Shizukuishi Prince Hotel - Shizukuishi

SHIZUKUISHI
Iwate

The Mountain
Shizukuishi is located in Iwate prefecture in the far north of the main island of Honshu. Shizukuishi boasts a combination of beautiful natural views of Mt. Iwate, long exciting trails, and superb quality snow thanks to the cold, dry air that blows down from the north. The 13 scenic trails take full advantage of the natural terrain to provide plenty of variety, with the longest trail stretching to a thigh burning 4,500m.  It is a good sized resort with challenging courses.  

Where to stay
We reccomend staying at the Shizukuishi Prince Hotel, which is a ski in ski out resort hotel in the Iwate region. The outdoor Onsen is pretty unique and there is a pond right next to it and you can see the KOI (carp) fish swimming around near you. It is a little creepy but funny at night. The hotel offers free shuttle bus service from JR Morioka station, which is a major shinakens stop. 

31 January, 2025

Shizukuishi is not a large resort by any means but having access to the nearby resort Iwate Kogen make the destination well worth a visit. All in all we had a fantastic week.

One suggestion for the Prince hotel would be to offer a shuttle bus service to Iwate Kogen as booking a taxi wasn’t without difficulty.

Graham

16 January, 2025

We had another great trip to Shizukuishi the accommodation was great and a perfect location to base yourself in the Iwate area. We had great snow for the beginning of the trip then was a bit light and then good before we left. Shizukusihi does not get as much snow as other parts of Japan and could be a bit boring for most. We hike a lot and get rewarded for the effort. There is plenty of other mountains in the area to do day trips as long as you have a car.

We will be in touch shortly to book next year.

Regards,

Nigel Neubauer

04 January, 2025

It was my least favourite place for skiing I have stayed in.

Food was lower quality than other places. I am seriously allergic to pork which was very difficult there to avoid as they put it in a huge amount of things or pork oil and there was much less of this at other places

I had to go to the hotel every day, on the mtn and baee lifts it was all pork, at other mtns always was a choice with fish.  The luncheon at the hotel offered only had one thing with a pork, and it was some 2 shrimps and a bit of rice and a small tad of greens, and we had to convince them over a series of days to spruce it up a little bit and offer us other things, and it was stupidly expensive for almost nothing, and it took a lot of time out of the day to come down off the mountain. They just seem to be completely unable to conceive that they should have offerings that didn't have pork in them or pork oil. It was kind of shocking, because at many other places we stayed, and there's always alternatives even at quite small ski hills like a fish Ramen. At this place to fish, Roman, or the chicken Ramen there always have pork in it. Even at the smaller ski hills, they seem to understand that if they make some thing with chicken, it should be all chicken not with pork these guys seem to be like from another era. 

To go into the village was an $80 cab ride return, and if you wanted to take the shuttle after skiing to the city, you only had two hours before you have to come back. Basically, we felt trapped and not happy.

In future, I will be much more careful about where I book it seem like it was quite a good deal, and I read about it a fair bit before deciding to book there. As a comparison, we booked with you two years ago at semi onsen ryokan near Ghetto kogen and it was a lovely place and in the same pricing as this one.

We just tried to make the best of it well there, but we couldn't shake the part that we didn't like about being there, which was a whole bunch of small things which added up to really never want to go there again.

We also couldn't believe that a hotel like this wouldn't have an ATM, and that forced us to go to the village and go to dinner there because we were completely running out of money and nowhere. Did they take credit cards except in the hotel not on the mountain.

The staff were very polite and trying to do their best, but the place is not well managed.

We have stayed in a number of older hotels since about five trips in 15 years of coming to Japan, and not all of those have been that good, but this one definitely one the ticket, it filled out a bunch of levels

The snow was OK but nothing like we had further north.  We should,have stayed in Aomori prefecture as the snow was better

Overall, we had a great time in Japan, and will definitely be coming back

Thanks for asking. I would've not got around to giving you my comments.

Neal

Early Feb 2024 

Firstly, we love Japan, the people, the culture, so much beauty! This was a nice variation from the other resorts. The food was very nice but it was the same each night. Other resorts change up the menu which is nice. The runs were not overcrowded, the snow fall was down on previous years apparently. You could catch a bus in to Morioka, which was good, but it basically would use up the whole day.

Daryl 

Early Feb 2024

We had a great time at the accommodation we booked through you.  The best was Geto, with their fantastic japanese meals. Their staff was also very approachable and friendly.  Shizukuishi was nice being on the snow, but typical of the large Prince establishments with large self serve eateries and snow just outside the door.  Very functional but very impersonal.  Our accommodation at  Hakuba was also very good, staff were very accommodating and friendly and everything ran well except the snow. It wasnt really a good year for snow, but that was nearly everywhere not just japan.  In the 13 years we have skied in Japan this was the lowest snow - climate change is catching up.  Still good fun.  We skipped 2 days skiing due to rain, out of a total of 17 days planned skiing.  At least we had the option of skipping.
Thank you for what you arranged for this trip. Despite the snow we still enjoyed ourselves in comfortable surroundings.

