Ryotei Matsubaya
旅亭 松葉屋
Does Ryotei Matsubaya allow tattoos? In a private bath
Four baths at Matsubaya are yours for the length of a soak: two open-air, one half open-air in Balinese style, one indoor family tub carved for the moon. The water is clear enough that the inn invites you to drink it.
Matsubaya has four baths you take alone and one large bath you do not, and the inn says guests may use all of them. Yakushi-no-yu and Meoto-no-yu are private open-air baths, Muku-no-yu is a private half open-air bath, and Usagi-no-yu is an indoor family bath. All five run free-flowing from the source. Six of the eight rooms in the Tsuki-no-so wing also have an open-air bath on the balcony, and Hatsune and Matsukaze have a view bath indoors.
Show this at the front desk
ご宿泊のお客様は、本館丘ノ想の「薬師の湯」と3つの湯処を集めた「ゆるり小路」、月ノ想「月あかりの湯」、すべての湯処をご利用いただけます。
The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.
The bath
Four of the five baths are taken alone. Yakushi-no-yu is an open-air bath whose tub was cut from a boulder dug out of the mountains of Fujian, with a pine pattern carved into the stone. Muku-no-yu is a half open-air bath built in Balinese style. Meoto-no-yu sets a large ceramic tub beside a small one, like a couple’s rice bowls, under a sacred tree with two frogs sheltering from the rain. Usagi-no-yu is the indoor family bath, cut for the moon and lit so the moon lands on the water. The fifth, Tsuki-akari-no-yu in the Tsuki-no-so wing, is the large bath, indoor and outdoor, split by sex and finished in Beppu materials.
All five run free-flowing on a simple spring. Kankaiji sits about 200 meters above the bay, and its water is the clearest of the eight districts, clear enough to drink at the tap.
Hours are 15:00 to 24:00, then 06:00 to 08:00 or 09:00 the next morning depending on the bath. The site does not say whether the private baths cost extra or how a turn is claimed, only that guests may use all of them, so settle that at check-in.
The hotel
Two buildings with different manners. Tsuki-no-so has eight rooms in modern Japanese dress, wide twins of 50 and 60 square meters and two maisonette suites of about 100, with its own premium lounge and an 11:00 checkout; six of the eight have an open-air bath on the balcony and Hatsune and Matsukaze have a view bath indoors. Okano-so is the older wing, ten plainer rooms with no bath of their own, a cafe-style lounge and a 10:00 checkout. Dinner is kaiseki built on Bungo Channel fish and Oita produce.
What is good about it
- Four baths you take alone in one night, two open-air, one half open-air and one indoor family tub.
- A tub cut from a Fujian boulder, with a pine pattern carved into the stone, and water you may drink.
- Six of the eight Tsuki-no-so rooms have a balcony bath, and the other two have a view bath indoors.
Getting there
2.3 km up the Kankaiji hillside from JR Beppu STN, about 200 meters above the sea by the inn’s own reckoning, which is where the view over the bay comes from. A taxi from the station is the simple way up.
Beppu STN · JR Nippo line; the Sonic limited express runs in from Hakata
Not a walk: 2.3 km of hill.
Check-in 15:00 with the last arrival at 18:00; checkout 10:00 in Okano-so and 11:00 in Tsuki-no-so.
Where it is
Hakata STN
JR Sonic limited express 1 h 55
Kokura STN
Oita STN
✈Oita Airport
Hotel locationBeppu STN
What happens when you arrive
Skip the shared baths and reserve the private one the way this page describes. Once the door is closed, the bath is yours.
How we know
Confirmed from official site, bath structure rather than a tattoo policy (the hot spring page and both room pages)
Read on: matsubaya.cc/hotspring/
Best for: Working through four different private tubs in one night, high enough to watch the bay go dark
Neither the Japanese nor the English page states whether the private baths cost extra or how you claim a slot, only that guests may use them and that hours run 15:00 to 24:00 and 6:00 to 8:00 or 9:00. Ask at check-in. Spring type is 単純温泉, drinkable at the tap. Okano-so, the ten-room main building, has no bath in the rooms. A notice about Muku-no-yu being rebuilt in early 2024 is still on the page, so confirm it has reopened.
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