We love staying at historic hotel. Best feature of Natalya is it's on-site onsen which is convienently accessible for hotel guests. Dining was great but they need more staff training for international guests. Checkout was a bit chaotic and inefficient with guests sitting around in the lobby waiting for the turn to be checked out (two staff at reception, and only one was doing all the checkouts). Otherwise, the hotel is convienently located close to town center and walking distance to the bus terminal, public onsens, etc.. we booked a room that overlooked the kusatsu yubatake.
The location is great with the yubatake right around the corner. Nice ryokan with large rooms and onsens, but the building itself was not particularly exceptional. Very good, but not great considering the price. However we had several wonderful surprises for our kaiseki dinners and breakfasts. We stayed 3 nights and 2 nights towards the end of dinner a sushi chef came into our dining room and we were able to order as much sushi as we could eat. In the morning another chef came in and made individual tamago-yaki to go along with the rest of the breakfast. And the best surprise were the large individual tear drop ice igloos at one dinner with sashimi inside. Absolutely beautiful and stunning and of course the sashimi excellent.