John Floyd

Late January

Just letting you know that we had another amazing ski holiday. We absolutely loved Appi, had amazing snow and the rooms were so spacious. Our room with the outdoor bath was amazing!! We also loved exploring the smaller resort of Shizukuishi and loved that that both resorts were basically empty! Thank you again for organising the jumbo taxi transfers. They made our transfers so much easier without having to worry about changing trains/buses etc!!

Janelle

 Mid January 2024

Late Jan 2024 

Thank you for organising a great trip for us this year it was perfect like every other trip you have organised the accomodation at Shizukishi and Appi was great. The snow at Shizukishi was not as much as Appi which is normal however we had a great time the Hotel and rooms were great. Appi we had a room overlooking the carpark and we requested an upgrade which was granted to a suite overlooking the mountain which was amazing, the snow at Appi was great on a few days and not so great on others. We did two cat tours and lots of hiking to find good snow.

Nigel

21st January 2023

Shizukuishi Prince hotel was the second stop on our trip after Appi Kogen. We booked the 6 night early bird package. It was an easy transfer from Appi.

Just got the bus from Appi to Morioka and then another bus to Shizukuishi. We spent some time in Morioka shopping and then got the free 50 minute shuttle to Shizukuishi.

Everthing is a lot smaller and more personal at Shizukuishi. The room was a standard twin size, but had enough room for a table and chairs by the window with a great view. It had a Nespresso coffee machine which was well appreciated. Overall it was very modern and well designed. I cant remember if I chose the upgraded room or not, but it seemed quite new. The food was pretty standard buffet for breakfast and dinner. I feel they could improve on the overall dining experince. 

Each morning you need to get the gondala up to the mountain. It takes about 5-10 minutes. This a cool experience. From there you can access the chair lifts and have one Japanese restaurant to eat at. I would reccomend to Kontatsu if you are hungry and its tasty! At the end of the day you can snowboard back to the hotel. We had some super snowy and windy days, which kept the crowds down and the areas we wanted to go were still open. They have some ungroomed runs, but when they groom they go hard...all the way to the tress. The runs are very wide, so I think they have room to leave some ungroomed snow on the sides. We were spoilt at Appi with the Gondala and it took us a while to adjust to geting smashed by the weather on a slow chairlift. But, after a while we got used to it and appreciated the lack of crowds. It also had a super fun entry level snow park which my son loved.

The onsen was amazing and there seemed to be a lot of visitors who weren't snowboarding, so I think thats what they were there for.

Pete

1st February 2023

Shizukuishi was a good choice for us, great Onsen, Prince hotel with great buffet (included in the package) Japanese dinners and breakfasts. Good value money-wise. Great views from our room of Iwate. Down side was the early closure of lifts and the base of the fast lift was not accessible directly from hotel. We declined the cat skiing as it only ran on weekends was booked out and poor value. The price has escalated more than double from what was available pre-Covid. Many Thanks again for arranging the packages, we hope the feedback is useful. Your information in the emails was very good.

Richard Jasek

Mid Feb 2020

We had a great time and really lucked in with the snow as it dumped from the first day we got there to within 2 days from the end when rain was predicted. The Shizikuishi hotel was very nice, everything you need right there. You service as usual was excellent and we really appreciate all the help you provided. Once again thanks for everything and hope to do the same next year.
Regards

Scott

Late January 2020

Mid January 2020 

 

The trip was awesome, shame the snow wasn’t that great.  But saying that it was still a hundred times better than NZ and we managed some powder at Geto Kogen and Oze.

Shizukuishi Prince was a great hotel to stay at.  Ski in ski out is the best way to go. The ski field was good, with a lot of variety and pitch , (was hard to judge the overall experience as there wasn’t that much, blue ice for the bottom 1/3 of the mountain)  the cat skiing was ok due to the limited snow, but I can see the potential.  It’s a shame the old gondola has been removed as that would have opened up a whole lot of tree runs. This field would be great for back country skiing when there is snow. (and I hear rumours that they may be removing the other gondola) We shot over to Iwata Kogen (which is a short taxi ride) for a day which has plenty of pitch but was hard going with hard pack ski runs. (when you go for powder and you only have powder skis, its hard work). The onsen at the Prince is one of the best we have been to. Would defiantly go back again and check out the other ski areas in this area.  Really loved your service and help making this a great holiday. 

Dave

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Mid Feb 2019

Ealy January 2019

Our stay was amazing! From start to finish, we had a blast!The free hotel shuttle bus picked us up and dropped us off at Morioka station and was very easy to find. The staff were absolutely lovely and helped us with everything we needed, from hiring our snow gear to storing our luggage and organizing the bus shuttle. The room was beautiful and so clean and had an amazing view of the snowy slopesThe only problem we had, was finding some medication for sore muscles after a long day of skiing but that wasn't a major issue. The snow was like nothing I've experienced before, it was my partners first time seeing snow and he will have very high expectations after visiting Japan. We loved every moment and can't thank you enough for all your help :) 

Superior Twin (8-9th floor) accommodating up to 3 guests (Room size - 22 m2) 
Rates from ￥20,000 per person per night including breakfast & dinner

Standard Twin accommodating up to 3 guests  (Room size - 22 m2)
Rates: from ￥18,000 per person per night including breakfast

Child (4-12) - 70 % of adult rate
Single surcharge - Please request a quote.
Kids aged 12 and under ski FREE