Kinugawa Onsen Hotel
鬼怒川温泉ホテル
Does Kinugawa Onsen Hotel allow tattoos? Yes, covered
A cover seal gets you into the large baths. If it won't cover the tattoo, use the bath in your room or book one of the two private open-air baths.
Both halves of the rule are on the hotel's own page for the Keikoku-no-yu bath.
Show this at the front desk
刺青・タトゥーのある方のご利用はお断りしております。タトゥー隠しシール等で隠していただいた場合はご利用いただけます。隠せない場合は、客室内の浴槽や貸切風呂をご利用ください。
The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.
The bath
The water is a mix of four sources, classed as a simple spring, which the hotel describes as gentle water that suits children and sensitive skin. It notes that Kinugawa was once temple land of Nikko, where only daimyo (feudal lords) and monks coming back from the shrines could bathe.
Keikoku-no-yu is the wooden bath hall, built to recall an old bathhouse, with a view of the gorge. It has a large wooden tub, a lukewarm tub of Kenryokuseki stone, a hotter germanium bath, a half-body bath and a rock open-air bath. Yuri is the stone hall, with an open-air bath where you hear the river and four indoor tubs each set with different stones (turquoise and moonstone, tourmaline, iolite and blue apatite, smoky quartz and malachite). The two halls swap between men and women, and each side has a sauna. Bring towels from your room. A sensor posts how crowded the baths are in real time. Day visitors can bathe 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. for ¥1,650 plus ¥50 bathing tax, when the hotel isn't too busy and not during Silver Week.
The two private baths, Toki and Kihada, are for hotel guests only, ¥3,300 for 45 minutes, booked ahead. Toki's open-air part is two one-person ceramic tubs. Kihada is finished in wood grain and has step-free access to its changing room.
The hotel
A Kanaya group hotel, which traces its roots to the Nikko Kanaya Hotel. The rooms are split across three wings. Japanese rooms facing the gorge in the Natsukashi-kan, Japanese-Western rooms (some with a river-view terrace) in the Yunomachi-kan, and Western rooms opened in 2022 in the Yuraku-kan, plus rooms fitted out for babies and small children. Dinner is a buffet from a stone-oven open kitchen or a hot-pot course in private dining rooms.
Good to know
- Two room keys per room, so whoever finishes in the bath first can get back in.
- Free drinks in the lobby lounge, 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
- No hotel pickup, by agreement with the bus company. Take the ¥300 dial bus from stop 5, 5 to 7 minutes.
Getting there
Tobu limited expresses run to Kinugawa-Onsen Station from Asakusa and Kita-Senju without a change. The Nikko Kotsu dial bus leaves from stop 5, just to the right outside the station, timed to the expresses, 5 to 7 minutes, ¥300. A taxi is about 5 minutes and around ¥1,000.
Kinugawa-Onsen STN · Tobu Kinugawa line (limited expresses from Asakusa and Kita-Senju)
About 20 to 30 minutes.
Dial bus from stop 5, 5 to 7 minutes, ¥300. Taxi about ¥1,000.
Where it is
Kinugawa-Onsen STN
- Shinkansen tickets Seats between any two stations, booked by date.
- JR Tokyo Wide Pass ¥16,000 · 3 days Worth it if you’re also traveling around Tokyo on JR.
- Nikko Pass All Area ¥8,000 · 4 days Worth it if you’re coming from Asakusa. It covers the Tobu line from Asakusa and back, and Tobu trains and buses around Kinugawa and Nikko.
- Nikko classic day tour Toshogu Shrine, the Irohazaka hairpins, Lake Chuzenji and Kegon Falls, from Tokyo.
- Japan Rail Pass from ¥53,000 · 7, 14 or 21 days For a trip that takes in several regions by Shinkansen and JR lines.
What happens when you arrive
Bring your own seals and cover the tattoo completely before you go in. The hotel doesn't specify a size, so cover everything.
How we know
Confirmed from official site (the hotel's own bath page)
Best for: couples who want a wooden bath over the gorge, with a private one as the fallback
No seal size is published. The rule is on the page for the Keikoku-no-yu bath, not on the spa index or the private-bath page.
Book your stay
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