The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa: Trying Out Japan’s First Caldarium Sauna (Plus Crowd Levels)

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This time I’m introducing a men-only spa facility that’s open 24 hours and sits just 30 seconds on foot from the east exit of Tokorozawa Station in Saitama: The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa.

With the station only 30 seconds away, you can reach this sauna paradise for men even on a rainy day — the location is about as good as it gets.

As a sauna regular, Joe actually went and checked it out, so in this post I’ll introduce what kind of spa facility The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa is, what makes it appealing, and how crowded it tends to get.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa: The Basics

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info

Tokorozawa Station has several ticket gates, but here I’ll show you the route from the central ticket gate.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info 2

Once you spot the central ticket gate of Tokorozawa Station on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line, head for the east exit.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info 3

After passing through the gate, turn left and keep going straight.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info 4

You’ll see a sign for the east exit — head down via the stairs, escalator, or the elevator on the left.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info 5

Once you reach the east exit of Tokorozawa Station, turn right and walk straight past the McDonald’s.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info 6

After about 30 seconds of walking, you’ll see the brown GARDEN CITY building.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa basic info 7

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa’s reception is on the 3rd floor, so just take either of the two elevators at the front of the building up and you’ve arrived.

Touring the Facility

Touring The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa

Now for the part you’ve been waiting for — a tour of The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa!

Once you’re on the 3rd floor, the orange sign on the right marks The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa. The shop directly in front, Nagayamon, is a separate set-meal restaurant.

Touring The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa 2

Walk inside and you’ll find shoe lockers. The staff greeted me with an energetic “Welcome!”

Reception

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa reception

Leave your shoe locker key at the front desk, tell the staff which course you’d like, and check in.

Admission is paid up front. You can use various e-money options like PayPay and Rakuten Pay, as well as transit IC cards.

Your loungewear set isn’t handed to you at reception — it’s already waiting for you in the locker room.

Since that’s one less thing to carry around, it’s a nice touch.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa reception 2

Right next to reception is the Momihogushi massage garden, where you can get a massage.

It’s closer to a casual, everyday-style massage than a luxury treatment, but being able to work out the waste products that build up after a sauna session is appealing.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa reception 3

Past reception is a drinks corner. Since it’s sold in-house, prices run a bit higher than average.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa reception 4

Step further in and you’re greeted by houseplants — this is the main hall. The dining area and lounge corner are toward the back, and the locker room and spa are up the stairs.

On the left is a door leading to the VIP Room.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa reception 5

First, let’s head up to the 4th floor for the spa. I can already feel the excitement building!

Locker Room & Changing Area

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area

The locker room is a standard tall-locker layout, with round stools placed in the open spaces.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area 2

The locker keys are the common physical type — turn the key left or right to open and close the locker.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area 3

The lockers are an average size, with two hangers and one bottom hanger. A nice touch is that even a suit from work fits without any problem.

On the other hand, there’s no small-items compartment, so be careful — things tend to slide off the mesh shelf.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area 4

A bath towel set and loungewear were already waiting in the locker.

The sizing looks to be one-size-fits-all.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area 5

In the corridor leading to the spa, there’s a coin laundry machine (100 yen for 30 minutes) and a water server — handy if you’re stopping by on a business trip.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area 6

The powder rooms are on both sides, spacious and easy to use. Styling products and cotton swabs are set out on the side shelves.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa locker room and changing area 7

The amenities are seriously well stocked: hair tonic, hair spray, styling product, triple-blade razors, toothbrushes, and more.

The toothbrushes come with toothpaste already attached, but there’s also a separate tube of Guard Hallo toothpaste set out.

Spa & Hot Bath Area

Quoted from The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa's official website

At the center of the bathing area is a 36°C vibra-bath, kept at what’s called a neutral temperature.

A lukewarm 36°C bath stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering your pulse and blood pressure and calming your nerves.

Quoted from The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa's official website 2

Then there’s the Bincho-charcoal reinforced-mineral cold bath, said to be the coldest cold bath in Saitama. The digital thermometer reads a chilly 12.8°C.

A comfortable, average cold bath runs around 17°C, so this one is a full 4°C colder — perfect for reaching that complete “totonou” state in one go.

Quoted from The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa's official website 3

The outdoor bath, meanwhile, has two reclining chairs.

It’s the kind of thing you didn’t know you wanted — soaking up to your waist in the outdoor bath while taking in the Tokorozawa sky. This is also a first for Japan. The water sits at a lukewarm 34°C.

Quoted from The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa's official Twitter

What catches sauna enthusiasts’ attention is the spacious sauna room, where you can enjoy one of only three log-built kelo saunas in Japan alongside a hinoki (cypress) sauna at the same time.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa spa and hot bath area

Mapped out, the sauna room looks like this: the entrance sits in the middle with two sauna stoves facing you, the kelo sauna on the left and the hinoki sauna on the right.

It holds about 20 people and is split into four zones — low, medium, high, and extra-high temperature.

The high-temperature zone runs over roughly 90°C, so the medium and low zones might feel a little mild by comparison. Give it ten minutes, though, and you’ll be sweating plenty.

