Dogo Onsen Honkan

Rooms, Admission and Hours

The main building sells several kinds of tickets, depending on where you want to relax after bathing. Bathing on the ground floor (Kami-no-yu) costs about 700 yen for adults age 12 and up and about 350 yen for children ages 2 to 11, from 6:00 to 23:00 with last admission at 22:30. Adding a second-floor seating area costs about 1,300 yen for adults, and the Tama-no-yu second-floor package is about 2,000 yen. A third-floor private room is about 2,500 yen for adults and allows 90 minutes. These four options cannot be reserved. The two rental rooms on the third floor and the guided Yushinden tour require a reservation. Check the operator's page before you go, because prices and hours can change.

A three-bath ticket is sold at about 1,440 yen for adults and about 680 for children, and it covers the main building's ground-floor bath, Tsubaki-no-yu and the Asuka-no-yu annex bath. It is valid on the day of sale and the next day, and each bath can be used once. The main building is a public bathhouse, so it does not offer overnight stays.

Rooms and Details Inside

The bathhouse describes the heron-topped tower, Shinrokaku, as the building's symbol, with a drum that sounds the time and was chosen as one of Japan's 100 Soundscapes. The third-floor private rooms were once called "jotō" (first class), a word that appears in the novel Botchan. The operator says the northwest corner room on that floor is the one the novelist Natsume Soseki is said to have used with the poet Masaoka Shiki in October 1895, and that it was named the Botchan Room in 1966.

Yushinden is a separate area of the main building, described as Japan's only bath built for the imperial family. It has a throne room, a sitting room and a bathing chamber, and visitors tour it with a guide for about 500 yen for adults, 9:00 to 17:00. It is not a place to bathe.

Bathing Rules

The operator lists its rules for bathers. Wash before entering the tub, tie up long hair, and keep towels out of the water. Photos and phone use are not allowed in the changing room or bath, and food and drink may not be taken into the bathing area. Lockers should be locked and the key band worn on the wrist, and swimsuits are not allowed. Rental towels cost about 110 yen and bath towels about 320 yen at the shop.

Getting There and Parking

From Matsuyama Airport, the limousine bus to Dogo Onsen Station takes about 43 minutes. From JR Matsuyama Station the Iyotetsu streetcar to Dogo Onsen takes about 25 minutes, and from Matsuyama City Station about 20 minutes. The city parking lot has 93 spaces at about 100 yen per 30 minutes, and bathing at one of the three public baths gives one free hour.