Amami Oshima Vacations from ￥49,832

I had a fantastic stay. The hotel is very nice and the food is excellent. They had ordered an Italian dinner for me the first night and it was fine, some elements of it were excellent like the soup and arancini, but I prefer to eat Japanese food while I'm in Japan and so for the remaining nights I had the Japanese dinners which were really wonderful. The staff don't speak much English but they all tried to be helpful and friendly. The airport pick up and shuttle back there on the last day worked perfectly. I would strongly recommend getting a car then you can see more of the island (I didn't). The hotel organised kayaking, forest walk and snorkelling trips for me.

We liked the hotel, but it really came into its own when a typhoon cancelled our flight to Okinawa and we had to stay an extra day. The staff helped us change our local car rental and were helpful in many small but so-appreciated ways. The buffet breakfast and the a la carte dinner menu (with an English-language menu) were always good, and tables and chairs in the main building meant we could both work on our laptops the day the storm kept us from going anywhere. We have no Japanese and only one staff member spoke significant English but we all managed to understand what was going on with regard to storm-related changes. They made what could have been a difficult time very easy.