[Stay Review] Renovated Ito Hotel Juraku: Lounge, Hot Springs, Guest Room and Buffet Reviewed!

This time I’m introducing Ito Hotel Juraku, located in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture, on a hilltop with a panoramic view of Sagami Bay.

When you hear Juraku, you might remember the famous TV commercial from the 1970s with the glamorous model singing “Juraku yo~♪” that caused a stir. Yes, that Juraku!
*For the record, I’m in my thirties.

In this article, I describe in detail what it was like to stay at Ito Hotel Juraku on a plan with one night and two meals.

“People who want to stay at Ito Hotel Juraku but wonder what it’s like”
“People curious about the facilities and the meals”

This article is just right for you, so please read to the end.

Who Should Stay at Ito Hotel Juraku

Ito, where Ito Hotel Juraku is located, is a hot spring town on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, with over 200 springs, known for its abundant water volume and varied spring qualities.

Because Ito faces the sea, you can enjoy fresh seafood such as golden eye snapper, horse mackerel, and squid.

With attractions such as the Izu Shaboten Zoo, Mt. Omuro, and Mt. Komuro drawing many tourists every year, there are over 120 hotels and hot spring inns.

With around 120 to choose from, it’s hard to decide which hotel or inn to stay at, isn’t it?

I chose Ito Hotel Juraku for my trip to Ito, and having actually stayed there, here are the kinds of people I think Ito Hotel Juraku suits best.

I’ll explain each in turn.

① Enjoy soft drinks and alcohol in the hotel lounge

At the newly reopened hotel lounge “AYA-NAMI”, you can enjoy six kinds of soft drinks, four kinds of alcohol, plus coffee and tea while looking out over Sagami Bay.

② Try Izu’s famous golden eye snapper shabu-shabu

Shizuoka! Ito! And what comes to mind is golden eye snapper, the number one catch in Japan.

At the dinner buffet at Ito Hotel Juraku, you can eat golden eye snapper as shabu-shabu.

Golden eye snapper, a deep-sea fish, is landed all year round, and December through February is the peak season, when the rich flavor of its melting fat is especially delicious.

Hotels where you can eat golden eye snapper shabu-shabu are rare!

③ Fully enjoy Ito’s hot springs and the sauna

Ito Hotel Juraku is fully equipped with three hot spring public baths, including a southern-European-style open-air bath, a scenic open-air bath, a reclining bath, and a massage-jet waterfall bath, plus a sauna.

You can relax and enjoy Ito’s hot springs inside the hotel without getting bored.

The hotel has a source-water storage tank fed by a pump drawing from the spring, supplying more than 300 liters of hot water per minute to every guest room and the three baths, so you can enjoy natural hot springs in your room too♪

Access to Ito Hotel Juraku

Ito Hotel Juraku is about a 15-minute walk from Ito Station, or about 5 minutes by shuttle bus. It is run by Juraku Co., Ltd., and is a hotel perched on a hill in Ito with a view of the sea.

Located on a hilltop with a panoramic view of Sagami Bay, it offers plenty of facilities, including a foot bath, hot springs, a buffet restaurant, and a seasonal outdoor pool.

Overview of Ito Hotel Juraku

Now let me introduce the details of Ito Hotel Juraku, where I stayed this time.

I drove to the hotel, and the area around it is uphill. It isn’t well suited to walking around the neighborhood .

I parked in the lot behind the main entrance. Parking is free for guests.

Unfortunately, it was rainy that day ☔

A vivid red carpet at the front entrance welcomes guests.

There’s also a drive-up porte-cochère.

The building has a slightly Showa-era feel; take the up escalator on the left leading to the front desk and go up to the 3rd floor.

At the top of the escalator, there was a photo spot to commemorate your stay.

A big stuffed horse with an onsen towel on its head — so cute!

I held a Totoro plush and snapped a photo.

Check-in

The front desk is right on the left as soon as you come up the escalator. The front desk is on the 3rd floor.

The front desk area is spacious, and even at the 3 p.m. check-in time it wasn’t especially crowded.

I was handed a guide to the hotel’s facilities. My room for the night was in the Center Wing on the 14th floor.

After a run-through of the dinner and breakfast venues, check-in was complete!

The hot spring opening hours are complicated, so I’ll explain the details later.

Lounge “AYA-NAMI”

Before heading to the room, I dropped by the new lounge “AYA-NAMI”, which opened in February 2024.

The carpet is designed around a sea motif, creating a very calming space.

If you go toward the back on the left, there’s an entrance leading to the foot bath and the outdoor pool.

