Takaragawa Onsen Osenkaku

I wanted to go to a natural Onsen outside with the family. I don't like indoor Onsen. The Onsen here is perfect. The pool is very large. My whole family enjoyed it. I was a little worried when my Japanese friend said it's not recommended since I have a 12 years old girl. But everyone is covered with a provided towel cover. Everyone stayed far from each other so we feel very private even though it's a public bath. They have the private bath for women only. But I like the mixed gender bath since it is bigger and have better view of the"river" or Onsen. The room needs a little upgrade. I don't enjoy seeing rusted faucets and sink stoppers. There is no place to put towel in the bathroom and there is no soap in the toilet room. So after we use the toilet, we have to go to the bathroom to wash our hand then go back to the toilet to wipe our hand. The food is authentic Japanese (I was very miserable on our first trip to Japan 12 years ago since the food is the same everywhere we went in Tokyo). So if you like raw sushi and bland cooked meat, you will be fine (we were just spoiled by the food in the hotel we stayed before visiting Onsen here). My husband and son love the raw sushi and octopus at the Onsen. My daughter and I do not like the cooked food and we do not like raw sushi. The presentation of the food is absolutely beautiful. My kids still had a fantastic time at the Onsen. I was a little worried they wouldn't like it since they are so young. But they enjoy it so much. The breakfast was much better. The salmon and the miso soup were perfectly cooked. I love that I can hear the river rapids from the room and I can hear the birds chirping in the morning. The views were just like in the pictures and YouTube. Really enjoy our stay

Great hotel! Located in the mountains, it stands literally on a mountain river, the views are amazing. The room we stayed in was in a traditional Japanese style with sliding doors, tatami mats and mattresses for sleeping on them (which were made up for us while we were at dinner). There was one toilet for several rooms, which did not interfere in any way, the shower was located to the side. The hotel also provided a traditional dinner and breakfast. The hotel has several onsen rooms with different water temperatures, shared or separate for women.

We’ve known this place for many years and the place kept his charm throughout the years. Unfortunately Covid must have hit hard as some buildings are a little run down. ||Also we can no longer enjoy the dinner in the room which was part of the true experience. The futons used to be put away during day time and the beds prepared in the evening after dinner which is no longer the case. The staff even was surprised when we demanded why the room wasn’t made back to day time setting. ||The place is for relaxation and enjoying the hot springs. However as many foreigners are now part of the clients, too many of them are not respecting the Japanese culture making the whole experience not as enjoyable. The hotel staff should enforce more the rules and insist on foreign guests to be more respectful and polite. Some Russian guests were extremely loud in the bath, monopolizing some part of the bath and even sitting on the entrance of the bath preventing other guests from entering the premises. ||We would prefer the hotel to insist and enforce respect towards other guests, especially locals. ||Finally the new rules about the attire to go into the onsen water is a little ridiculous and strip away the traditions. ||The place is still charming but with all the influencers/instagram alikes flooding to the place, the place will soon lose all its charm.

I visited as a day trip guest so I can’t speak for the accommodation or meals but I thought the outside baths were very beautiful. It was my first time at an konyoku onsen but I thought the “swim dresses” worked well. The water is hot and varies across multiple pools. However I took two stars off because in the summer the abu (horse flies) are really bothersome and will descend on you and start biting if you stay in one spot for too long. The bugs really stopped me from being able to enjoy the nature. I would return in months when there are no biting flies and I think it would be an amazing facility.

The rooms give a glimpse into living in old world Japan. Chairs and table are low (floor level). Beds are futon mattresses on the floor. All doors are sliding screen doors. The is a private bath, but no shower due to the spa facilities. The features are quaint, but a little dated. There were building renovations happening when we were there in July. A traditional robe is given to be worn throughout the building and multiple sizes are available though my 188 cm 123 kg frame taxed the sizing. The three outdoor mixed gender pools were right along the river, giving a glorious setting to soak in. There are multiple change rooms and space to leave your robes by the main pools. Staff was very helpful in setting up a shuttle from Jomo-kogen. The meals that were included were fantastic: celebrating traditional Japanese dining. We loved our stay.

Great onsen with shared baths, allowing couples and families to enjoy the hot springs together. Dinner and breakfast are simply amazing! Before you have time to finish one dish, they are already bringing you another. The staff is extremely polite and ready to solve any problem! The downside is the remote loc nuation, but there is a shuttle to the onsen. Also, we did not have amenities in our room, only on the floor, but this is special about our building.

This ryokan is situated in the majestic mountains of Gunma which is an ideal location but I was disappointed in the outdated bathrooms and rooms. As an American I was surprised to see but spray in the room of a pricey hotel(+$200/ night) but I didn’t see any bugs anywhere and it was clean. The onsens were an ethereal experience. It started to snow and the heat vapors with the snowflakes was an amazing experience. The onsens made me want to return but I need them to renovate these bathrooms. The hospitality and staff were so kind and welcoming to me. Everyone treated me well. I guess I paid for the onsens and food because dinner and breakfast were great too.

