Collection
Pools are less common in Japanese hotels than you might expect, especially in the cities, so they are worth searching for specifically. City hotels tend to have indoor pools on upper floors; resorts in Okinawa and the countryside have outdoor and infinity pools.
Check the opening season and whether there is a charge or age limit for using the pool — rules vary from hotel to hotel. For families, the table below shows what each hotel’s official site says about children, for the properties we have checked.
What each hotel’s official site says. Not a ranking. Having a pool does not mean children can use it; “Not stated” means the hotel does not say, not that it is allowed. Hours and seasons change, so check before you go.
Official siteSource 2checked 9 October 2026
Official sitechecked 9 October 2026
Official siteSource 2checked 9 October 2026
From each property’s official website. “Not confirmed” means we have not checked it yet — not that it is unavailable.
| Property | Baths | Dining | Getting there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aman Tokyo | Not confirmed | Four restaurants, and breakfast on every rateOfficial site, checked 25 September 2026 | Five minutes by car from Tokyo StationOfficial site, checked 25 September 2026 |
| Palace Hotel Tokyo | Not confirmed | French, Japanese, tempura, teppanyaki, Chinese and sushiOfficial site, checked 24 September 2026 | Not confirmed |
| Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi | Not confirmed | French and Italian on the 39th floorOfficial site, checked 25 September 2026 | Not confirmed |
| Atami Pearl Star Hotel | An open-air bath from its own source, and a saunaOfficial site, checked 29 September 2026 | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| The Pool & Sauna villa MOTOBU | Not confirmed | No restaurant on site, so order in advanceOfficial site, checked 29 September 2026 | Not confirmed |
| GORA KADAN FUJI | The communal baths run 15:00 to 11:00, with the sides swapped partwayOfficial site, checked 26 September 2026 | A choice of five restaurantsOfficial site, checked 26 September 2026 | Call for the car once you reach the stationOfficial site, checked 26 September 2026 |
Ordered by how many stay reports we have linked. We do not rank or score hotels.
オークラ東京
A rebuilding of the Hotel Okura, which first opened in 1962, in Toranomon. It is split in two: the low-rise Heritage Wing and the high-rise Prestige Tower. The lobby of the old main building has been preserved and recreated, down to the lantern-shaped lights and the arrangement of tables that people came to photograph.
ハレクラニ沖縄
A resort on the coast at Onna, on the west side of Okinawa's main island. It is split into a Beachfront Wing and a Sunset Wing and holds several pools, one of them carrying the orchid mosaic that is the emblem of the original Halekulani in Waikiki.
アマン東京
Aman's first urban hotel, on the upper floors of Otemachi Tower and topping out on the 38th. The lobby is an atrium of roughly 30 metres, and the washi-and-stone interior is kept unusually dark for a city hotel. Every room is a suite: the smallest Garden View Suite is 71 sqm, the Aman Suite 157 sqm. All rates include breakfast and the wellness floor, with a 30-metre indoor pool and Japanese baths.
W大阪
The first W in Japan, on Midosuji, the avenue that runs through the middle of Osaka. Tadao Ando designed the exterior as a black rectangular block; inside, the hotel turns the other way and uses colour and light hard. It points somewhere different from the other luxury hotels in this book.
パレスホテル東京
An independent hotel facing the moat of the Imperial Palace. What sets it apart is that the water and greenery of Wadakura moat are in view directly from the rooms, some of which have balconies. The pastry shop and the bar inside draw people from the neighbourhood as much as guests.
パーク ハイアット 東京
Occupies the upper floors of Shinjuku Park Tower and has been open since 1994. Known as a film location, its top-floor bar and glass-walled pool have been landmarks since the day it opened.
コンラッド大阪
On the upper floors of Nakanoshima Festival Tower West, with the rooms at around the fortieth floor. The view opens north towards Umeda and south across the rest of the city.
ウォルドーフ・アストリア大阪
The brand’s first hotel in Japan, on the upper floors of the Umekita development. It faces the park created in the redevelopment north of Grand Front Osaka, so there is greenery below you in the middle of Umeda.
