Tattoo friendly onsen in Gero

Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Premium Gero Honkan

大江戸温泉物語Premium下呂本館

The house rule is a cover seal. The hotel writes that guests with tattoos may not use the large baths, then adds the exception: with the hotel’s own cover seal, which it sells, and the tattoo completely hidden, the large baths are open. No size limit is given. The sentence sits on the day-visit page, so anyone staying the night with more skin to cover than one seal will take should raise it at the desk.

※入れ墨・タトゥーのある方は大浴場をご利用いただけません。ただし、当館指定のカバーシール（有料）を貼って、入れ墨・タトゥーが完全に覆える場合に限り、大浴場をご利用いただけます

Best for: A seal rule in writing at a hotel that also sells its bath to day visitors

Day bathing without reservation 07:00–10:00 and 15:00–24:00, last entry 22:00. The seals are the hotel’s own and are paid for, which is the opposite of the arrangement at Breezbay up the valley, where you bring your own.

Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Gero Bekkan

大江戸温泉物語下呂別館

Same wording as the group’s Honkan up the hill. The large baths are closed to tattooed guests unless the hotel’s own paid cover seal hides the tattoo completely, and the seal is sold on site, so nothing has to be carried in from home.

※入れ墨・タトゥーのある方は大浴場をご利用いただけません。ただし、当館指定のカバーシール（有料）を貼って、入れ墨・タトゥーが完全に覆える場合に限り、大浴場をご利用いただけます

Best for: The same seal rule at an address you can walk from, rather than up a hill

Formerly Saichoraku Bekkan, which is still the name on its booking listings. Day bathing is sold as well as rooms.

Breezbay Hotel & Resort Gero

ブリーズベイホテル＆リゾート下呂

Tattoos are refused in the large bath as a rule, and the exception is written into the same sentence: one cover seal of 8 by 10 centimeters, hiding the tattoo, and the refusal no longer applies. The seal is not sold here. The hotel asks guests to bring their own, which makes this a listing to pack for.

タトゥーなどを入れたお客様の大浴場のご利用は、原則お断りしています。ただし、8㎝☒１０㎝のカバーシール１枚で見えないようカバーしていただいた場合は、この限りではありません。シールはお客様ご自身で持参願います。

Best for: A published seal size, so the packing decision is made before you travel

One seal, 8 by 10 centimeters, supplied by the guest. The hotel also has a granite open-air bath it says can be taken privately, which sidesteps the seal question for a larger tattoo.

Bosenkan

望川館

Bosenkan publishes no tattoo rule at all, for the shared baths or anywhere else, so the shared baths stay an unknown. What it does publish is a reservable open-air bath and two kinds of room with their own bath, and those are answers a tattooed guest can rely on without asking anyone.

Best for: A river-facing open-air bath of your own for 45 minutes, free on weekdays when booked direct

The reservable open-air bath is 2,200 yen for 45 minutes per room, booked same-day at the desk on a first-come basis, and the inn’s own booking privilege makes it free on weekdays and half price on Saturdays. It is for overnight guests only; day visitors cannot use it. Rooms with their own open-air bath: the Shikisai riverside rooms, in Japanese style with a ceramic tub or Western style with a maki-wood tub and step-free access, and the three Sansuitei cottages in the garden. Baths are closed for cleaning around 03:00 to 03:30.

Gero Kanko Hotel Honkan

湯あそびの宿 下呂観光ホテル本館

No tattoo rule is published here, so the two shared baths are a question mark. The reason to come anyway is the count of baths you take alone: seven reservable open-air baths and twelve rooms with an open-air bath of their own, all of them on natural spring water by the hotel’s own statement.

Best for: Choosing between seven private open-air baths, each cut from a different material

The seven reservable baths are 3,080 yen for 45 minutes, and some plans include one free. They include a Shigaraki ceramic tub, a bath hollowed out of a Hida mountain boulder, a tea-kettle-shaped tub and the Ryokufu bath beside a stand of maples. Two more open-air baths in the detached block, Wakaba and Momiji, are free to guests between 06:00 and 10:00. The hotel says it draws about 83 tonnes of source water a day, at pH 9.18 and 55°C at source.

Gero Onsen Yamagataya

下呂温泉山形屋

The refusal here is flat and it is limited. Yamagataya says that regardless of where the tattoo is or how big it is, and with seals ruled out as well, tattooed guests may not enter the large bath or its open-air bath. The sentence names those two baths and stops. The seven reservable open-air baths and the rooms with their own tubs are governed by nothing, which is what makes a stay work.

