Hakone Gora Byakudan

The food was terrible. For this amount of money you would expect the dinner and breakfast to at least taste better than Sukiya, which is not the case here. We paid 1/4 of the money on Miyajima and had 10x better food. We had no choice in where we wanted to eat dinner/breakfast while usually places like this offer kaiseki in your room.
It's easy to miss on the photos but the shower is only present in the sleeping room and its completely revealing, it's not that big of an issue but because it also leads to onsen its easy to let lots of flies / mosquitoes into your room.

Nothing

Service in the restaurant

Literally everything was perfect. No complaints at all. 10/10, 100/100, 1000/1000

The location is a lil bit far to get there

Nothing

It is not the fault of the property but for young foreign travelers (children) the very traditional food was harder to eat. Generally during the day, the expectation is not stay in the hotel public areas from 11am-3pm. New guests are greeted in the lobby lounge and the public onsen are closed. We spent time in the rooms instead which was fine.

Everything was perfect except for two incidents.

When I arrived, the staff welcomed me very warmly and everyone was kind and attentive. However, when I was leaving, there was almost no one there to see me off. Only one young gentleman from the staff noticed and rushed over to say goodbye. It felt a little strange and disappointing, especially because the level of hospitality upon arrival had set such a high expectation, and the departure experience did not quite match it.

The second incident was quite awkward. I simply wanted to order a Coca-Cola to my room, so I called reception. They told me someone would come to my room, and a staff member came all the way up just to tell me that they only provide water and that water is free. I explained that I wanted to ORDER a Coke, as there was a room-service drink menu in the room that clearly listed Cola. He then asked me to wait, left, came back again, and told me that the Coke was not free and would cost 600 yen and that if I still want to order it…. I was honestly very surprised by this interaction. Considering the price of the stay, I obviously was not concerned about paying 600 yen I simply wanted to order the drink. And I made it clear from the beginning. The whole exchange felt unnecessarily long and awkward for such a simple request.

These were very very minor compared with an otherwise wonderful stay, but they stood out because the overall standard of service at the property was so high.