We stayed two nights at the Stay Nikko Guesthouse, a small establishment owned by a lovely couple who look like they’re in their early 40s. I reckon most visitors to Central Nikko during winter won’t stay overnight unless they are visiting the other places of interest further along the area, e.g. the lake, mountains or onsen. The issue though is the traveling time: it’s easily two hours or more from Tokyo, and the journey to and back from Nikko would take almost half a day already. Visitors would have to make a hard decision whether to spend a night here, since, well you’ve already traveled this distance!
Our comments after two nights!
We’d reserved a Deluxe Garden View Villa, but what actually got looked more like a loft unit that comfortably held the four of us. Space-wise, it could probably fit two more guests. The unit is about 4 minutes walk from the main road, and sits along side-roads that see are other residences. The area is extremely quiet whether during day time or night. If you’re bringing along heavy luggage, keep in mind that the walk from either of the train stations poses some mild challenges, mostly because of the rough road surface that you’d be pulling your luggage cases on. So, either forward the heaviest cases you might have to the guesthouse, or be mentally prepared for some physical effort.
The compound comprises several separate units of different sizes that are rented out to guests, and our hosts themselves stay in the compound too. They’d also alert if they’re out of home, and ask visitors to contact them through messaging or email as needed, and yes, they are pretty responsive on email.
There is no laundry facility for use inside our unit, but the property does have washer and dryer facilities somewhere. It’d cost 800 yen for a basket of clothes, including drying. If your laundry is coming at odd ours, the host will make arrangements by bringing your laundry out to a laundromat, and they will only charge you what’s on the laundromat’s invoice. They can also make arrangements for luggage forwarding too.
Housekeeping is contracted to someone else, but our hosts personally welcomed us, did a detailed introduction and explanation of the unit’s facilities and how to operate various devices, e.g. heaters in the shower stall, the air-conditioning cum heater unit, and also the kerosene heater in the room. The kerosene heater works well, but still took a fair bit of time to heat our entire loft unit – about 30 minutes.
The unit has a decent kitchen: including a mid-sized fridge, microwave oven, toaster oven, water kettle, a large sink, cookery and utensils. There is no stove though. So, if you’re thinking of cooking up a storm, this isn’t the place for you.
Internet speeds were decent, and we had no difficulties connecting multiple devices. The in-unit TV is a little on the small side: about 35-36″ is my guess, and offers local channels only.
The loft level is accessed by a semi-steep flight of stairs. But there is a side-railing and it is less steep than some of the temple stairs we’d gone up and down: those things are practically ladders! The flooring of the loft level is made of wood, so if you have kids who like to stomp on the loft unit, it’d create a huge din for those persons directly beneath the loft level.
In all, we loved our stay at this guesthouse, with the high points being the warmth showed by our hosts, the unit’s amenities, and the peace and quiet we soaked in after seven nights of a very hectic Tokyo. The small downsides of the place would be the distances you’d need to walk. It’s manageable, but if you must stay nearer to the main road, then other properties that are directly along it would be better. Beyond that, Stay Nikko Guesthouse gets our highest recommendations: do really consider it if you’re traveling with kids!