire day so we decided to check out Mina-Mina Beach after having breakfast.

Our stay included buffet breakfasts for two mornings and we could choose from four restaurants. Since it was raining, we didn’t want to walk to another building so we settled on Buffet Dining hal, which is located in Hotel Alpha Tomamu.

Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone else had the same idea because when we got there at 8:30 AM, there was already a huge line of people waiting! Thankfully, it moved quickly and we were seated around 20 minutes later. I can see this being a problem, though, with people who arrive even later because breakfast ends at 9:30 AM sharp. So don’t be late — the earlier the better!

Although it’s nice not to be forced into a certain time slot when it comes to breakfast, as is common at most hotels and ryokan in Japan, I can see why it is a necessity to prevent people from waiting and potentially missing out on enjoying their breakfast.

Another important thing to point out is that we had to pay for breakfast for our daughter (1400 yen) because we chose a bed-sharing plan so her stay was free.

After trying many, many buffet meals at hotels in Japan, I will honestly say that the buffet breakfast at Buffet Dining hal was pretty good! I loved the variety of food, ranging from Western to Japanese, and everything tasted fresh and delicious. They’re especially known for their salmon bowls and French toast so make sure you get those!

The melon was also awesome and much better than the one we had from Farm Tomita in Furano.

Our daughter also got children’s cutlery, a bib (that she refused to wear), and some wet wipes to clean her up. The restaurant also offers baby food for those who need it.

Although we had about 40 minutes to eat, we were delightfully full within 30 minutes.

A Day at Mina-Mina Beach

We decided to go to Mina-Mina Beach by our car instead of the shuttle bus, so my husband grabbed it while we waited outside the restaurant.

Mina-Mina Beach is free to use by people staying at Hoshino Resort Tomamu. We arrived right when it opened at 10 AM, which was perfect timing. We got our towels and locker passes from the reception and then headed to the changing rooms. If you don’t have a bathing suit, you can rent one for an additional charge.

If you have tattoos, you need to buy a cover for them.

Before entering the changing room, you need to take off your shoes. This can be tricky if you’re holding a bunch of things and/or have a kid like I did, but it’s okay to leave your shoes in the entrance, put your things in the locker, and then go back and get your shoes.

You’re free to choose any locker you want and after changing into your swimsuit and inputting your passcode (anything number combination you want), make sure to put your blue locker pass with your name facing forward — otherwise you’ll have trouble finding your locker!

Once changed, we headed to the pool. Right before you get to the pool entrance, you’ll have to step inside some chilly water, which was a little weird to me (I would have preferred just a shower).

The indoor pool is fairly large and divided into three sections — a shallow end and a somewhat deeper end (both for swimming), and a deep end for water activities.

You can rent a floaty for 1600 yen, which at first I thought was expensive but it turns out, you can exchange them at any time so you can try out as many as you want! We definitely took advantage of this and had a lot of fun riding on giant ducks or bananas.

Armbands and life jackets are free to rent.

The main pool is a wave pool, which makes riding on the floaties even more fun. My daughter didn’t want to get out! (I am not kidding, she was very upset when we made her leave after four hours — she didn’t even want lunch.)

There is also a smaller pool filled with colorful balls just for babies and toddlers, as well as four hot tubs.

For those who want to do water activities, they have paddleboarding, slacklining (which my husband did and enjoyed), as well as a cyber wheel (only available at certain times).

For those who want to fuel up, there are two restaurants where you can eat — Mina Mina Cafe on the second floor and Beachside Cafe. Beachside Cafe, located at the back of the pool, is probably the best place to go if you don’t want to change.

Overall, the pool was somewhat crowded and the large floaties could at times take up too much room, but it was still an enjoyable experience. I had been wanting to take my daughter to a pool all summer so this was perfect. When we left at around 2 PM, there were fewer people compared to around 11 AM so I think the afternoon might be less busy.

Kirin-no-Yu Open Air Bath

After we finished swimming, we decided to clean off at Kirin-no-Yu, the open-air bath, which opened at 1 PM. Make sure you get your change of clothes first from the changing room (leave your shoes) and a fresh towel and locker key from a desk near the front of the pool.