This is a large, multi-story ryokan. It has scaffolding over part of the building for concrete repairs. The rooms are basic, the futons were too thin (my hips hurt), the meals were delicious and beautifully served, the outdoor coed onset is beautiful, the "bathing suit" that women must wear is a sack dress and men wear a towel with strings. There are unisex naked onsens as well. The best part of staying there was white water rafting with I Love Outdoors. They give a longer ride than MAX who is partners with the hotel.

After three separate visits for the day-use onsen, I thought that Takaragawa Onsen didn't hold any more surprises for me. But the ryokan was determined to prove me wrong. At the request of a friend we stayed overnight, and it was such an amazing time that I'm wondering when I can come back again. We stayed in the 第一別館, which is the building furthest away from the main building. A wooden structure built in 1936, the annex has no in-room bath or toilet. Instead, there is a shared bathroom (toilet) on each floor, and an indoor bath in the main building, as well as several rotenburo (outdoor baths) just across the river. You need to walk through a long connecting corridor to get back to the main building, which also houses the restaurant for dinner and breakfast. For that reason, the annex has the cheapest of the room options available at Takaragawa Onsenkaku. However, I'm convinced that our room, called 梅 (Japanese plum), was the very best in the entire ryokan. It has a fantastic view of the rushing river below and a really lovely round paper window, which you can see lit up at night when crossing the bridge to the rotenburo. I think that every time I come to Takaragawa Onsen again in the future on a day visit, I'll look across the river and think "There's my room!" Sure there's wear and tear but, honestly, that's part of the charm of staying in a wooden building that's nearly a century old. The best part of staying at the ryokan is being able to visit the rotenburo at all times of night. Especially in the middle of the night when no one is around, it's like having your own giant private onsen. And waking up to the sound of the rushing river in the morning comes in at a close second. Buffet-style dinner and breakfast are included in the stay. Unfortunately, only a specific accommodation plan for guests staying in the main building comes with the traditional ryokan kaiseki meal, but dinner was still very tasty and had great variety. I was also blown away by the friendliness of the staff. Japanese ryokan are notable for their hospitality, but there was one obachan in the restaurant who was particularly playful and really made our stay. I was feeling like I had seen it all after my third visit to Takaragawa Onsen, but after staying at the ryokan I can't wait to come again! As for the guy asking why there aren't any window screens -- they're not a part of traditional Japanese architecture. Why would you retrofit a beautiful old ryokan with hideous window screens?

Overall, I had high hopes, but was disappointed. Two stars for my room and four stars for the rotemburo. The rotemburo was beautiful! But, my room (the least expensive level) was fairly worn and not as clean as I would have liked (or as I've come to expect in Japan) There were some sections of the room's walls and doors that were pretty damaged. Alot of moths / insects were in the shared bathroom at night. This inn seems not to believe in window screens! The hallways were surprisingly dusty, but I'm a tall guy, so maybe I was only noticing the areas that the staff couldn't reach? The indoor men's bath also had stained walls and damaged mirrors. My recommendation? Just visit the beautiful onsen on a day trip and stay somewhere else.

BEWARE...Stayed at this hotel for one night back in May 2019. Prepaid for 14 guests (11 adults and 3 children) through Orbitz at $1815.70. The female employee (English speaking and very polite) who checked us in verbally confirmed that our stay was paid in full. However, upon checkout, shortly prior to boarding their shuttle (the hotel is located in a remote prefecture in Minakami and their shuttle was the only mode of transportation that would transport us to the train station in time to catch our 4+ hour train ride to Kyoto), we were told by two males (there were 3 males working, but only two spoke and one with limited English capability and the female who had checked us in was not there), that the accommodations for the 3 children had to be paid then. I explained that I had already prepaid for all of the guests through Orbitz; however, the male who spoke the most English insisted that I make the payment there. We went back and forth several times; me explaining that I had prepaid even notifying that his female colleague had confirmed this upon check-in and him insisting that the payment be made. At one point during our verbal exchange he informed that he had emailed me notifying me of this, to which I responded that he had not-even searching my emails to be certain and when I couldn't find his email I asked him to show me the email that he had sent to me (all the whole the shuttle is ready to leave and about to leave us there with no ride if I didn't get on that shuttle soon), which he did not. Because the back and forth exchanges lasted for approximately 15 minutes and at that point I realized that it was already 9:33 AM and the 9:30 AM shuttle was about ready to leave me (most of my family was on the shuttle asking the shuttle driver to wait), I angrily and frustratedly handed over my credit card and paid AGAIN for the 3 children. In addition to this mess, we didn't enjoy the onsen as much as we thought we would. Although I understand that the onsens are natural, there was just too much unpleasantries.The floor of each onsen was extremely slippery with moss, some areas held foul odors, and there were numerous bugs everywhere (some of them looked liked mosquitos). All of this made for an unpleasant experience (we stayed in the onsen for only around a total of 10 minutes before exiting and returning inside). Also, the photos of the rooms online are deceiving, they are actually older and each of our four rooms smelled musty. In two of our rooms, dust flew out of the air conditioner onto the mattress where some of us slept. The food was just okay. On the positive side, the restaurant staff, especially the females, were accommodating and friendly; however, I would not recommend this place based on our entire experience.