Tattoo friendly onsen in Kotohira

Kotohira Grand Hotel Sakuranosho

琴平グランドホテル 桜の抄

This is the one house in Konpira Onsen that says out loud what a tattooed guest should do: buy a cover seal at the front desk and use the shared baths. The seal is a single B6 sheet, 12.8 by 18.2 cm, and the inn says you can cut it down to fit rather than wasting the whole piece. It is sold, not lent. The English pages carry the same offer in one line, so you do not have to explain yourself in Japanese at check-in.

当館では、ボディアートをしている方にも温泉を楽しんでいただけるようにと、『タトゥー隠しシール』をご用意しております（有料）1枚が大きくて、12.8×18.2cm（B6サイズ）あるので切っても使えますよ

Best for: A tattooed guest who wants the men’s open-air bath and its view of the shrine’s Daimon gate

One sheet has to cover the whole tattoo, so a sleeve or a back piece will not pass; the inn gives no count limit but the sheet is the limit. Sauna 16:00–22:00 and 6:00–8:00. The men’s open-air bath looks up at the Daimon gate. Water is the Chikoin spring, heated, recirculated, filtered and chlorinated, with a full drain and clean once a week, all of which the inn states. Baths are split by sex and Kagawa’s bylaw bars mixed bathing from age seven. Same ownership as Koubaitei under the Hananoyu name.

Kotohira Kadan

琴平花壇

Nothing on this operator’s site addresses tattoos, so the shared bath Kissho-no-yu is an open question and we leave it that way. What the inn does publish is two reservable open-air onsen baths you take alone, Nagomi-yu on the third floor of the Shogetsu Terrace wing and Mori-no-yu on the second floor of Sansuikaku, each booked in 45-minute turns at the front desk on the day. Several room types in Fujimidai and Sansuikaku come with their own open-air tub, and guests in those rooms get one of the reservable baths free for a session. Day visitors cannot use either private bath; they are for people staying the night.

Best for: Booking a room with its own tub and still having a second private bath to reserve for 45 minutes

Nagomi-yu runs 15:00–23:00 with last entry at 22:00 and 6:00–10:00 with last entry at 9:00, at 3,300 yen for 45 minutes; free to guests in the detached rooms, Fujimidai and the Japanese-Western special rooms. Mori-no-yu, which opened in July 2019, runs 15:30–23:30 and 6:30–8:30 at 3,850 yen for 45 minutes and is free to Sansuikaku guests. Both have their own shower booth and a place to sit afterward. Rooms with a private open-air bath were added to Sansuikaku in 2019 and again in 2023. The source is the Chikoin spring, a weakly radioactive simple cold mineral water that has to be heated. Part of the Hotel New Awaji group.

Yumoto Konpira Onsen Hananoyu Koubaitei

湯元こんぴら温泉 華の湯 紅梅亭

Koubaitei publishes no tattoo rule of its own, and its sister house up the slope sells cover seals while this one says nothing, so do not assume the two run the same door policy. Book instead on the room baths: the Rakuwa rooms have an open-air tub on the balcony fed by the same Konpira (Chikoin) spring as the big baths, and the Hanakurabu floor throws in one free 45-minute turn in a reservable bath, either Tsuki-no-yu or Hoshi-no-yu. Those two are the whole answer here, and they are for overnight guests.

Best for: An in-room open-air tub filled with the same spring the public baths use

The free private-bath turn is a Hanakurabu-floor perk, one session of 45 minutes at either Tsuki-no-yu or Hoshi-no-yu, not both. In-room open-air baths appear in the Rakuwa and Hanakurabu open-air room plans. The house is part of the Hananoyu group with Sakuranosho and the two share a bath-hopping arrangement, which is worth avoiding if you are relying on the room tub rather than a seal.

Kotohira Onsen Kotosankaku

ことひら温泉 琴参閣

The largest bath building in Konpira Onsen has no published tattoo rule, and the answer here is a room rather than a policy. Sansuikan and Hiten-kan both hold rooms with a private open-air tub on the balcony, from a 41 sqm twin up to an 80 sqm suite, and each of those room pages carries the same warning: the tub in the room is not spring water. It is ordinary heated water in a private tub, which settles the tattoo question but not the onsen one, so anyone who came for the mineral water is looking at the shared baths.

Note: The room baths are not hot spring water. The hotel says so on every open-air room listing.