Shizuoka-exclusive draft beer “Shizuoka Beer”, Ito‘s specialty “guri-cha” tea, Unshu mandarin 100% juice, mango juice, and a range of quality soft drinks and alcohol are all-you-can-drink!

Hours are from 2:30 p.m., 30 minutes before check-out time, and at night until 10:00 p.m. In the morning, it’s open 8:00 to 10:00.

Guest Room

We took the elevator up to the guest room floor, the 14th floor.

The elevator has a warm pink tone, and the carpet is blue like the lounge’s, evoking the sea.

Today’s room was Room 1409 in the Center Wing building.

When you open the door, you can see a Japanese-style room at the end of the corridor.

There was a large bath basket on the shelf.

The Japanese-style room is 4 tatami mats plus 10 tatami mats, more than enough space for two or three people!

The tatami mats are all clean, and the scent of the Japanese room puts me in a great mood~ ☺

The 10-tatami room has a Japanese table and three zaisu legless chairs.

Since there were three of us, the chairs had been set out in advance for each person.

At the back there’s a wide-veranda (hiroen) area, and it’s nice to sit in the chairs there and relax.

Because it’s a corner room on the 14th floor, the view from the window isn’t great, but instead you can step out into the garden.

The TV is a SONY, and it’s a little small for the size of the room.

There’s an air purifier next to the TV. There’s also an internal phone, an alarm clock, and a tissue box.

It’s a bit hard to notice, but if you open the sliding door under the TV, there’s a safe.

The key is a physical key and needs to be managed individually.

The zaisu cushions are thick and comfortable to sit on, and the table is big too.

The welcome sweet was New Summer Orange Jelly “Izu no Shizuku”.

A refreshing jelly proud of its balance of sweetness and tartness, made with New Summer oranges from East Izu and Izu deep ocean water.

It’s delicious chilled, and it’s delicious frozen too!

The 4-tatami room has a closet, and green haori jackets for the yukata are hung on hangers.

The colors are so lovely ☺

Yukata, obi sashes, bath towels, face towels, and drawstring pouches are laid out below. Everything is gathered in one place, which makes it easy to understand!

The shelf near the door holds glasses and a refrigerator.

The refrigerator’s power is OFF, so be sure to flip the switch beside it when you use it.

I put drinks in without noticing, and they were lukewarm when I went to drink them…

Bathroom, Toilet, and Washbasin

The bathroom, toilet, and washbasin are all separate, which makes them convenient to use.

The washbasin is spacious and clean, making it easy to get ready. Bath towels are also provided above the washbasin for each person, so it’s nice that each guest can use two!

There are three Kose Predia items (scalp essence, face care milk, and face care lotion), plus Nanakusa Shizuku lotion, which contains seven Japanese herbal extracts as natural skin-beautifying ingredients.

Give them a try if you’re concerned about rough or dry skin!

A Koizumi cosmetist negative-ion hair dryer.

The washbasin amenities are a toothbrush set, hairbrush, and cotton set.

The bath is the tiled type often seen in homes in the early Heisei era, and the tub isn’t big enough to stretch your legs out fully.

This hotel is known for its hot springs, and the guest room baths use natural hot spring water too!!

Even if you don’t usually use the bath in your room, natural hot spring water makes you want to!

The toilet has a bidet seat; the space in front is a little tight, but you can use it without any problem.

Having two rolls of toilet paper plus one spare is quietly a nice touch.

When a group uses it, before you know it you’re thinking “Huh, is there enough?” and it runs out quickly.

Hot Springs at Ito Hotel Juraku

Ito Hotel Juraku has three hot spring baths: “Gensen,” a free-flowing open-air bath, “Yanmono-yu,” with a massage-jet waterfall bath, a lie-down bath, and a sauna, and “Yurukano-yu,” where you can feel Ito’s nature on your skin. Hotel guests can use all three hot springs.

Bath Name	Hours	Location
Gensen	15:00–24:00 5:00–11:00	3rd floor of the hotel
Yanmono-yu	15:00–24:00 / Men only 5:00–11:00 / Women only	2nd floor of the hotel
Yurukano-yu	15:00–24:00 / Women only 5:00–11:00 / Men only	3rd floor of the hotel

Free-flowing Open-Air Bath “Gensen”

You can reach the free-flowing open-air bath “Gensen” by going straight along the passage in front of the lounge on the 3rd floor, where the front desk is.

It’s a few minutes’ walk from the front desk and there are many stairs, so people with difficulty walking should take that into account.

