Ok, so firstly let's tell you it's not a hotel, so don't expect hotel services, even though you are going to pay per night roughly the same price as you'd pay for a Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton/ luxury 5 star hotel room in most international cities, but this is Japan. This is a perfectly acceptable condo where the apartments/rooms are let on behalf of the owners by the management company.

After receiving a welcome pack which included the rules and regulations and advises you of the penalties you may be charged for loss of this and damage to that, I should have heard alarm bells. The room we had was perfectly adequate for our needs, the bed was comfortable, the size of the room was fine (what they call a hotel style room), but you can get bigger if you wish. It's modern in style and perfectly functional. What I found a little frustrating was the lack of drawers and shelving to put your clothes in/on, only hanging space or floor! The heated area for your ski clothes was ok, but the vent above was filthy and every morning you found your clothes covered in dust, this is probably because the housekeeping service is useless. They call it housekeeping service, which is done every 2 days, what they actually do is change your towels and wipe your bathroom sink...oh yes, they also washed up the cups in the sink. No bed making, hoovering, cleaning or anything else actually. There is a small 'kitchenette', a microwave, fridge, kettle and toaster and utensils for 2 people, which is handy. The bathroom was pretty small, but it did have nice big slate tiled bathtub which looked nice, but was a little sharp in places so be careful! There was nowhere to hang the towels...the odd hook here and there would have been useful!

The Vale Bar and Grill is ok for a drink, but I wouldn't recommend eating there. The breakfast buffet is hardly what you would call extensive, actually it looks more like one person's breakfast that has been laid out on the bar counter for everyone to share. Go out to one of the bakeries within a couple of minutes walk of The Vale and you can get some wonderful pastries.

The Onsen was a bit disappointing, very small, very shallow and very slimy and not that hot, but an interesting experience none the less.

Finally on to the skiing. It's not exactly ski in-ski out, you do have to walk down/up a flight of stairs into the basement of the building to get to the locker room, which is ok, but quite basic. It is close to the ski lift and the kiosk where you buy your lift pass, so it is very handy and in comparison to most apartments/hotels in the area, it seems to be one of the better locations, so it's not all bad. The skiing itself is amazing!

Overall we had a lovely few days of skiing which made up for the shortfalls of The Vale, but I was a little disappointed knowing that my partner had spent an awful lot of money to take me there for my birthday, only to find that it was a very average hotel/condo/apartment....whatever they call it!