If you are looking for a reasonable hotel with nice private hot spring experience, you came to the right place!
Here, I will explain what’s special about this hotel, Humming Bird.
<Onsen Experience>
I’ve been living in Japan for 40+ years, but I can’t find any other Onsen Hotel where you can secure Onsen bath just for your couple/family with no extra charge, as many time as you want 24 hours!! Well, of course you will have to work it out wtih other guests.. But, there are 4 onsen baths at the hotel, two outside and two inside, and right now the hotel accepts only 3 families for weekdays and 5 for weekends, so… you will have a fair chance!
< Food>
They serve decent breakfast & dinner using local ingredients.
I mean, it’s 5500~ / night (as of Dec 2020), breakfast & dinner included.., you cannot expect 5 star chef’s cook, right? lol
But still, they serve good deer stake, beef stew in good volume at night depending on the day, and they are all delicious!
<Price>
I guarantee you that you can never ever find any other hot spring hotel with private hot spring experience with this price range!! You might have already found but private onsen experience usually comes at a cost. The trick is.. the owner is a retired woman, and she probably needs just enough money to get by. Well, this is just my assumption though.. Oh, btw, I am just a regluar here, not an owner or not even a worker. I’m just one of the repeaters who helped create this web page volunteely..
＜Access by train＞
There are a couple of routes to get to Humming Bird from Tokyo Sta.
The fastest & most convinient way is to use an express train & a taxi, but you probably need to reserve taxi in advance. Unfortunately, there are only 2~4 local busses running a day from “Yunishikawa Onsen” train sta. to “Yunishikawa Onsen” bus stop which is the closest stop from Humming Bird. My case, going from “Yunishikawa Onsen” sta. to “Yunishikawa Onsen” bus stop is always the bottle neck. You also want to double check the bus’s time schedule before you start off.
Below is one example.
9:18 Tokyo – 9:35 Kita Senjyu
(JR Tokyo Ueno Line)
9:43 Kitasenjyu – 11:57 Yunishikawa Onsen
(Tobu Nikko line Express)
12:30 Yunishikawa Onsen Sta. – 12:55 Yunishikawa Onsen
(Local bus)
Now, tricky part is the bus stop names. There is a bus stop called “Yunishikawa Onsen Eki” (or Yunishikawa Onsen Sta.) which is the bus stop at Yunishikawa Onsen train station, and another one is “Yunishikawa Onsen” which is the closest bus stop from Hunming Bird.
Don’t worry, you are not alone.. I am a native Japanese speaker, but it still confuses me alot lol
Also, depending on when you start off, the route varies dramatically, so sometimes you don’t need to take an express train, but sometimes local trains take much longer..
Anyways… Good luck!