We felt welcome from the moment the hotel shuttle van picked us up from Kawaguchiko Station to when it dropped us back two days later. We stayed in a Japanese room overlooking Lake Kawaguchi and with a view of Mt Fuji. The room was sparse looking with tatami mats and low table and chairs with the beds rolled away in the cupboard until night (when you came back from dinner they were down ready for sleep) We loved it.
We had Japanese meals for dinner and breakfast which was a really different experience for us. We had hot pots and the first night had no idea what to do and the waitress happily chatted away in Japanese explaining what we needed to do then after we all looked blankly at her, she started cooking and showing us what to do. Such fun. A lot of seafood though, both raw and dried, and some of it quite bizarre but we gave everything a go and you did not go away hungry as there were so many dishes. The next night we knew what we were doing.
Not a lot of English spoken but we managed to understand and be understood most of the time.
Hotel shuttle van took us back to the station to connect with the bus to Mt Fuji and when we returned we went to the Information Centre, give your hotel and name and they ring them up to come and get you.
We had a wonderful stay with happy smiling staff and the only thing that spoiled it right at the end was the onsen tax charge, 600yen. Not a huge cost but it would have been better if we had known about this before and even paid it upon checkin rather than when leaving. We had not even used the onsen and if we had known about this charge, would have made the effort to use it. No one likes paying for something they didnt use.