Ryokan Sumiya Kihoan すみや亀峰菴（すみやきほうあん）

Unfortunately we never reached our room, because the hotel was not able to offer us the room that we supposed to have booked. When addressing this during the check in, we got into a weird situation where on staff member was mediating between us and the uninterested and rude management. The solution we got offered was to take our payment for 2 days, and offer us an upgraded room (that was empty anyway) for one night. Instead of solving the situation with us, the management just tried to squeeze more money out of it. The stay was ruined before it started, so we left the hotel and are still waiting for a refund. The girl that helped us was amazing, however the way the management of this hotel goes about solving an issue is absurd.

We LOVED our stay at Sumiya Kihoan. My boyfriend and I visited along with our friends who are also a couple and we all had a wonderful experience. The facility is incredibly clean and the staff were SO kind. My boyfriend doesn’t eat fish so the staff adjusted his kaiseki meal by replacing many of the fish courses with chicken. The private onsen reservation is worth the small additional price. We wished that we could stay for another night. The private room onsen was wonderful as well. Next time we go to Kyoto we would happily stay again! Such a relaxing and calm facility.

This is a lovely hotel and the service was excellent, however their images of the rooms are extremely misleading to the point of false advertising. I have attached 2 images of the private onsen from our room, one is the image they advertise with and the other is the room we actually experienced. As you can see it's not the 'open air' onsen that they advertise (the room specifically says open air when booking), and our view of the mountains was very obstructed. Really quite disappointed as this is mainly why we booked this room and paid the extra for it

Our stay at Sumiya was the highlight of our trip. We were looking so forward to the private onsen in our room. However, when we arrived, due to miscommunication from the third party travel agency and the hotel, the room we booked for was not available and they were fully booked out. We were disappointed, but eventually, the efforts of the staff to accommodate us made up for it. Breakfast and dinner were amazing and the private onsen in the forest was memorable. I think we will be talking about this experience for a while.

This was our first time at a Ryokan and we were very pleased. We had a room with a private open-air onsen and had a great relaxing time. Unfortunately we were a bit too nervous to try the public baths, but maybe we will try next time:D The shuttle-bus service was easy and reliable. If you want to get out of busy Kyoto for a day and relax, this is the place. The staff were very helpful and could speak English.