The waiting area in front of “Gensen” is spacious, with colorful single-seat chairs.

There’s no men/women rotation, so anyone can bathe within the opening hours, and there’s a water server and an ice service too!

They’ve started offering ice cream! A polar bear (?) lying down eating ice cream is so cute.

“Gensen” has one indoor bath and one open-air bath. It has a Western-style design.

The outside also looks like something you’d find in Europe, and you can enjoy the open-air bath while feeling Ito’s nature on your skin.

The open-air bath is quite large!

Yanmono-yu

“Yanmono-yu” and “Yurukano-yu” are on the 2nd floor, one floor below the 3rd-floor front desk. They alternate between men and women.

“Yanmono-yu” is men-only on the day of check-in and women-only the next morning.

“Yanmono-yu” has indoor baths only, but it’s probably more than three times the size of “Gensen,” with two indoor baths, a massage-jet waterfall bath, a lie-down bath, a sauna, and a cold-water splash area, so there’s a wide variety!

The sauna uses a sauna stove at about 95°C, with no TV or sauna mats.

Because it’s a hotel sauna, it isn’t on par with the quality of a bathhouse or spa facility, but it’s better to have it than not!

There’s no cold plunge pool; instead there’s a cold-water splash tub about the size of a unit bath.

Yurukano-yu

“Yurukano-yu” is on the same 2nd floor as “Yanmono-yu” and has the most open-air feel of the open-air baths, letting you bathe while looking out over Ito’s townscape and the sea.

Foot Bath at Ito Hotel Juraku

If you go outside from the new lounge “AYA-NAMI” on the hotel’s 3rd floor, you can try the foot bath.

In front of the foot bath is the “Ajiwai Hand Bath.”

I see, it’s a pun on “aji” the horse mackerel and “aji” meaning flavor! Hot water gushes out of the mackerel’s mouth!

At the back is the foot bath corner, where you can warm your feet nice and toasty while looking out over Ito’s townscape and Sagami Bay.

It was cloudy that day, so the view wasn’t great 😿

Dinner at Ito Hotel Juraku

Dinner at Ito Hotel Juraku will be reborn as the live kitchen “AMAHANA” from April 2024.

Until then, dinner is a buffet in the banquet hall on the 1st floor, so the location is different.

Buffets often have a 90-minute time limit, but this one is unlimited!

You can eat to your heart’s content.

The dinner buffet has several live kitchens, but the one I recommend most is the golden eye snapper guri-cha shabu-shabu!

Made with a method unique to Shizuoka, using Izu’s specialty guri-cha tea, whose leaves are characteristically curled and twisted, the plump golden eye snapper shabu-shabu with just the right amount of fat is a real gem!!

You may have chances to eat simmered golden eye snapper, but eating it as shabu-shabu is rare~.

You pick up the menu items unique to Shizuoka and Ito served at the live kitchens and arrange them on small plates!

For a limited time during the renovation period, the stay plan includes all-you-can-drink alcohol (90 minutes only), so there are lots of snacks that go well with beer!

It’s fantastic ☺

For an article showing the specific dinner menu, please see here.

Breakfast at Ito Hotel Juraku

Breakfast at Ito Hotel Juraku is a Japanese-Western buffet in the same venue as dinner!

The venue is quite large and the tables are spaced well apart, so you can eat at your leisure without worrying much about the people around you.

Breakfast has several live kitchens too, such as rice balls and omelets, and people gathered mostly around the live kitchens.

It was a buffet two days in a row, but there were many healthy ingredients and everything was delicious.

Thank you for the meal.

For an article showing the specific breakfast menu, see here.

My Stay at Ito Hotel Juraku

I chose this hotel for my trip to Ito this time!

Ito Hotel Juraku will be reborn as an all-inclusive hotel from July 2024.

Because I stayed during the renovation period, the dinner buffet was held in a temporary venue, but it was bigger than I expected, the menu was on par with what the regular menu should be, and it even came with all-you-can-drink alcohol!

The new lounge is open from the 3 p.m. check-in time until 10 p.m. at night, with all drinks free-flowing the whole time.

Instead of the usual free-drink dispenser menu, there’s a rich lineup of drinks unique to Shizuoka! I didn’t need to buy any extra drinks!

The sauna in “Yanmono-yu” is a bit low in temperature and has no cold plunge, so it isn’t ideal for sauna lovers, but as a hot spring hotel, the quality was above average.

It’s a hotel I’d like to revisit if I get the chance.

Now then, let’s go Trip & Happiness♪