24 Kaikan Hotel and Sauna Ueno

It's the same in Shinjuku, but even with the price increase, they don't seem to care about the customers at all. Honestly, it makes me not want to go. Isn't the temperature of the cold plunge pool on the rooftop way too high? They should change the water every few hours! 💢

Good sauna. Big wet area and lots of different rooms. Mostly bear type men. Relaxed atmosphere.

For me, it's the best gay spot in Tokyo. I'm German. The men here are somewhat more masculine, or rather, hairier and stronger than the average Japanese man.

Is it tattoo friendly?

Let's get one thing out of the door (or, out of the closet) : this is a place mostly for bears/chubs (generally beefier guys, but not necessarily muscle) and their admirers. If you're not one of those, don't come here as you will probably not have a good time. All floors are accessible via two elevators in addition to the staircase. I visited this place on a rainy Friday afternoon during the Golden Week. I was here with my partner, we're an European chaser/chub couple. I wouldn't say it was packed, but there were more than enough people walking around. After you enter (floor 2), you take off your shoes and put them in a 10-yen-coin-operated locker. You then take the shoe locker key to the receptionist, pay, and get back a robe, two towels (large and small), all packed in a bag. Lockers for changing are located on floor 3. We later left the robes in our lockers as people didn't seem to use those on the higher floors where we spent most of our time. Floor 4 is the "bathing floor", there's a few standing showers (mostly single-person cabins but there's also an area with three showers next to each other) and a number of Japanese traditional sit-down style washing stations. There are three baths in total of varying temperatures, one of them shoots bubbles too. There's a dry sauna, a steam room, and a "mist sauna" which is something I've never seen before, basically it's a room that has sprinklers (like the ones used for fire prevention) on the ceiling that just run continuously so you're wet all the time. The dry sauna is the smallest, followed by the "mist" one, and the steam room was the largest and could easily accommodate 20-ish guys. Floors 5-7 contain communal sleeping areas (bunk beds) and some relaxation areas for lying down, some provide video screens too. Upper floors are all private rooms so we didn't go there. The guys in here were mostly Asian and we saw at most three non-Asian guys. It seemed like some of them avoided us, as more than once somebody would come in to one of the 4th floor saunas, see us, and walk out. Whether that was due to us being non-Asians, I'll obviously never know. Guys were mostly on the shy side and generally will not approach you or let you know they're interested in something themselves, so it's much easier to just be upfront with what you want. Once the guys get over their shyness or anxiety, there's no stopping them. I'm going to say that if you can't handle rejection (or not showing signs of interest), you might have a hard time here. As opposed to most European places like this, most action here happens in the common rooms on floors 5 to 7. The mist and steam rooms had some of it too but I'd recommend hanging around 5-7 if you're short on time. We spent around 3 hours here and I'd generally recommend allocating more time than this. Coming around 2-3pm and staying until late would probably be best. The place does show signs of age in some places (some paint might be coming off somewhere, or things might be rusty) - hence the 4 stars - but I wouldn't say it's as bad as the other comments say, for example I did not notice any mould. I'll gladly visit this place again if I'm ever in Tokyo.

"If you ever question whether you're gay, a visit to the 24 Kiaken Hotel might just be the ultimate deterrent."

First visit, not bad, not as scary as I imagined. Plenty of food, the steam room was very interesting, I would like to visit again!

Facilities are comparable to their Shinjuku branch. Had a nice transaction at the front desk and had a nice meal at their canteen.

The staff's service was good. The place was clean and had meticulous precautions in place. The rooms were nice and the mirrors were long and beautiful, but there were a few things lying around in the sauna at the bathhouse, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Then, I was lying down on a double bed on the second floor, relaxing, when suddenly, a random guy with white hair came over, grabbed me around the neck, and said, "I like choking play, so I want you to do it to me." I literally couldn't breathe. I was saved by a guy with a scorpion tattoo on his back. I'll never go there again! I almost did it.

I previously gave it three stars, but now it has really improved and the service has become better, so I'm changing it to five stars.

If you’re not into bears and old people, don’t come here. I was shocked when a young guy rejected me for a grandpa (like very old). But this is not the reason why I’m giving this a 3 star. This is for the old receptionist. I think he can still do better. Their branch is Shinjuku is better.