I'm 100% a morning person, and plan to get up around 6am daily to maximize my exploration time.
While it's fine to wake up early, keep in mind that not all location are good for morning. If you go to shopping heavy area, like Shibuya, then stores only open around 10-11am. Surprisingly, even coffee shops (other than chain) can open surprisingly late. Earlier than that, most attractions open between 9 and 10. Before that, you can mostly walk in streets, visita park and some temple/shrines that either open early or are "always open" (the ground is always accessible, but they have opening hours for the office).
In kinosaki, it's public onsen. Usually you would call it sento when the water is heated, while a onsen the water is from a hot spring. Usually the ryokan will give you a pass to visit all the public onsen in Kinosaki and will lend you a Yukata. Usually, you can check it at 3pm, so getting there much earlier does not especially make sense. I would suggest to go to as many onsen as you can, just soak in one for 10-20 minutes, go out, walk around, get a sack or a dring, go to the next, go eat dinner, go to one more onsen, etc. Next morning wake up, onsen, breakfast, onsen, walk around, onsen... you get the idea. Spend the morning in Kinosaki if you can.
Maid Cafe, I fount it a bit cringe, but you won't know if you don't go. Just search about the know places before as the maid in the street who try to attract you to their cafe may get you to sketchier places. While I did not heard of horror stories as people who followed tout in Kabukicho, I mean, it's still safer to just stick to know good places.