The sauna stones sit on a dual tower for double the heating power!

Sauna hats protect your head from the heat waves and help keep your hair from drying out, so more and more people have been wearing them.

For sauna-goers like that, there’s a handy sauna-hat rack right in front of the sauna.

The Caldarium Sauna

Quoted from a Twitter post by Masumoto1998

Converted from what used to be a body-scrub space, the Caldarium Sauna opened on October 16, 2021 — Japan’s first of its kind.

“Caldarium” is German for “to cool,” and true to the name, it’s a cold sauna.

Rather than cooling off outside, you cool off indoors — something you can only do here in all of Japan, thanks to a custom climate-control system.

Push your body to the limit in the kelo sauna, then cool off right away in the Caldarium Sauna — it’s a whole new way to reach that “totonou” state.

You can use it after an outdoor air bath, or after a dip in the cold bath — either way, it adds a new option to how you enjoy the experience.

Game Corner

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa game corner

Right next to the locker room there’s a small game corner and vending machines — pachislot, nostalgic arcade screens, and even a few adult-prize crane games.

Rock-Bed Sauna (Ganbanyoku)

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa rock-bed sauna

The rock-bed sauna at The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa is, surprisingly, free to use. Incredibly generous.

Just let the front desk know you’d like to use it, and they’ll lend you a dedicated rock-bed sauna robe.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa rock-bed sauna 2

The long-wavelength far-infrared rays given off by the minerals slowly and evenly warm your whole body.

Since most people come to this spa for the sauna, the rock-bed sauna seems to be the unpopular option — nobody else was using it when I was there.

Dining Area

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa dining area

After a bath, it’s all about a drink and a good meal, right? There’s a dining space in the center of the 3rd floor.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa dining area 2

On the right as you face it are tatami-style seats, with a water server corner just in front — being able to drink as much as you want, whenever you want, is a small but nice touch.

On the left are two-person tables.

Most people come alone, but it’s a luxurious setup where you can eat while reading manga.

The menu leans hearty and masculine, featuring zangi (Hokkaido-style fried chicken) — a rare sight at a spa facility. It comes in four flavors and seems to be the signature dish.

There’s also a lineup of sauna-food favorites: ginger pork set, pork cutlet set, katsudon, ramen, curry, and other standards.

The portion on the extra-large curry is no joke…

The drink menu is just as solid, with beer, various chuhai, whiskey, sake, shochu, and soft drinks.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa dining area 8

After going back and forth, I ordered the spicy red zangi set for 1,200 yen — a Korean-style fried chicken.

Feeling the heat waves in the sauna, then feeling the heat again from the spicy red zangi — this is what sauna food is all about.

The moment it hits your mouth, the spice spreads through slowly, and it makes the rice disappear fast. I’ll just say it’s pretty spicy.

Rice comes in three sizes — large (400g), medium (300g), and small (150g) — with the large portion equal to about 2.2 bowls of rice.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa dining area 9

There’s a generous amount of zangi too — true to a spa facility aimed at men, the portions are satisfying through and through.

Relaxation Room

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa relaxation room

Beyond the dining area is a relaxation room. There are only about 10 seats, but blankets are available to borrow at the back.

There’s just one large TV at the front, so it’s not quite the personal-space setup you see at a lot of newer spa facilities.

Basically your options come down to reading manga or taking a nap.

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa relaxation room 2

Phone holders are available to borrow, and quite a few people were watching movies on their phones.

Business Lounge

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa business lounge

Past the relaxation room is a business lounge where you can even get remote work done.

A long table with partition boards creates a bit of personal space for each seat.

Of course there are outlets and Wi-Fi too, and you can order food with the push of a button.

Through the window you can watch the Seibu Railway trains arriving at and leaving Tokorozawa Station — a nice touch for any train fans.

How Crowded Does It Get?

How crowded does The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa get

Tokorozawa has become a hotspot in recent years, with major redevelopment around the station’s west exit bringing in the large commercial complex Grand Emio Tokorozawa and new high-rise condos.

Being such a popular spot naturally raises the question of how crowded it gets.

Showing up only to find a wait to get in, a wait for the sauna, or a lounge too packed to use would be the worst.

So what days and times does The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa tend to get busy?

It tends to get busier on weekends and holidays than on weekdays (except Friday nights), typically in the afternoon through evening, with Saturdays staying crowded late into the night.

I checked in just after midday on a public holiday, and both the bath and the sauna were relatively comfortable to use. It gets busier toward evening, but not so much that you’d have to wait.

Here’s a spot-by-spot breakdown (for a public holiday):

Spot / AreaCrowd LevelNotes
ReceptionGoodNo wait
Bathing area (washing stations, indoor & outdoor baths)FairWashing stations and indoor bath aren’t crowded. The outdoor bath is fairly small, and there are stretches when it’s hard to use.
Kelo saunaGoodNo wait, though it’s full for every Aufguss session
Caldarium Sauna (indoor cool-down)GoodNo wait
Rock-bed saunaGoodNo wait — almost nobody uses it
Locker roomGoodNo wait, though it can get uncomfortable right around Aufguss sessions
Dining areaGoodNo wait — the tatami seating tends to have plenty of room
Relaxation roomPoorFull — getting a seat is close to impossible
Business loungeFairCan fill up depending on the time of day — getting a seat is close to impossible

Weekday daytime is relatively quiet, and on weekends and holidays, morning through late morning is your best bet!

