We were very, very excited about our trip to Nikko.... we booked through japaneseguesthouses.com, and the photos looked amazing. Since it was our honeymoon, we decided to splurge and pay lots of money for this hotel, because of the private baths with the view that they offer.

5 days before we were due to arrive, while we were travelling around Japan, we received an email saying that they had decided to start charging a whopping additional fee to use the private baths!!! We were already paying around £300 ($600) to stay here per night, but then they wanted to slap another $40 fee on each per night to use the baths. My confirmation letter explicitly said that the bath was free of charge.

We wrote back to say we were not happy, which they then took a couple of days to respond to, to say that they were not going to budge on this new charge. Meanwhile, we tried to find somewhere else to stay in Nikko, but everywhere was fully booked because it was the autumn leaves season.

3 days before our intended arrival, we had to cancel our booking with them..... no WAY was I going to let them scam us into paying even more money just because they were obviously overbooked during this busy season! So we had to scramble to find a hotel at the last minute back in Kyoto

I was devastated, as Nikko was going to be one of the highlights of our trip. And to make matters worse, we later got an email from them saying they were going to charge us $600 cancellation fee!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. We had given them 3 days' notice, and we had to cancel because they had changed their terms at the last minute. I had to phone my credit card company from Japan to stop the charge, so they couldn't try to take this ridiculous amount of money from us.

We felt pretty scammed, and really disappointed. Japaneseguesthouses.com was adament that we owed all this money, and were not helpful at all. They said that the reason we were going to be charged $600 was because Fuga had prepared a meal for us, and we had not shown up. Well if you still prepare a meal after someone has given you 3 days' notice, and you think it's worth $600 to throw away some food, you shouldn't be running a business.

Hopefully we will be able to go back and experience Nikko one day at another hotel, but if you are thinking of booking with Fuga or japaneseguesthouse.com then please beware of their money making ideas!!