ザ・リッツ・カールトン沖縄
On a hillside at Kise in Nago, with the guest wings gathered around a body of water that recalls the moat of a castle. It is not on the beach; a shuttle takes you to the private one. A golf course sits next door.
星のや沖縄
On the coast at Yomitan, ringed by a wall built in the manner of the gusuku stonework that enclosed Okinawan villages. Every room faces the sea and holds a doma — a floored space that sits half outdoors.
ザ・プリンスギャラリー 東京紀尾井町
On the upper floors of Kioi Tower, with a lobby lounge on the thirtieth looking out over the city. The green of the Imperial Palace and the Akasaka Estate fills more of the view than it does from most hotels in central Tokyo.
ROKU KYOTO
A low-rise resort at the foot of the Takagamine hills, next to the Shozan gardens. It has a communal bath fed by a natural hot spring and an outdoor pool facing the garden. Being out of the city, it is quiet in a way the centre is not.
ザ・リッツ・カールトン京都
On the bank of the Kamo river, looking across it to the Higashiyama hills. It is in the middle of the city but built low along the water, so the rooms look out onto the river and the gardens.
ザ・リッツ・カールトン大阪
Opened in Nishi-Umeda in 1997, the first of the international luxury houses in the Kansai region. The eighteenth-century English interiors run through the whole building, which sets it apart from the modern hotels that opened recently.
ザ・ブセナテラス
A resort spread across the tip of Cape Busena, known as the site of the 2000 Okinawa Summit. The whole cape is the grounds, which is how it comes to have both a beach and an underwater observatory.
ジャヌ東京
The first hotel under Aman’s sister brand, in the Azabudai Hills development. With a large wellness floor and a run of restaurants, it aims at being a place where people gather — the opposite of the guarded quiet at Aman Tokyo.
フォーシーズンズホテル東京大手町
On the upper floors of a tower in Otemachi, with the view opening both towards the Imperial Palace and towards Tokyo Station. The glass-walled pool and spa sit at the very top, and swimming while looking out over the city is what stay reports come back to.
ザ・リッツ・カールトン東京
At the top of Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi, with every room high up. On a clear day the view carries as far as Mount Fuji, which is why stay reports keep returning to which way a room faces.
アンダーズ 東京
The upper floors of Toranomon Hills Mori Tower. There is no check-in desk; staff handle it in your room or in the public areas. The rooftop bar on the top floor looks straight at Tokyo Tower.
フォーシーズンズホテル京都
Next to Myoho-in in Higashiyama, with Shakusuien — a pond garden said to be more than eight hundred years old — inside the grounds. The guest wings are arranged around it, so the water is below you from indoors.
ザ・ペニンシュラ東京
On the corner at Hibiya, facing the outer gardens of the Imperial Palace and Hibiya Park head-on. The lobby lounge on the lower floors works as a place to meet, and plenty of the people in it are not staying. The rooms are generously sized all the way up.
星のや竹富島
Built to the rules of the village on Taketomi Island: single-storey rooms behind gukku stone walls, along lanes of white sand, with the rooflines held down to match the island. There is no traffic light on Taketomi, and no convenience store.
パーク ハイアット ニセコ HANAZONO
On the slopes of the Hanazono area in Niseko, with ski-in, ski-out access and rooms that face Mount Yotei head-on. It has a communal hot spring bath and a pool.
ブルガリ ホテル 東京
The Bulgari hotel on the upper floors of Tokyo Midtown Yaesu. The interiors come from the brand's Italian design team, and the rooms, worked in black and gold, carry the house style over intact.
インターコンチネンタルホテル大阪
A hotel next to Grand Front Osaka in Umeda, about five minutes on foot from JR Osaka Station and the Hankyu, Hanshin and Midosuji-line Umeda stations. Guests can use the pool, large bath, sauna and fitness room. Umeda’s shopping is within walking distance. It holds one Michelin Key in the 2026 selection, has several restaurants and a bar, and Kansai Airport is easy to reach by JR or limousine bus.
