Sapporo and surrounds during snow fest

Hi all,

Just wanting some advice about part of our itinerary for what will be a 27 day trip in total between Jan 27 and Feb 22.

We're looking at going to the sapporo snow festival and wanting to book hotels pretty soon (missed out on booking earlier as we were waiting for leave approval). We are slow pace travellers and are currently looking at spending 4 nights in sapporo and surrounds from Feb 2 - Feb 6.

My question is:
Is there enough to keep us occupied in sapporo with small side trips to Otaru etc for those 3 full days and two half days, or should one of those nights be sacrificed to go to noboribetsu or toyako onsen? Alternately is it worth adding additional nights to this hokkaido portion of the trip? We like snow but aren't used to the cold.

Both of us have been to Japan twice, with myself having been to the snow fest once before and remember it as freezing but fun. The rest of the trip will be revisiting Tokyo and Kyoto, as well as venturing to magome/tsumago and ise.

We're looking at flying back but any suggestions of nice places to stay should we decide to take the train up to sapporo are very welcome.

Thank you for all your help.

I spent a wee bit longer than that (5 nights total) during the 2014 winter festival season. Just Sapporo with side journeys to Otaru and Asahikawa. To be honest, I wish I'd stayed longer.

This is what I saw and did during that time (might give you a few ideas):

https://withinstrikingdistance.wordpress.com/tag/hokkaido/

Time permitting, I'd try to slot a day trip to Asahikawa somewhere in your itinerary, both for their own winter festival (if the timing's right) and for the famous zoo, which I recall was quite a delight to walk across during the winter (the penguin walk being a particular highlight).

Cheers.

Given your dates (2nd-6th Feb 2019), it seems you'll miss the Otaru winter festival by a couple of days, and the first day of Asahikawa's will fall on your last day (so it's possible you'll miss out on that as well unless you leave Sapporo late and make room for the day trip in the morning). I'd say both places will still be worth visiting at that time - there will likely be preparatory work (like snow sculpting) going on that might be interesting to see - but it's worth keeping this in mind.

Cheers.