A resort hotel rises from the shoreline of your island, where Tom Nook’s hospitality masks a hidden room list and a tailor-made getaway that changes with every guest.
How to unlock the resort hotel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Reach a 3-star island rating and host a K.K. Slider concert to bring Kapp’n’s boat tours to your pier. Update to version 3.0, then visit the expanded pier where the Resort Hotel appears automatically. Speak to Tom Nook inside with Kapp’n and Leilani, agree to assist, then decorate Room 1 for Leilani by selecting furniture that matches her theme suggestions from the recommended tab. Capture a photo with your Nook Phone once complete, tell her you’re done, and the hotel opens to receive its first guest.
In order to unlock the hotel in New Horizons, players need to have unlocked Kapp’n and his boat tours, as well as have a proper non-tent museum, according to some players’ reports. You’ll need to do the following:
- Unlock Resident Services to gain access to the town rating system.
- Achieve a 3-star town rating and have K.K. Slider perform.
- Donate at least 15 unique creatures to Blathers and then wait two days.
- Wait for Isabelle to make the respective announcements about Kapp’n and/or the museum.
Once Kapp’n is unlocked and the museum is fully upgraded, during Isabelle’s next announcements, she should tell the player that a hotel has opened on the pier.
Admittedly, the hotel resort was open right away across the board for our team, so we’re not entirely 100% if there are other requirements for it. We’ll update this guide as more reports come in.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ resort hotel, explained
The resort hotel appears on the pier after players reach a three-star island rating, unlock K.K. Slider’s concert, and access Kapp’n’s boat tours. Kapp’n’s family runs the facility, with Leilani handling check-ins, Grams selling souvenirs, and players designing eight themed rooms like Seaside or Japanese using catalog items and new furniture. Tom Nook coordinates initial setup, rewarding Hotel Tickets for completed rooms that attract tourist villagers, including amiibo guests, who roam the island during stays.
Gameplay in the hotel is very similar to the Happy Home Paradise DLC. Players will be tasked with decorating hotel rooms to a certain theme, like Modern or Japanese, to create more options for guests. Much like the DLC, players will pull from their own catalog to decorate these spaces, and New Horizons will make some new items that are on-theme available to players even if they aren’t in their catalog. Though there is a theme to adhere to in theory, players still have the freedom to make these rooms whatever they’d like.
Completing hotel room designs and DIY requests will earn players tickets, a hotel-specific currency that can only be redeemed at the hotel souvenir shop in the lobby, run by Gran. For each hotel room designed, players will receive 200 tickets, and you can decorate two rooms per day until you decorate all eight rooms. After this, you can either decorate a special VIP room (which you can invite specific characters to via amiibo) or you can opt to redecorate an existing room once per day for tickets.
You can only do so much decorating per day, but can continue hotel-related tasks via the DIY requests box. Here, Tom Nook has outlined items for the player to craft (which is made much easier by the new batch crafting system) that Kapp’n will then ship out to help spread the word of the island far and wide and entice more guests. The first four items you ship out every week will yield doubled tickets, with this bonus resetting on Mondays.
Unfortunately, unlike campsite visitors, villagers that stay at the island hotelcannot be asked to move in permanently. However, during their time on the island, they do essentially function as temporary villagers. They aren’t confined to their room, and can be found wandering around and mingling with the residents. However, they sadly can’t stay forever as visitors swap out every day.
The mannequins in the hotel lobby serve as borrowable outfits for guests visiting the island – both animals and humans. Players can set these outfits to anything they’d like by utilizing a mix of their own cataloged clothing and hotel-specific clothes. To change the outfit, players simply need to approach the mannequin and interact with it. Hotel guests may be seen out and about in one of these two outfits, and players visiting other islands can also interact with the mannequins to borrow an outfit temporarily.
How to unlock Leilani and start the first room design
To unlock Leilani and start the first room design in Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ resort hotel (from the 3.0 update), first ensure your island has a 3-star rating and you’ve unlocked Kapp’n’s boat tours via Isabelle after a K.K. Slider concert. Once notified of the hotel’s arrival at the pier, enter the building to trigger an introductory scene with Tom Nook, Kapp’n, and Leilani.
Meeting Leilani
Tom Nook recruits you to help Leilani, Kapp’n’s wife, who appears behind the reception desk in the lobby. Agree to assist with decorations during the dialogue; no refusal option exists. Speak directly to Leilani afterward-she immediately offers to start with Room 1 (Seaside theme).
Starting Room 1 Design
Select “I’ll help” when Leilani prompts you, and she escorts you upstairs to Room 1. Access decorating mode (press down on D-Pad), use the “Recommended” tab for Seaside furniture suggestions (like shells and nautical items), or place any catalog items-only one piece of furniture is minimally required, though theming impresses her. Save progress anytime or finish by taking a Nook Phone photo, then tell Leilani “I’m done.”
Completion and Rewards
A guest checks in right away, and Leilani awards 200 Hotel Tickets for the room, redeemable at Gram’s Souvenir Shop. This officially opens the hotel, unlocking daily designs (up to two rooms initially).
Do I need a three star island to unlock the hotel
Yes, a three-star island rating is required to unlock the resort hotel in Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ 3.0 update.
Why Three Stars?
Achieving three stars unlocks Kapp’n’s boat tours (after a K.K. Slider concert and museum upgrades), which serves as the prerequisite for the hotel notification from Isabelle. The hotel pier then expands automatically, introducing Leilani and the lobby.
Exceptions and Confirmation
Players below three stars won’t see the hotel, even post-update; one source notes the rating is needed once for K.K. access but remains essential overall. Multiple guides and videos confirm three stars as the threshold, not higher ratings like four or five.