熱海パールスターホテル
A hotel on the beach in Atami, right in front of the Omiya Pine. It has an open-air bath and sauna fed by its own hot spring, with an infinity bath that opens toward the sea, as well as a restaurant and a fitness room.
ジ・ウザテラス ビーチクラブヴィラズ
Villas along the shore at Uza in Yomitan, each with its own pool. Every villa stands on its own, and you step from the room straight out to the water. A different proposition from The Busena Terrace, which belongs to the same group.
NOT A HOTEL AOSHIMA
Villas on the seafront at Aoshima, Miyazaki, designed by Shin Ohori of General Design. MASTERPIECE (two bedrooms, up to 8 guests) treats a terrace of more than 560 sqm as an outdoor living room, while SURF is a house for waiting on waves by the pool, a few seconds from the water.
NOT A HOTEL ISHIGAKI
EARTH is a single villa on a 3,000-tsubo plot on Ishigaki Island, designed by Sou Fujimoto. The round building has a bowl-shaped roof, so it reads as a low hill. It has four bedrooms for up to 10 guests, an infinity pool facing the sea, and a sauna lit by light falling through the water of the pool above.
ザ・ウィンザーホテル洞爺 リゾート&スパ
On the summit of Mount Poromoi, looking out at Lake Toya on one side and Uchiura Bay on the other. It is known as the site of the 2008 G8 summit.
NOT A HOTEL MINAKAMI
TOJI is a group of five villas on a hilltop in Minakami, near the source of the Tone River. SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE planned it as a modern hot-spring village under copper roofs laid in the traditional ichimonji style. A 15-metre infinity pool wraps around the living room, with a natural hot-spring bath, sauna and cold plunge alongside.
太陽と星が輝く宿 季楽～KIRA～
A whole-house rental in Isumi, Chiba, about ten minutes by car from Kazusa-Ichinomiya Station. It has five bedrooms, an open-air bath, a pool and barbecue facilities, and is rented as a whole building. It is at the southern end of Kujukuri Beach, with the Outer Boso coast an easy drive, surrounded by sea and farmland.
THE HIRAMATSU 宜野座
A resort built around its food, on high ground at Ginoza on the east coast of Okinawa's main island — the opposite side from where the resorts cluster on the west coast, with little built up around it. Every room has a pool.
The Pool & Sauna Villa MOTOBU
A villa property at Shinzato in Motobu, in the north of Okinawa’s main island. There are seven separate units, each with its own private pool and a barrel sauna beside it (the saunas were completed across all seven in February 2026). Each unit is 160 square metres, with two bedrooms holding four semi-double beds and a Japanese-style room; with futons added, up to eight people can stay. Kitchen appliances and a full set of cookware, a washer and dryer, two toilets, a bathroom and a shower room are provided. There is no restaurant on site, so meals are ordered in — a breakfast box, a barbecue set and so on. About an hour and 40 minutes by car from Naha Airport, and well placed for the Churaumi Aquarium and the Bise fukugi tree lane.
強羅花壇 富士
Opened by Gora Kadan on 20 July 2025 at Subashiri in Oyama, on the eastern foot of Mount Fuji. All 42 rooms are suites, three of them detached villas. The communal baths, fed by a natural alkaline spring from below the grounds, have both indoor and open-air pools, and the heated swimming pool is set so that the window runs out towards Fuji. There is a golf course on the grounds.
NOT A HOTEL NASU
A group of private villas on the Nasu highlands, designed by Makoto Tanijiri's SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE. Each house is built around a different idea: MASTERPIECE (three bedrooms, up to 10 guests) has a pool cantilevered out over the plateau, CAVE sets its cold plunge in a dim, cave-like room, and THINK adds a detached study. Every house has its own sauna and fireplace.
箱根小涌園 天悠（藤田観光リゾート）
A hot-spring inn at Ninotaira in Hakone, with an open-air hot-spring bath in every room and an infinity-style hot spring looking down on the valley. It is right by the Tenyu bus stop, with a shuttle bus from Gora Station on the Hakone Tozan Railway. The Hakone Open-Air Museum is close, and there are several dining rooms.