Grand Mercure Nasu Highlands with Kids: Honest All-Inclusive Resort Review (2026)

If you recognize the Accor name and want a nature-focused, all-inclusive-style family stay outside the Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka circuit, Grand Mercure Nasu Highlands Resort & Spa is worth a serious look — but only if you're planning to rent a car in Japan. This is a highlands resort built for two or three slow mountain days, not a quick train-accessible stopover.

As a local dad, I've stayed here with my family. This review covers what we actually experienced — including the one booking snag that cost us money and the dinner-reservation mistake we made so you don't have to.

Quick Facts

Is Nasu right for your itinerary? A reality check

Let's be upfront, because this matters more than anything else in the review: Nasu Highlands is not an easy add-on to a train-only Tokyo itinerary. There's no direct train to the resort area, and local buses are infrequent and not built around tourists with strollers and luggage.

This hotel makes sense for two kinds of families:

1. You're planning a Japan road trip with a rental car and want a highlands stop between destinations.
2. You specifically want a quiet, non-touristy nature escape — mountain air, onsen soaks, a slower pace — and you'll budget for the car or taxi to make it happen.

If neither describes your trip, this resort will add friction, not magic. It's a genuinely lovely stay for the right itinerary — and the wrong choice for a short train-based one.

The Nasu highlands from the resort — snow still on the peaks in early spring. This is the quiet nature escape you're driving out for.

What "all-inclusive-style" actually means here

Many rate plans bundle in far more than the room:

• Buffet breakfast and dinner in the top-floor dining room
• The "KINOHA" family lounge & library (renewed in early 2026, open 9:00–21:00) — its free drink-and-snack bar runs 15:00–18:00 and includes beer and wine from mid-afternoon, plus juice, sweets, and even scoop ice cream for the kids
• An onsen-side lounge near the baths, with fruit-vinegar drinks and warm amazake in the evening
• The onsen baths and both kids' play areas, at no extra charge

Afternoon lounge snacks — help-yourself drinks and little cups of sweets that kept our daughter very happy between play sessions.

With kids, the bundled style is genuinely relaxing — nobody's counting drink charges. Just read your plan's fine print, since not every plan includes every meal.

The free-flow lounge drinks — local green tea, amazake, and fruit-vinegar drinks the kids actually liked.

👉 Check availability: See prices on Booking.com

How to book (and the snag that cost us extra)

1. Check whether your rate includes meals for your child. On Booking.com, the listing's standard policy line ("children 7 and above are charged as adults") doesn't always spell out whether a younger child's buffet meals are inside the quoted price — and the hotel itself prices kids' meals as separate add-ons by age. That's the snag we hit: our young daughter ended up booked with no meal plan, and we paid for her buffet meals at the hotel — roughly ¥6,000–7,000 (about $40–47) extra for four buffet meals over our two-night stay. Read your rate plan's inclusions text carefully, and if child meals aren't mentioned, budget to pay them at the hotel.
2. Room type: our Superior Twin (mountain view) was comfortable and recently renovated, if not huge.
3. Baby gear is mostly walk-up loanable (list below), but ask ahead if you have a specific need.
4. Confirm the co-sleeping age cutoff rather than assuming.

Our stay: what actually happened

We arrived around 15:00 — before the room was ready — and left our bags at the entrance luggage area while exploring. Here's the single most important thing we learned: reserve your dinner time slot at check-in. Dinner runs from 17:30 in 30-minute blocks, and the 18:00 slot was already full when we booked ours at check-in. Worse: on night two we forgot to re-reserve in the morning and ended up eating at 19:30 instead of 17:30. With a young child, a two-hour-later dinner is not a small thing.

The main entrance — an Accor Grand Mercure, bookable on the same sites you already use.

The room itself: spacious enough for three, a glass-walled bathroom (with a screen to close off a changing area), a stocked mini-fridge with free water, and a genuinely comfortable mattress. Clean and updated, not dated.

Our Superior Twin — recently renovated, comfortable, and spacious enough for three with a young child.

Family gear: quietly excellent

This is where the hotel clearly thought about families. Loanable on the guest floors:

• Bottle-washing supplies and a bottle-warming pot
• A baby floor seat and step stool
• Baby-safe soap, a child toilet seat, a diaper trash bin, and a waterproof sheet for accidents

At the front desk, kids' yukata and jinbei robes come in a full range of sizes, plus children's slippers. Our daughter (about 110cm) fit a size S — and refused to take it off.

The loanable baby-gear shelf — bottle-warmer, bottle-washing kit, and floor seats, all labeled in English too.