※お部屋のお風呂は温泉ではございません。

Best for: A large-hotel room with its own balcony tub, if plain hot water in private is the trade you want

Room baths are not onsen water, stated by the hotel on each listing; set heated_water. Open-air rooms: Premium Suite open-air triple, 80 sqm, one room, Sansuikan 10F; Luxury open-air twin, 41 sqm, three rooms, Sansuikan 9F; open-air Japanese rooms on Sansuikan 4F, six rooms, and 3F, seven rooms; an open-air Japanese room in Hiten-kan, three rooms; and a Hiten-kan twin with a garden bath that connects to the neighboring open-air room. The shared bathing is the selling point of the house and it is the part we cannot speak for.

Kotohira Onsen Oyado Shikishimakan

ことひら温泉 御宿 敷島館

Four private baths sit on the guest floors here, in bamboo, cypress, stone and ceramic, and the operator asks nothing for them and takes no reservations. You check the lamp at the door, and if it is dark the bath is yours; locking the door lights it for the next person. They are open around the clock and they run on the Chikoin spring, unlike the open-air tubs and the sleeping bath, which the hotel lists as heated tap water. Shikishimakan itself publishes no tattoo rule, and its parent runs a stated refusal at its Dormy Inn city hotels, so treat the shared bath as closed and the four private ones as the reason to come.

貸切風呂は予約不要、先着順になります。入り口にございますランプで「空き」をご確認の上、ご自由にご利用ください。

Best for: Private onsen bathing at no extra charge, at any hour, without booking a slot

Private baths free, no reservation, 24 hours. Onsen: the indoor cypress bath and the four private baths. Heated water, not spring: the outdoor stone and barrel tubs and the sleeping bath, as the hotel’s own summary marks them 沸し湯. Source Chikoin, a hypotonic weakly alkaline cold mineral spring. Sauna closed 24:00–5:00, baths 15:00–10:00. Free foot bath on the approach 9:00–16:00. Rebuilt and opened 9 August 2019 by Kyoritsu Maintenance on the site of the Meiji-era Shikishimakan, using salvaged material from the old building. Top-floor Japanese-Western rooms have their own open-air bath and a wood terrace over the approach.

Konpira Onsen Kashikiri Yu-no-Yado Kotone

こんぴら温泉 貸切湯の宿 ことね

There is no shared bath in this building to have a rule about. Six private onsen baths make up the whole bathing offer, they are free to anyone staying, and the key fob on your room key opens whichever one is empty, as often as you like between check-in and check-out. That removes the tattoo question rather than answering it. The one thing to watch is the sister inn Yachiyo a minute away, whose indoor and rooftop baths guests here may also use: those are shared, and nothing published covers them.

ご宿泊のお客様には6つの全ての貸切温泉風呂が無料でご利用いただけます。各お部屋キーホルダーをお持ちいただければ、空いている貸切温泉風呂に何度でもご自由にお入りいただけます。

Best for: A tattooed traveler who wants to bathe six times in one night and never share a tub

The six are Wa-no-yu, Muku-no-yu, Shiro-no-yu, Midori-no-yu, Sakura-no-yu and Aoi-no-yu, all on the Konpira spring, all free, all listed as mixed use since you have the room to yourself. Wa-no-yu is floored in tatami and has a ramp, and Aoi-no-yu has one too; the inn keeps two bathing-assist chairs on the third floor. Free pickup from JR Kotohira or Kotoden Kotohira, two to three minutes by car.

Konpira Onsen Yumoto Yachiyo

こんぴら温泉湯元八千代

Yachiyo sells day-use entry to a rooftop open-air bath that Shikoku has few equivalents of, and publishes nothing at all about tattoos, so that bath stays an unknown. The bookable answer is the designer private bath Fukubune and the rooms with their own half-open-air tub, Ogatama and Kemari, plus a 70 sqm premium Japanese-Western room with a private bath and its own dining room. Those are the parts of the inn where nobody else is in the water with you.

Best for: A room with its own half-open-air tub in a house that has been innkeeping here since 1725

Day-use bathing is sold to non-guests, 800 yen for adults including the bathing tax, with the indoor bath open 11:00–15:00 and the rooftop open-air 11:00–14:30; those baths are shared and no tattoo rule is published for them. The rooftop bath was rebuilt in spring 2022 into a two-person reclining pool and a round sitting pool, with a barrel sauna beside it. Fifteen generations since 1725 by the inn’s own account. Sister house to Kotone, one minute away, and guests of each may use the other.