The best family ski resorts in Japan for a luxury holiday are Niseko, Hakuba and Lotte Arai in Myoko, each running in English, with childcare and gentle runs for children.
On a January morning in Hanazono, a line of small skiers in numbered bibs shuffles towards a magic carpet, and the whole group is called to order in English. That ease is the reason a family skis Niseko, Hakuba or Myoko, and in Myoko, Lotte Arai Resort above all. Each is unmistakably Japan and each runs in English, with childcare, gentle runs and rooms with space for a family at the foot of the lifts.
A family ski week brings together people who want different things from a mountain: parents who ski, children who have never stood on skis, and a grandparent or two who would rather sit in an onsen (hot-spring bath) and watch it snow. The three resorts give each of them a day of their own.
The smaller Japanese resorts have wonderful snow and little English, and for an expert on a guided day that hardly matters. For a child in a first lesson, or a parent explaining a cold hand to a ski patroller, the language is the whole difference. The three resorts below have built their schools, their childcare and their front desks for guests from abroad, and for a family that counts for more than any snowfall figure.
niseko
Niseko for families: Hanazono and the ski schools
For a family, Niseko means Hanazono, on the northern side of the Niseko range facing Mount Yōtei, about two and a half hours by road from New Chitose, long enough for the youngest to sleep the whole way.
The ski school there, NISS, divides children by age before it divides them by ability: Tic Tac for the youngest, on skis only, and Yuki for older children, who choose skis or a snowboard. A small child's first morning is mostly boots, balance and falling over on purpose; an older child wants the chairlift by lunch, and in separate groups each gets the day that fits. Full-day programmes include lunch, so parents have a whole day on the mountain and collect children who have eaten, skied and made a friend. The Hanazono Bowl is served by free magic carpets, and Silver Dream, a long, gentle run of 2,700 metres, gives a child who has just learned to turn a real descent to show off on, in place of the same fifty metres all afternoon.
For children too young for ski school, Niseko Kids Club runs a daycare in the Hanazono 308 building, staffed by trained early-childhood educators who speak several languages and take the children out to play in the snow when the weather allows. There is a Tube Park with its own magic carpet, and an indoor play centre for the afternoon the wind comes up.
In Niseko, a hotel at Hanazono answers the family's other question, which is space. Its residences carry a kitchen for the breakfast the youngest will actually eat, and separate bedrooms for the children. It has a children's club, and every room and residence opens straight onto the snow, so no child walks a car park in ski boots.
honshu
Hakuba and Lotte Arai: children's ski schools on Honshu
Hakuba suits the family that wants Tokyo in the same journey without another flight: the shinkansen and a car reach it in under three hours. For children, what matters in the valley is one school that works across several mountains.
Evergreen International Ski School teaches children at Happo-one, Iwatake, Tsugaike and Cortina, in two groups by age: the Yeti Club for the youngest and Hakuba Heroes for older children. Because the school teaches on several mountains, a family can put the children on the gentle, sheltered slopes of Iwatake while the parents take Happo-one, and meet for the afternoon. Across a week the older group moves from the first snowplough to skiing the mountain with a parent behind them, which is the moment the whole holiday was for.
Lotte Arai Resort is the most complete answer a family will find.
It stands alone on its own mountain above Myoko in Niigata, about two hours from Tokyo by shinkansen and car. One hotel, one mountain, and nothing between the room and the lift. Myoko Snowsports teaches children on skis and on a snowboard in small groups; the youngest take a half day, and the older children ski the full day.
What wins the children over is everything else. A zipline of 1,501 metres runs across the mountain, and there is a tubing course of 192 metres, a bouldering wall, a sledding course for the smallest, and a pool open all year. For the grandparents who came for the snow and not the skiing, the gondola lifts them into the view, and the onsen, drawn from 1,750 metres underground, has an open-air pool that looks straight into the falling snow. The resort puts the ski school, the room, the onsen and the dinner table under one roof, which is exactly what a tired child needs at four in the afternoon.
the onsen
Onsen with children, and the days off the snow
The onsen to choose is a private one, built into the suite, as in the Hanazono residences. A suite with its own onsen is the family's own, at any hour, with the snow coming down on the rocks.
A week of skiing wants a day without skis, and the fourth is the right one. From Hakuba, Jigokudani above Yamanouchi is the day every child remembers: Japanese macaques sitting up to their shoulders in a steaming hot spring, snow settling on their heads. From Niseko the day goes to the sea at Otaru, its canal and its glassworks, or to a snowshoe walk through the beech forest with a guide. At Lotte Arai the day off hardly leaves the resort, between the zipline, the tubes and the pool.
the journey
A family ski week inside a wider journey in Japan
With children, the ski week belongs in the middle of the journey. Two or three nights in a city first let the children adjust to the time difference before they are asked to stand on skis, and a last stretch with no boots at all sends a family home relaxed. In Hokkaidō the natural end is the far east of the island, where the drift ice fills the Sea of Okhotsk.
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By the last afternoon the youngest can ride a chairlift alone and has an opinion about powder. The light goes blue on Yōtei at about half past four, the lifts stop, and the whole family walks back to the onsen in ski boots, the snow squeaking underfoot, already arguing about which run to do first next winter.
Children travel with Luxury Japan Travel on The Custom Tour of Japan, and a whole family is welcome on it: a private journey for one party, on its own dates and from five nights, with a Tour Director beside the family every day. It begins with each skier's level, and the mountain and the runs are chosen for the whole party or for each skier alone, from a first snowplough for the youngest to the deep snow between the trees for the strongest.
Luxury Japan Travel knows which properties welcome a family, which rooms connect and where an onsen is private, so the children sleep within reach while the parents dine. A chauffeur meets the family at the airport, and the cities come before and after the snow, Tokyo first and Kyoto last, with an afternoon in a potter's studio where the youngest and the eldest share the same clay.
questions
Questions
Do Japan's ski resorts have ski schools for children?
Yes, at all three international resorts: NISS at Niseko Hanazono, Evergreen International Ski School in Hakuba and Myoko Snowsports at Lotte Arai, with lessons on skis for the youngest and a choice of skis or a snowboard for older children.
Which ski resort in Japan is best for families?
Myoko (Lotte Arai Resort) is the most complete, with the ski school, the room, the onsen and the dinner table under one roof on its own mountain. Niseko Hanazono adds a daycare for children too young for ski school and a long, gentle run of 2,700 metres, and Hakuba suits a family that wants Tokyo in the same journey without another flight.
Where does a ski week sit in a family journey to Japan?
In the middle. Two or three nights in a city first let children adjust to the time difference before they stand on skis, and a last stretch without boots sends the family home relaxed.
What do children do on a day off the snow?
From Hakuba, they watch the macaques of Jigokudani sitting in a steaming hot spring. From Niseko the day goes to Otaru and its canal or to a guided snowshoe walk through the beech forest, and at Lotte Arai there is a zipline of 1,501 metres, a tubing course and a pool open all year.