Shizukuishi Prince Hotel

The hotel stands at the foot of Shizukuishi ski area, the hill that hosted the 1993 Alpine World Ski Championships, and Rakuten Travel puts the slopes at a zero-minute walk. Most rooms are compact 22-square-metre twins. On the eighth and ninth floors the superior rooms carry Iwate crafts such as Nanbu ironware and indigo dye, and a handful of corner rooms face Mt. Iwate head on. Dinner is a buffet heavy on Iwate food with Morioka's three noodle dishes on the counter, and Kobushi serves Iwate beef as a course when you want a bigger night.

The hotel calls its 2026/27 winter programme SNØVA. Cat tours carry riders to unpisted snow near the top for ¥17,000 a run, daily from 26 December to 3 January and then on weekends and holidays from 9 January to 7 March, with 15 places a run. After dark the plan includes a kamakura snow-hut dinner on Mondays and Fridays and a night bar in the Austria House, which the Austrian team used in 1993, though both still show their dates as being updated. Fireworks go up from the Prince slope on 31 December 2026 and 5 February 2027.

The free winter bus runs between the west exit of Morioka Station and the hotel from 18 December 2026 to 28 March 2027 in about 50 minutes, and two runs a day call at Shizukuishi Station. Book it three days ahead or it won't run. It leaves on time even when the Shinkansen is late, so pick a train with some slack, and remember the ski area itself is planned to run only from 19 December to 22 March.