Kakunodate Sanso Wabizakura

Service was excellent and the team was courteous and highly responsive to any requests. The room was mostly clean and comfortable (we were disappointed to find a hair inside our towel). We did enjoy the snowy natural setting in winter. It was not hard to get a reservation in January. We have stayed at a number of luxury Japanese ryokan and dined at many kaiseki and other Japanese restaurants. I would say that Wabizakura's dinner was perhaps the single most disappointing kaiseki dinner I have ever had in my life. The crab course was small, difficult to eat, roasted dry rather than moist, and not particularly tasty. The rest of the food was mostly unimaginative and the portions were small. Perhaps our expectations were set too high, given the prior reviews. Breakfast was better than dinner --- portions were much more generous and quality was higher. Was the head chef simply out of town the previous night or just phoning it in? We will never know. The in-room onsen was nice and at a good temperature. The chartered open-air public bath provided a good change of scenery but the water was much hotter and there was no way to adjust the temperature down. The in-room minibar was not particularly generous (two bottles of water and two of cold green tea, not replenished). Would we return? Maybe, but we would consider other places in Japan first at this price point.