Hakone Ginyu

Hakone's famously hard-to-book inn: 20 rooms, each with a terrace and open-air bath hanging over the Hayakawa gorge — but the room baths are recirculated, and 2026 reviews report long check-in waits, ageing rooms and slipping food

Hakone Ginyu is the inn Japanese travel blogs call the hardest in Japan to book: 20 rooms stacked down the Hayakawa gorge below Miyanoshita, every one with an open terrace, an open-air bath facing the valley and a separate dining room, linked by tatami corridors you walk in white tabi. Bookings are taken by phone from 9:00, a year ahead to the day, though cancellations now reappear on one booking site. The water is the inn's own sodium chloride spring (pH 8.4, about 53°C), but the inn's published bath data shows the in-room baths are recirculated, heated and disinfected, and the two shared baths — Tsukishiro, with its 'infinity' edge over the valley, and Tsukine — mix free-flowing and recirculated water; only the spa's private bath is 100% free-flowing. Japanese guests rate it 4.36 across 72 reviews on one leading site, with baths at 4.67, and bloggers from 2023 to 2025 loved the views and the lavish in-room kaiseki and breakfast. But the 2026 reviews split sharply: alongside praise for surprise celebrations and friendly staff, several guests reported 20–30-minute check-in waits, musty smells, worn furniture, a slimy room-bath floor, insects on the lower floors, few towels and free drinks, and food that has lost its sparkle. Rates run about ¥42,500–66,700 per person with two meals.