Kid-Friendly Hotels in Aomori City: Downtown Stays with Hot Spring Baths

When you look for a family hotel in Aomori City, all you seem to find are business hotels lined up in front of the station, and it is hard to tell whether any of them will work with a baby in tow. Aomori City is entered through Shin-Aomori Station and Aomori Airport, and it serves as a base for the Nebuta Festival, the Sannai-Maruyama Site (a large Jomon-era settlement dating back some 5,000 years), and trips out toward the Tsugaru and Shimokita peninsulas — so most families stay at a hotel in town and move around by train or car.

Most of the 9 properties listed here are city and business hotels around Aomori Station, and the majority allow preschool-age children to share a parent's bed at no extra charge. 5 of them rent out cribs, though the conditions differ from hotel to hotel. Hotel JAL City Aomori can only set up a crib in certain room types, such as the standard twin, and also lends bed rails and has a diaper-changing table on the first floor. Richmond Hotel Aomori lends cribs to children aged 1 year 6 months and older, in limited numbers, and you can also borrow a baby bathtub, a diaper pail, and odor-blocking diaper bags at the front desk. Daiwa Roynet Hotel Aomori lends cribs free of charge for babies under 1 year old, but for safety reasons does not lend them once a child can pull up to stand.

For families who want a long, unhurried soak, Machinaka Onsen Aomori Center Hotel and Hotel Route-Inn Aomori Ekimae are the ones to look at. The Center Hotel is directly connected to a natural hot spring that is included in the room rate, with a shallow children's bath fed by free-flowing spring water and a private family bath; there is a kids' corner in the post-bath lounge and a rack of children's loungewear in the lobby. Route-Inn has a large communal bath using kasseiseki mineral stones (an artificial hot spring) and a free breakfast buffet, with children's tableware in the dining room and a picture-book corner in the lobby. Hotel JAL City Aomori, Richmond Hotel Aomori, and Hotel Aomori have no communal bath, so bathing happens in your own guest room. At Hotel 2135 most rooms have a bathroom with a separate washing area outside the tub, and some rooms let you bathe together with your child.

For larger families, the easiest choices are the connecting rooms at Hotel JAL City Aomori, where two twin rooms are joined by an interior door; Hotel Aomori, which has both Japanese-style tatami rooms and connecting rooms; and Super Hotel Aomori, which has rooms with a loft bed. A good number of properties — 9 — offer a humidifier or an air purifier with a humidifying function, which is a real help during the dry winter months. Since the number and age of children allowed to share a bed vary by room type, it is worth confirming on the hotel's official website before you book.