This is my third experience at a ryokan, and my husband and I were excited to have my two kids experience the bliss of staying in one. I was very disappointed.
Service and welcome pale in comparison to the two other ryokans we had stayed at. We probably arrived at a bad time, (we were 4 hours early for check-in) so they did not seem prepared nor happy to welcome us. We asked them for recommendations for restaurants nearby that we could eat lunch at, they gave us a map, to figure out ourselves. The room was ok, again nothing like those i'd previously experienced; yukatas were old, nothing like the crisp and great smelling ones of other ryokans. The kaiseki dinner was good although I had expected that every dish would be explained, and that we would be treated to an interesting story or detail about the dish as each one was served. Instead, dinner was served in three stages - all appetizer and sashimi in one go, shabu shabu one the next go, dessert last - and we were left to figure out from the menu which dish was what. Unless we had asked questions, the lady did not care to explain, and when she obliged, she did so in japanese, addressing only my son's girlfriend who is only beginning to learn the language (in preparation to becoming a japanese-speaking lawyer).
I had failed to indicate in my email our preference for a western breakfast, but made sure I specified this preference when we spoke to the person assigned to us during our check-in. They served us a Japanese breakfast, and when we requested for a change, they were firm in their insistence that they were not going to be able to accommodate us. We tried to explain, and again, they preferred only to listen to and speak to my son's friend, in Japanese, and did not make one effort to try to rectify the situation. When I requested to speak to someone in English, the gentleman we were speaking to literally waved me off, and said there was no one who could speak English. He was very very offensive.
This ryokan experience was a very unpleasant surprise for me. My two previous ones were pure bliss - beautiful surroundings, spotlessly clean facilities, staff that were so willing and keen to make us feel not only welcome, but special. This ryokan and its staff certainly give the unique japanese ryokan experience a very very bad name.