Tips for Joining an Aufguss Session

Tips for joining an Aufguss session at Japan's first Caldarium sauna in Tokorozawa

On weekends and holidays, The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa runs an Aufguss event about three times a day, where staff fan heat waves through the sauna.

As you probably know, we’re in the middle of a sauna boom right now, so sauna events are guaranteed to draw a crowd. Here’s what you need to know to make sure you get in.

The short version: line up in front of the sauna at least 10 minutes beforehand. There are no numbered tickets — it’s first come, first served.

  • 15 minutes before: a small crowd starts building up around the sauna.
  • 10 minutes before: a line forms in front of the sauna.
  • 5 minutes before: go in and get settled before it starts.

Some people are already in line, some are watching the room while soaking in the vibra-bath, and others are cooling down in the Caldarium Sauna — everyone has their own approach.

More and more people start lining up with kick boards in hand, though some skip the line entirely and just walk into the sauna.

Some people skip the Aufguss altogether and use the sauna as normal, while others — I later found out — actually wait inside the sauna for the Aufguss to start.

That said, going in a full 10 minutes early means sitting in the heat for a long stretch, which puts real strain on your heart, so it’s best to avoid that.

At the 5-minute mark, staff will give you a heads-up. You’ll see a few people jump the gun and head in early, which isn’t great manners — please wait your turn.

By the 5-minute mark, the line can stretch all the way to the washing stations, but since the room only holds about 20 people, unfortunately your odds of getting in aren’t great at that point.

At that stage your only real options are to accept it gracefully, or watch for someone leaving partway through the Aufguss and try to slip into their spot.

Pricing

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa pricing

Pricing is always worth knowing up front.

Being in Tokorozawa, Saitama, prices come in a bit lower than you’d find in Tokyo’s 23 wards, but they’re still roughly on par with day-use spa facilities of a similar class.

PlanAdult Price
Morning Deal (4 hours) — check-in 5:00–10:001,200 yen (+300 yen per extra hour)
Short Course (3 hours) — check-in 10:00–5:001,900 yen
Regular Course — check-in 10:00–5:002,400 yen
Late-night fee — for stays between 2:00–5:00+1,300 yen
Cabin bed stay4,800 yen
VIP room stay7,300 yen
Super VIP room stay7,800 yen

The spa pricing stays exactly the same on weekdays and weekends — good news if you can only make it on a weekend or holiday.

Are There Any Coupons?

The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa coupons

If you’re going to use it, you might as well get a good deal!

Unfortunately there’s no discount or coupon for the course itself, but if you go with the 3-hour Short Course, you can use a coupon that gets you one free alcoholic or soft drink.

My Honest Impressions

Overall, if you’re going solo for the sauna, it’s a solid, cost-effective experience.

The one real downside is that the spaces for relaxing comfortably are limited, so it doesn’t feel especially well suited to groups.

Being able to work up a heavy sweat in a kelo sauna — one of only three in Japan with that distinctive wood texture — and then cool down indoors in the Caldarium Sauna is a way of reaching “totonou” that you really can’t get anywhere but here.

The food menu is just as strong, with dishes you don’t often see elsewhere like zangi, pork cutlet, katsudon, and the famous extra-large curry — and being a men-only facility, the portions clearly get a lot of attention.

With a manga collection of over 6,000 volumes, and a full day’s course plus a meal costing under 3,000 yen — cheaper than a manga cafe — you’re guaranteed a satisfying day without spending much.

It’s well worth a repeat visit.

Joe
Joe

If you’re a sauna fan, The Bed & Spa Tokorozawa is absolutely worth a visit — it’s hard to find a kelo sauna and a Caldarium sauna together anywhere else in Japan. Give it a try the next time you’re in the area!

—

About the author

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Joe

I love hotels, hot springs, and saunas across the whole country!!
I’ve made it to 40 prefectures so far.
Around 100 hotel stays and 50+ saunas visited, and the count keeps climbing.
My hobbies are travel, golf, snowboarding, saunas, and the gym.

Getting good information is essential to living a rich life.

I’ll keep sharing useful info for wherever your next trip takes you! For work inquiries (venue PR, advertising, hotel article requests), please reach out through this blog’s contact form.
Happy to work flexibly with your needs.

Certified Sauna & Spa Health Advisor

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全国のホテル・温泉・サウナが大好き!!
40都道府県は制覇。
宿泊数は約100、訪問サウナ施設は50以上で日々記録更新中。
趣味は旅行、ゴルフ、スノボ、サウナ、ジム。

豊かな人生を送るためには、良い情報を得ることが必要不可欠。

お出かけ先に役に立つ情報を発信していきます!お仕事(店舗PR、広告掲載、ホテル記事依頼)のご依頼は当ブログのお問合せフォームまでお願いします。
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