The onsen and spa

The big baths include an outdoor rotenburo and a sauna. We soaked both evenings and found them uncrowded both times — a pleasant surprise at a resort this family-oriented.

For parents with babies, the bathing area is unusually well equipped:

• A baby bed and diaper bin in the changing room
• Baby bathtubs and bath chairs inside the bathing area
• Low-irritant soap and shampoo for young skin

Afterward, the lounge's amazake and vinegar drinks make a nice cool-down ritual with kids.

The entrance to the baths (bath interiors aren't photographed) — gender-separated, with the outdoor rotenburo and sauna beyond the noren.

First onsen? It's a wash-before-you-soak, no-swimsuit shared bath, separated by gender. Read up on the basics before you go — my Kinugawa onsen-resort review has a five-point etiquette primer.

Kids' play areas

NASOBIBA (indoor): ride-on toys, picture books, and simple games — a lifesaver on rainy mountain days. You'll sign a quick waiver on your phone at the door. Specific toys rotate (a train-track feature we'd read about was gone by our visit), so don't promise your child anything specific.

NASOBO (outdoor): a roller slide and a few climbing structures beside the entrance — "a decent playground," not a theme park. Our visit got rained out, so I can't personally vouch for it in sunshine.

NASOBIBA, the indoor play room — the house rules come in English too ("How to have fun").

What Locals Know

• Reserve your dinner slot at check-in — and again first thing every morning of a multi-night stay. Our night-two mistake pushed dinner from 17:30 to 19:30.
• The kids' buffet setup is genuinely thoughtful: low tables kids can reach, kid-sized dishware and aprons, and tables with attached baby seats. Ask if yours isn't set up.
• Expect the dinner buffet to repeat 70–80% of its dishes on night two. Fine, but know it going in.
• Buy discounted attraction tickets from the lobby vending machine (cash only) instead of paying gate prices — details below.
• Breakfast queues by phone once tables fill (from around 8:00) — the hotel calls you when a table opens, so you're not standing in line with a toddler. Arrive near opening to skip the system entirely.

Food, diapers, and nursing

• Both buffets are on the 13th floor with mountain views. Dinner highlights for us: Utsunomiya-style gyoza, a seafood ramen — and udon for the kids.

A dinner-buffet plate: salmon nigiri, thin-sliced beef, udon, and salad — the kind of spread bundled into the rate.

• Free ready-made baby food is available at the buffet.
• We didn't find a dedicated public nursing room — plan to feed in your room, which is normal at Japanese resort hotels.
• Some rooms carry Japan's "Welcome Baby" certification with cribs — confirm which room types when booking.

Getting there (and why you'll want a car)

By car: via the Tohoku Expressway; a rental car is what this scattered highlands area is really built for.

By train from Tokyo:

Honest recommendation: if you weren't already planning to drive in Japan, weigh whether this nature escape justifies the taxi costs — or pick a train-friendly alternative like Kinugawa Onsen instead.

Pairing it with Nasu's kid attractions

Once you have a car, Nasu turns into a genuine family-attraction cluster:

• Nasu Highland Park — amusement park with rides across the age range
• Rindo Lake Family Farm — animals and lakeside activities
• Nasu Safari Park and Nasu World Monkey Park — drive-through and hands-on animal parks
• Nasu Animal Kingdom and the Teddy Bear Museum

The hotel's lobby vending machine sells discounted paper tickets to several of these (cash only). Discount amounts change — treat them as a bonus, not a budget line.

How much English will you need?

More than at a city hotel, less than deep-countryside Japan. Being an Accor property, the hotel has a full English page on Accor's official site and is bookable in English everywhere you'd expect. On-site, the family facilities are better than average: the play-area rules and the baby-gear shelves are signposted in English (we photographed them — see above). English-speaking staff aren't officially guaranteed, though, so keep a translation app handy for things like the dinner-slot reservation — the front desk is used to pointing-and-app conversations.

Verdict

A good fit for: road-tripping families who want a comfortable, nature-focused, all-inclusive base — with a real onsen, genuinely thoughtful baby gear, and a cluster of drivable animal parks. If you like the idea of a Japanese mountain resort but want a brand name you can book on familiar sites, you'll feel at home.

Skip it if: you don't have a rental car, or you're hoping to slot Nasu into a train-only city-hopping trip. The transit gap is the real limitation here — not the hotel.

Our honest take: a well-run, kid-thoughtful resort in a beautiful, under-the-radar area — one that rewards families who've committed to driving in Japan, and frustrates those who haven't.

👉 Check availability: See prices on Booking.com

Prices, meal inclusions, and discount tickets change — always confirm current details before you reserve. Have a question about visiting with your own kids? Ask me through the contact page — I answer every message.