Hotel sul mare a Hakodate

"We booked this hotel for a special stay for our Christmas Day abroad and it did not disappoint. The rooms are cozy, spacious and quiet with very comfy beds. We appreciated the entry way with the closet and shoe rack. We also appreciated the shower with great pressure, the large sink counter and the Japanese style toilet. There was also a good amount of toiletries provided. We had Japanese style pajamas, slippers for the room, sandals to go around the hotel in and even slippers specifically for the toilet area. The room has a large TV and you can connect to it with an HDMI cable or screencast but we could not figure out how to screencast. The hotel primarily caters to Japanese so the important stuff was in English but the little things like the remote control and temperature control were not. We booked our stay with the buffet dinner and breakfast and for our stay it seems that all the greatest hits for Japanese cuisine were out. For dinner they had a steak grilling station, a BBQ scallop station, a sushi chef, crab dumplings and all kinds of accompaniments. For the dessert they had an array of tasty sweets but we enjoyed the macarons and Hokkaido ice cream the most. The breakfast was equally fantastic with a miso soup station, all kinds of sashimi, black pork dumplings, fried chicken and all kinds of crowd pleasers. There is a juice station and a coffee machine that makes all kinds of drinks so we were very pleased with the meals. We appreciated the plates and small dishes that allowed for small portions so we could pretty much try everything. Some items at the buffet did run out and these were specifically the small dishes - it is worth going early for breakfast and dinner because some items are not replenished and I found quite a few of these very delicious! There isn't much around the hotel other than a 7-11 and a small botanical garden across the bridge but it is definitely a hotel meant to stay in and enjoy. We went to the onsen at night and in the morning and really enjoyed the outdoor bath which was sea facing. At night you could hear the waves and see the stars and during the day you could enjoy the beach and mountain view. The onsen baths have a variety of temperature pools and saunas and good bath products. There is a machine that dispenses a few pop flavours, cold tea and mineral water in the change room. There was a variety of self care products available in the change rooms as well like toothbrushes and razors. Our room was very cozy after our bath and we found that the temperature for the hotel was possibly centrally controlled and not adjustable according to Google translation. It was set at a balmy 24 but we did figure out how to turn it off and got a comfortable night's rest. I wasn't a big fan of the hard toothbrushes that were provided mainly because the toothbrush used a coating rather than toothpaste which makes them truly single use. The hotel offers quite a few amenities outside of the onsen area but the onsen was the highlight for us. They have a lounge area with lots of seats looking out to the sea near the front desk, a separate restaurant from the buffet restaurant, a souvenir shop that sells drinks too and luggage storage. We aren't sure if there are multiple floors with laundry machines but the one laundry room we did find only had one machine so this might not be a hotel to do your laundry at. The hotel is easily accessible from both the train station and airport. From the train station you can take a bus or the tram which would take about 30 minutes and from the airport there are some dedicated busses that will take about 15 minutes. The bus station and tram station closest to the hotel is Yunokawa Onsen. This was a great stay for us and we felt one night here was perfect. There is a lot to see in Hakodate and had we stayed longer we would have chosen a more economical option but this truly was a special treat for us."