Published date: January 8, 2025
Perfect for Mother-and-Child Trip 👩👶🩷 Stress-Free Hakodate Trip!
Room Type Stayed
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Experience of the stay
I live in Kanagawa.
I, along with my 6-year-old son, chose Hakodate during the Christmas season 🎄🎅❄️✨ for our first mother-son trip.
Since it's a trip with my youngest son, who dislikes walking, I opted for OMO Hakodate to enjoy the hotel stay.
This is my fourth stay in the OMO series, following Kyoto Toji, Asahikawa, and Otaru.
(I like all three to the point that I definitely want to repeat them!)
To cut a long story short, it was absolutely amazing 🥹
My stay was stress-free.
The actual experience exceeded the expectations raised by photos and reviews.
I'd like to point out why this hotel felt perfect for a mother-and-child trip 💁♀️.
★ Location:
It takes about 20 minutes by limousine bus from Hakodate Airport to Hakodate Station. The hotel is about a 5-minute walk from Hakodate Station.
It happens so fast, there’s no time to carry the child!
★ Exclusive sightseeing bus for guests (free):
Takes you to various sightseeing spots in the city.
There are multiple departures in a day, allowing us to return to the hotel for a rest after lunch before heading to the next destination.
The ability to rest at the hotel can change the comfort of traveling with children.
Our winter sightseeing route is as follows, feel free to refer to it.
★ Hot spring:
Not just a large public bath, but a proper amber hot spring ♨️
In the open-air bath, there were about 2 or 3 small baths like goemon-buro, perfect for a relaxing soak with children, just the two of us.
★ Lounge:
This place is really the best 🥹
Spacious, with many places to sit including swing-type chairs.
It's located right next to the hot springs, so we can use it as a post-bath lounge.
Since it’s Christmas season, Christmas songs echo from the record player, creating a very relaxing atmosphere.
There were a few people dozing off after bathing. ☺️
Many ordered the set comparing beer with squid pickles.
There’s an elegant shop, café, and terrace attached.
Details below:
[Shop] Open 24 hours. Automated payment.
It sells Hakodate-famous souvenirs, and I must say, they are stylish, as is common with all OMOs! You can buy local souvenirs with good taste without having to take the children to various shops. They even have original rusk made in collaboration with a famous local bakery and all of the packaging is cute, which makes you want to buy it! 😍
[Café & Bar] (Paid)
The line-up is attractive!
The squid dip potatoes were so delicious that I ate them two nights in a row 🤤
There’s also a beer and squid pickles comparison set.
The gelato is on par with serious gelato shops' quality. 😍
It’s hard to hop between popular spots with children, but being able to eat delicious food in a relaxed state after soaking in the hot spring at the end of the day is pure bliss.
This lounge was so comfortable that for dinner on the second day, instead of going out, I enjoyed the Hakodate-special yakitori bento I bought from Hasegawa Store here.
[Terrace]
Since it faces the glass lounge, you can watch the children playing outside while enjoying a warm café latte from indoors. It was snowing, so the kids had a great time playing in the snow for a while. ☃️
That’s all!
This was my first time using Hafh coins for accommodation.
Especially during winter when kids frequently get fevers, it can be nerve-wracking wondering if the reservation will be canceled, but with Hafh, you can cancel without a fee until the day before at 23:59, so we can relax until the last minute. I felt this is the charm of Hafh.
Hafh ✖️ OMO is super recommended for traveling with children!
Experiences during the trip
✈️ Flights ✈️
Outbound: ANA Haneda 14:40 → Arrives Hakodate 16:00
Inbound: JAL Hakodate 9:45 → Arrives Haneda 11:15
🏨 Accommodation
2 nights at OMO Hakodate.
* One night booked with Hafh coins, the other on the official website.
【Day 1】
In the evening, take a shuttle bus from Hakodate Airport to Hakodate Station.
→ Dinner at "Unimurakami" 3 minutes on foot from Hakodate Station. Enjoyed sea urchin! 😍
We actively seek out restaurants that are usually too expensive for family trips on mother-child excursions. ✌️
→ Arrived at the hotel within 5 minutes on foot.
Since it was already night, we enjoyed a soak in the hot spring, and in the post-bath lounge, we savored Hokkaido ginger ale and squid dip potatoes.
My child was busy devouring a Hokkaido kombu snack bought from the lounge shop.
【Day 2】
Enjoyed a breakfast buffet.
(*Hafh does not include breakfast, but we added it as a paid option this day)
Both Japanese and Western dishes were abundant! As expected in Hakodate, there were many squid dishes. A tip we learned here—adding mayo and shichimi to squid rice was incredibly delicious, and I've replicated it at home!
The bread was adorably small and actually tasty, so even a child can finish it, allowing for trying out several varieties; this is typical of Hoshino Resort.
→ Took a free shuttle bus exclusive for guests to the Hakodate Mountain Ropeway station.
→ Enjoyed the view from the top of Hakodate Mountain.
The night view I saw years ago was great, but the daytime view was also beautiful, seeing faraway landscapes!
(My child enjoyed browsing the souvenir shop…)
→ Walked to the Bay Area.
Walking from the Hakodate Mountain Ropeway station to the Bay Area covered all the points we wanted to visit: churches⛪️, Hachiman-zaka, Lucky Pierrot, Hasegawa Store, so we opted to walk.
Even my child, who dislikes walking, was fine since it was downhill. ✌️
→ Lunch at Lucky Pierrot in the Bay Area.
As it's my third time at Rappi, I chose curry instead of the Chinese chicken burger!
I felt that curry warmed my chilled body, and I was right to choose it.
→ Used the exclusive free bus for guests from the Bay Area back to the hotel.
Spent the afternoon lounging in the room and lounge until evening.
→ In the evening, took the exclusive free bus for guests from the hotel to the Bay Area.
Played in the LEGO space inside the red brick until the fireworks for the Christmas Fantasy. Although it was free, we could play a lot! I got to display the creations we made, which felt fulfilling, thank you so much for the space! 🙏✨
→ Around 18:00, moved next to the red bricks to watch the Christmas Fantasy fireworks 🎇
It was emotional 🥹
I want to make a trip to Hakodate during the Christmas season a yearly tradition 🥹
There was a limited-time soup bar, and I chose snow cheese and onion gratin soup from several options.
Drinking warm delicious soup while watching the tree and fireworks during Hakodate’s cold winter… 🥹🩷
→ Took a taxi back to the hotel. About 10 minutes.
→ Soaked in the hot springs and had dinner in the lounge. Enjoyed the yakitori bento I bought from Hasegawa Store earlier and the squid dip potatoes just like the previous day.
I also tried two types of Hokkaido ginger ale sold at the shop, both of which were delicious!
【Day 3】
Instead of going to the breakfast venue, bought donuts and drinks from the shop, had a quick breakfast in the lounge's favorite children's space, then headed to Hakodate Airport, taking the 9:45 JAL flight back to Haneda✈️.
The transfer from the hotel to the airport is smooth, so no need to wake up early for an early flight was great!