刺青・タトゥーが入ったお客様は、部位・大きさ・種類（シールも不可）に関係なく、大浴場及び露天風呂にはご入浴はいただけません。

Best for: Seven riverside baths you can reserve, including one big enough for a group

The seven reservable open-air baths run along the Hida river. Tamayura, the large one, is 5,500 yen for 45 minutes; the other six are 4,400 yen for 45 minutes. Day visitors can use them for an extra 1,100 yen a head with a towel, plus the 100 yen bathing tax, and a bath towel rents for 330 yen. Soap and shampoo are not to be used in the reservable baths, which are open 16:00 to 22:00. There are also retro-modern rooms with their own open-air bath in the Tosenkaku wing.

Gero Onsen Ogawaya

小川屋

Ogawaya’s public-bath page says plainly that people with tattoos are refused entry to its large baths. It says nothing about the nine reservable baths, and silence is not permission, so do not read it as covering them. What holds up is the structure: nine baths that lock, seven of which the inn also sells to day visitors.

※誠に申し訳ありませんが、入れ墨、タトゥーのある方はご入浴をお断りしております。

Best for: Nine reservable baths in one inn, seven of them open to day visitors as well

Seven reservable baths in the Yuragi annex, each a different design with courtyard or terrace, plus two in the main building, the black-and-white Suzuri-yu and Kasuri-yu. The Yuragi seven run 12:30 to 21:45 by advance reservation, 4,400 yen for 45 minutes, or 4,950 yen for Kohaku, and the inn says they are free-flowing spring water. It also sells them for day use.

Kaiseki-yado Suihoen

懐石宿 水鳳園

Suihoen publishes no tattoo rule, so the two view baths are unresolved. Ten of its fifteen rooms have a bath of their own, indoor or open-air or both, and the inn also runs a reservable bath, which is the only bath it sells to people who are not staying. Either way the water you sit in is yours.

Best for: A room bath looking across at Gero Fuji, with kaiseki served in a private room

Ten of the fifteen rooms have their own bath: three barrier-free suites with both an indoor and an open-air tub, one with a half open-air tub, two with an open-air tub, two with a garden open-air tub and two more in the main building. Non-guests can bathe only in the reservable bath, and only by arranging the time in advance.

Kawakamiya Kasuitei

川上屋花水亭

Nothing on this inn’s site addresses tattoos, so its shared open-air bath is an unknown. The bath it reserves, Hi-no-yusen, and the suites that come with a cypress indoor tub and a granite open-air one are the parts a tattooed guest can count on.

Best for: A quiet riverside inn where the suite bath is cypress inside and granite out

The inn is candid about its shared Kawara-no-yu: a stone tub at 41 to 42°C, run on partial recirculation and filtration for hygiene, with fresh water always entering at the spout. The reservable bath is called Hi-no-yusen.

Kissenkan Chikusuitei

吉泉館竹翠亭

No tattoo rule is published, so the fifth-floor baths are an open question. The inn does have one bath built entirely of cypress that is taken privately, reserved at check-in, and its FAQ confirms that bath runs on piped Gero water rather than plain hot water.

Best for: A cypress-lined private bath booked at the desk when you arrive

The top-floor baths, Fuki-no-yu for women and Kissho-no-yu for men, swap by time of day and open 15:00 to 24:00 and 05:00 to 10:00. The private bath is reserved at check-in; the inn does not publish a price for it. Day bathing is sold 12:00 to 14:00 and 18:00 to 20:00 at 1,000 yen with a face towel. Water is alkaline simple spring at pH 9.18.

Onsen Business Hotel Fukiya

温泉ビジネスホテル 富喜屋

There is no shared bath here to have a rule about. The hotel states that its two bathrooms are private baths, used one party at a time, open around the clock, and filled with undiluted Gero water. For a tattooed traveler that removes the question entirely, at business-hotel prices.

共用の浴室は貸切風呂です。

Best for: A 24-hour private onsen bath at the price of a business hotel room

Two bathrooms, both taken privately, available 24 hours. Shampoo, conditioner and body soap provided. Source water at 56°C and pH 9.4, used at 100 percent by the hotel’s own account. There is a restaurant and a coffee shop in the building that serve breakfast, closed Sundays, and a laundry with two washers and two dryers.

Gero Onsen Fugaku

下呂温泉 冨岳

Fugaku’s bath conditions are among the strictest in town: tattooed guests may not enter the large baths or the view open-air bath, whatever the placement, size or kind, and a cover seal is explicitly not accepted. The two private baths are outside that sentence, and they are free-flowing spring water, small enough for two.