The entrance of Kirin-no-Yu is right next to the pool, which made me wonder what people who didn’t use the pool but wanted to enjoy the open-air bath did.

Kirin-no-Yu offers a very beautiful view of a forest and a small grassy field. We were very lucky when we went because it stopped raining momentarily, so we could relax without getting poured on.

It’s completely fine to take kids into the onsen and I saw a woman with her toddler in the bath as well. (If you’re interested in knowing more about onsen etiquette with kids, read this article.)

When we were done, we changed and then headed back to the pool changing room to get our socks and shoes. Here I made a mistake — I put on my socks as well as my daughter’s while in the changing room but the carpeted floor was wet, so our socks became wet! Don’t make the same mistake as us, wait until you’re at the exit to put on your socks.

There’s a small play area next to the entrance of Mina-Mina Beach that has floaties kids can play with outside of the water, so my daughter played there briefly while we waited for my husband to bring the car. It was quite humid there, though, so I was happy to leave.

More Food at Tomamu

Since we didn’t have lunch, we decided to head back to Hotalu Street to get some food. I had been eying the yuzu ramen at Ramen Takezou so we decided to go there.

My husband decided to get a Tokachi pork bowl, which is one of Hokkaido’s famous foods, and I got my shoyu (soy sauce) yuzu ramen. We shared both with our daughter.

The ramen had thin noodles that had the perfect amount of chew to them and the broth was flavorful with yuzu and not too salty. I don’t usually like broth but I drank the bowl until it was empty.

My daughter liked the Tokachi pork bowl, which was juicy with a sweet soy sauce flavor, but the yuzu ramen was a little too sour for her.

Afterward, we decided to share a bowl of soup curry from GARAKU, mainly because we didn’t want to come back during dinnertime and wait. I was quite shocked to see that the Tomamu branch of GARAKU charges almost twice as much as usual for their bowls of soup curry! But it was too late, we had sat down and my husband thought it was embarrassing to leave so we sucked the price up.

The Hokkaido fillet steak soup curry was delightful with the perfect amount of spice. Sure, it was expensive but it was worth it because we wouldn’t have had another chance to enjoy it during our Hokkaido trip. My daughter was full so she had a strawberry lassi, which she loved.

After eating, we decided to check out what RISONARE looked like.

The Tunnel Walk to RISONARE really showed how dated the resort is, but in Japan, many of these large hotels were developed in the 80s, so it’s expected. This is something I’m now used to after living in Japan for fifteen years.

The reception was considerably smaller than Tomamu The Tower. The lounge also had a smaller selection of drinks and no sparkling wine, which was surprising to me since RISONARE is more expensive to stay at. It had a nice selection of books, though.

The children’s indoor playground was much larger and better than Tomamu The Tower. It had lots of foam blocks and books whereas Tomamu The Tower had almost nothing in the playground for some reason.

My husband was feeling tired so he headed back to the room while my daughter and I went to Tomamu Wine House. We got a cheese platter, which was very good, while I tried 30 ml of wine. My daughter had an 800 yen bottle of grape juice.

I’m not sure how I feel about Tomamu Wine House. The service wasn’t great and the wine is really overpriced. When I was very specific about the kind of wine I wanted, though, the sommelier was able to find something I liked. But I wish they were more proactive, I almost felt like I was a nuisance at times. This was the only place in the resort where I wasn’t impressed with the service.

Afterward, we headed back to our room to sleep because we had an early day.

Our Unkai Terrace Experience

Unkai (雲海) means “sea of clouds” and the Unkai Terrace is undoubtedly what Hoshino Resort Tomamu is most known for from late spring to early autumn. The chance to see the unkai or sea of clouds blanketing the town below varies daily depending on the weather, so the hotel shares this information on the television in the room and throughout the hotel.

You have to get up very early to see the unkai, which means you might hear people making noise in the next room at 4 AM like we did. The later you go, the less chance you’ll have to see it. The gondola also stops at around 7 AM or 8 AM, depending on the time of year.

On the first morning of our stay at Tomamu, there was a 20% chance that we would be able to see the unkai and it was raining, so we decided to forgo it. However, the second morning was the day we would check out and our last chance to see it. Luckily, the chance increased to 30%.

