Sansuikan Kawayu Midoriya

A big, good-value Kumano Kodo base whose river-level open-air bath you share in a bathing wrap, with all-you-can-drink beer and sake and unlimited grilled ayu at dinner — but the bath is mixed, and 2026 reviews flag tired rooms and patchy cleaning

Kawayu Midoriya is a large riverside inn at Kawayu, the Kumano hot spring where water wells up through the riverbed. It belongs to the Hotel Urashima chain, whose parent company turns 70 in December 2026, and on 27 December 2025 it reopened with a new lobby, a free lounge pouring draft beer, wine and local juices, and two 80㎡ suites with free-flowing open-air baths. The big draw is the open-air bath on the Ōtō River gravel, fed by the inn's own 70°C spring and kept for guests: you walk out from the indoor bath in a bathing wrap, soak at the level of the water, then wade into the river in summer. In winter the free village river bath, Sennin-buro, is a 7-minute walk away. Japanese guests rate it 4.2 across 1,287 reviews on one major site (baths 4.4) and 4.20 across 1,115 on another, and bloggers who stayed from 2023 to 2025 loved the river views, the steam rising off the water at dawn and the starry night soaks. Dinner is a half-buffet: three set dishes plus about 30 local dishes, unlimited salt-grilled ayu, and in 2026 free beer, sake and umeshu with the meal. Know before you book: the river bath is mixed, with a loosely separate pool for each sex, and a guest in August 2026 felt uneasy there. Other 2026 complaints: dusty rooms, torn wallpaper, mouldy taps and broken bath fittings, groups taking over the lounge, and a buffet one guest felt had been tailored to foreign visitors. Two-meal stays ran about ¥12,000–24,000 per person in summer 2026, and over ¥30,000 in the suites.