刺青・タトゥーが入ったお客様は、部位・大きさ・種類（シールも不可）に関係なく、大浴場及び露天風呂にはご入浴はいただけません。

Best for: A free-flowing private bath at an inn that has ruled out seals everywhere else

The two private baths, Ibuki and Kawagiri, are 1,100 yen for 45 minutes, 15:00 to 22:00, one of them a Shigaraki ceramic tub. The shared baths run on a men-and-women swap: fifth-floor bath 15:00 to 23:00 then 23:30 to 09:30, basement bath the other way round, with the view open-air bath open 06:30 to 09:30 and 15:00 to 23:00.

Sasara

紗々羅

Sasara’s bath page repeats one line under each shared bath: guests with tattoos are firmly refused. It says nothing about the two reservable open-air baths or the rooms with tubs of their own, and the inn states that every bath it has, rooms included, runs on source water available around the clock.

※刺青の入っている方のご利用は固くお断りしております。ご了承下さい。

Best for: A private open-air bath carved out of a 700-year-old tree root

Two reservable open-air baths: a rock bath with a shower, and the Nekko bath hollowed out of the root of a tree the inn puts at 700 years old. The top-floor shared baths have a cypress open-air tub over the town, open 24 hours apart from cleaning. Rooms with their own open-air bath take meals in the room.

Hotel Kusakabe Armeria

下呂温泉ホテルくさかべアルメリア

The refusal is posted on the bath page and repeated for day visitors: tattoos, including anything covered with a seal, are firmly refused in the hotel’s baths. That closes the two big bath halls. It leaves the suites, where the bath is inside the room, and the Selene maisonette is the clearest of them, with a cypress open-air tub of its own.

※刺青・タトゥー(シール類を含む)をされた方のご入浴は固くお断りしております。

Best for: A cypress open-air tub inside a two-floor suite, above a hotel whose shared baths are closed to you

Seals are named and ruled out, so this is a refusal rather than a seal rule. Room types with their own open-air bath include the Selene maisonette suites, one with a cypress tub and one with a jacuzzi, and Asian-style deluxe rooms. Day visitors are told the same thing, and private rooms and rest rooms are not sold to them.

Yunoshimakan

湯之島館

Yunoshimakan publishes no tattoo rule, so its view baths are unresolved. Its own bath pages say the guest rooms have indoor tubs, private open-air tubs or cypress tubs fed with fresh source water down to the taps, with one exception that matters: the registered-heritage rooms in the main building were built without baths, and guests there use the shared baths.

※登録有形文化財の本館客室は創業当時のスタイルのままのため、お風呂は大浴場にお越しいただく形をとらせていただいております。

Best for: A 1931 mountain ryokan where the annex rooms have their own spring-fed tubs

Book an annex room with its own bath, not a main-building heritage room, or there will be no private bath at all. The four old family baths under the entertainment wing, reached by a mosaic-tiled corridor, have been closed since the pandemic and the inn has not reopened them.

Seijaku Miyako

こころをなでる静寂 みやこ

No tattoo rule is published for the garden bath, so that one is unresolved. Everything else about this inn is private by design: four detached cottages and nine of the twelve main-building rooms have their own open-air bath, and there are two reservable baths besides, a ceramic one the inn gives away free and a rock one that is paid and booked.

Best for: A cottage with its own rock and ceramic tubs and a private garden around them

Sixteen rooms in total: twelve in the main building, nine of those suites with an open-air bath, plus four detached cottages. Mitsumushi, one of the cottages, has two open-air tubs, rock and ceramic, an indoor bath and its own garden. The free reservable bath is the ceramic one; the rock bath is charged and reserved.

Kisoya

木曽屋

No tattoo rule is published for the shared baths. The rooms with a private open-air tub are usable around the clock, and the inn is honest about what is in them: it states on the room page that the water in the guest rooms is not hot-spring water. Book a room here for privacy, and go down to the shared baths or out to a public bath for the spring itself.

Note: The room baths are ordinary heated water, not hot spring water. The inn says so itself.

*客室のお湯は温泉ではございません。

Best for: A private open-air tub on the balcony at any hour, with the spring water downstairs

Heated water, not spring water, in the room baths, in the operator’s own words. Room types with a private open-air bath include a special room of three connecting Japanese rooms sleeping up to ten, and a ten-mat room with a Shigaraki ceramic tub. The inn also uses its own roses in the bath.