You can drive to the gondola that will take you to Unkai Terrace but we decided to take the bus because we were worried about parking. At 5 AM, we boarded the bus and were at the gondola in 10 minutes. We didn’t have to wait very long to get on and guests staying at Hoshino Resorts Tomamu can board for free.

There are different colors of gondolas and apparently the blue one with clouds on it is lucky, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to ride it. There is a cute cow-themed one as well but alas, we didn’t get that one either.

The ride up took about ten minutes so it’s quite long, but the view is lovely. It was lightly raining and dreary, though, so we were worried we wouldn’t be able to see anything.

However!

Once we made it to the top, the weather started to clear up and we saw the unkai! It was absolutely majestic and almost otherworldly. Now, I don’t think it was a perfect unkai because it wasn’t like a fluffy unbroken sea of clouds below us but the staff said that the one we saw was rare and still noteworthy.

There’s a path that will take you to various spots where you can see the unkai from different angles and take different Insta-worthy photos. You might need to wait to take photos at certain spots depending on how busy it is.

Make sure you wear sturdy shoes because there’s lots of climbing and walking involved. It’s also colder at Unkai Terrace so dress warmly. It was summer when we went but we still wore jeans, long-sleeved shirts, and jackets.

Overall we spent an hour outside exploring and taking photos.

Now, interestingly, there was a Japanese television show being filmed right when we went featuring a very famous star from the 80s, Hiroko Yakushimaru. I found it interesting how people recognized her but were respectful and didn’t say a thing or take photos. At one point, I was just minding my own business chilling on the Cloud Walk observation deck and she was right next to me! I had never heard of her before in my life before my (Japanese) husband told me about her but she seemed pretty down to earth. I wish I could have seen the show they filmed!

Our daughter was pretty fussy while we were at Unkai Terrace, perhaps because she had to wake up early and didn’t feel like walking. But she cheered up when we had her write postcards to her family in Japan and Canada. We then sent them via UNKAI Post, the cutest blue post box I’ve ever seen. It only cost 200 yen to send an Unkai postcard to Canada and my family member received it three weeks later!

We then took her to KUMO Cafe at Unkai Terrace. We got a hot chocolate with a cloud-shaped marshmallow for her, a coffee for my husband, cloud macaroons, and their famous Cloud Soft Serve ice cream.

The ice cream was amazingly good, made with fresh Hokkaido milk, and it was perfect for sharing among the three of us. I would skip the macaroons, though.

When we were done, we headed back down and thankfully there was no line for the gondola.

Note that the Unkai Terrace is only open from May to October.

Breakfast and Checking Out

We took the bus to Village Alpha and had breakfast at Forest Restaurant Nininupuri, which had almost the exact same spread as Buffet Dining hal. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait and were seated right away.

The restaurant also had fresh soft-serve ice cream, but we already had our fill at Kumo Cafe so we decided not to get any.

For those who want some beer or wine with their breakfast (because hey, you’re on vacation!), they also have a drink bar. Note that the drinks are not included in the buffet and are sold for an additional charge.

When we were done, we wanted to see if we could squeeze in some activities such as riding on a cart before checking out. However, it was lightly raining and we decided it wasn’t worth the additional cost in lousy weather. (Unlike the pool, outdoor activities cost extra.)

It was a little disappointing but our daughter still had fun looking at the cute calves.

Is Hoshino Resorts Tomamu Worth It?

It’s a little tough to say whether Hoshino Resorts Tomamu is worth the stay. It’s pricey during their peak seasons, which makes sense because they offer experiences like fireworks and the Unkai Terrace in summer and snow activities, such as a skiing and ice fishing in winter. Some of their restaurants like GARAKU are quite expensive as well.

Personally, I wouldn’t stay here if I didn’t have kids unless I really felt like relaxing in one place that has it all.

As a parent, I think this is an excellent place to stay with young kids. Teenagers? Probably not.

The resort has lots of activities for children and parents can relax as well (I’m looking at you, free sparkling wine). I had a great time even though it rained. If I went again, I might try to stay in early October before the Unkai Terrace closes or go in winter to experience their Ice Village.

If you’re interested in staying at Hoshino Resorts Tomamu, you can find more information about RISONARE here and Tomamu The Tower here.