Itinerary Ideas/Help

[Haley R]

I'm not worried about the space or comfort level with the ordinary pass. I'm mainly only worried about sitting together. I definitely want to sit with Dh on every train ride, but I'm not sure I want to go line up early to reserve seats for every single train ride. Do the lines take a long time to get through? If we have an early morning ride I wouldn't want to get caught up in line waiting to reserve a seat.

 

[Chewbette]

I'm an over planner so each time I will have already "decided" which trains I will be taking and in the first days I arrive in Japan I go to a JR office and get all my tickets and reservations. It happened 3-4 times that we wanted to take an earlier or later train and went to the station to change our reservation, and we had to travel 2 times separated. For the lines, it's not predictable, it depends on how many people are there at the same time, it can go from 5 minutes till way more ..

 

[Haley R]

I'm an over planner so each time I will have already "decided" which trains I will be taking and in the first days I arrive in Japan I go to a JR office and get all my tickets and reservations. It happened 3-4 times that we wanted to take an earlier or later train and went to the station to change our reservation, and we had to travel 2 times separated. For the lines, it's not predictable, it depends on how many people are there at the same time, it can go from 5 minutes till way more ..

Dh and I decided we will definitely be getting the Ordinary pass. I read Tom Bricker's blog and he said they've never gotten the green pass before and they've been there loads of times. He said they don't always reserve their seats either. I'm a planner, like you, so I might have to reserve some of ours ahead of time. The main ones I want together will be the long rides from Tokyo-Kyoto and vice versa. If we are in Tokyo and will be going from Hakone-Kyoto a later day can we reserve all of those in Tokyo or do we have to be in Hakone to do that? I know all of our travel days already so if I'm able to reserve those ahead of time I may just do that. We land at 3 pm so we would have time to reserve all of those ahead of time, if possible.

I'm not sure how many days we should put on our pass. What do you think?

 

[Douglas Dubh]

I'm not sure how many days we should put on our pass. What do you think?

Both times we went I just did the 7 day pass, and then did a majority of our train travel in the middle. But since you are so close to being there 21 days it might be worth getting that one so you don’t have to pay separately for the trips to and from the airport. I think you’d need to price it out.

 

[Agent 86]

Although we've always planned ahead, we don't normally reserve our tickets using the JR Rail Pass until the day before. Mostly to allow for any last minute re-arranging due to weather or other unexpected factors. We've always sat together.

We've also re-booked "on the spot" to try and get an earlier train. The vast majority of time we always get seats together. I *think* once or twice we couldn't, but they were short trips (e.g. about 15 minutes from memory) so we just stood together in the open area. Of course, we could have simply waited for a later train, but given how short the trip was, we were happy to stand in the non-reserved car. The bullet trains are a whole other world of awesomeness, so I wouldn't stress about it too much.

 

[Haley R]

Both times we went I just did the 7 day pass, and then did a majority of our train travel in the middle. But since you are so close to being there 21 days it might be worth getting that one so you don’t have to pay separately for the trips to and from the airport. I think you’d need to price it out.

Can we use a JR train to and from the Narita airport? I didn't think we could. I thought we would be using a NEX train or something like that.

 

[Haley R]

Although we've always planned ahead, we don't normally reserve our tickets using the JR Rail Pass until the day before. Mostly to allow for any last minute re-arranging due to weather or other unexpected factors. We've always sat together.

We've also re-booked "on the spot" to try and get an earlier train. The vast majority of time we always get seats together. I *think* once or twice we couldn't, but they were short trips (e.g. about 15 minutes from memory) so we just stood together in the open area. Of course, we could have simply waited for a later train, but given how short the trip was, we were happy to stand in the non-reserved car. The bullet trains are a whole other world of awesomeness, so I wouldn't stress about it too much.

If we end up wanting to switch trains do we just go to the JR booth and ask for different tickets? I guess I'm a little confused on the whole process. I think we will probably reserve seats when we do Tokyo-Hakone, Hakone-Kyoto, Kyoto-Tokyo, but the other times we use the JR trains we probably won't worry about reserving seats. If we don't reserve seats do we just que up and get on the train?

If it was a short train ride we would be fine standing up, too. We do that on the WDW buses all the time and don't mind it.

 

[Douglas Dubh]

Can we use a JR train to and from the Narita airport? I didn't think we could. I thought we would be using a NEX train or something like that.

The NEX train is a JR train.

 

[Haley R]

The NEX train is a JR train.

I did not know that lol. So you think we should just go with a 21-day pass then?

 

[Douglas Dubh]

If we don't reserve seats do we just que up and get on the train?

Yes.

 

[Douglas Dubh]

I did not know that lol. So you think we should just go with a 21-day pass then?

I’m not sure. On our first trip the NEX was half off going from Narita to Tokyo Station, so if there’s a deal like that again you might be better off getting a 14 day pass. You won’t need it while at Disney and it’s often unneeded getting around Tokyo since it doesn’t work on the subways.

 

[Haley R]

I’m not sure. On our first trip the NEX was half off going from Narita to Tokyo Station, so if there’s a deal like that again you might be better off getting a 14 day pass. You won’t need it while at Disney and it’s often unneeded getting around Tokyo since it doesn’t work on the subways.

I’m almost wondering if 7 days would be enough. Will we need it going to the surrounding areas of Tokyo?

 

[Douglas Dubh]

I’m almost wondering if 7 days would be enough. Will we need it going to the surrounding areas of Tokyo?

There is a JR train that circles Tokyo, and using that could save money over the subway, and if you want to go to Hakone or Yokohama or Kamagura you can take JR trains to those, plus I'm pretty sure it will work on the train between Tokyo and Disney, so looking at your tentative itinerary 14 days might be cheaper. I haven't looked at prices lately though.

 

[Agent 86]

If we end up wanting to switch trains do we just go to the JR booth and ask for different tickets? I guess I'm a little confused on the whole process. I think we will probably reserve seats when we do Tokyo-Hakone, Hakone-Kyoto, Kyoto-Tokyo, but the other times we use the JR trains we probably won't worry about reserving seats. If we don't reserve seats do we just que up and get on the train?

If it was a short train ride we would be fine standing up, too. We do that on the WDW buses all the time and don't mind it.

Yes, just go to the booth / ticket office. They'll take back your "cancelled" reserved tickets and give you new reserved tickets.

In the larger train stations, it can be a little challenging finding the JR booth / ticket office, although there are multiple available in the really big stations.

If you don't reserve seats, your JR pass is your "ticket" and you just use the "non-reserved" carriages.

 

[Haley R]

There is a JR train that circles Tokyo, and using that could save money over the subway, and if you want to go to Hakone or Yokohama or Kamagura you can take JR trains to those, plus I'm pretty sure it will work on the train between Tokyo and Disney, so looking at your tentative itinerary 14 days might be cheaper. I haven't looked at prices lately though.

The difference in price between 14 and 21 days is $228. The difference between 7 and 14 days is $308. I’m really not sure which pass to get

 

[Haley R]

There is a JR train that circles Tokyo, and using that could save money over the subway, and if you want to go to Hakone or Yokohama or Kamagura you can take JR trains to those, plus I'm pretty sure it will work on the train between Tokyo and Disney, so looking at your tentative itinerary 14 days might be cheaper. I haven't looked at prices lately though.

So I've been looking at the Navitime app since it can show if you can use your JR Pass to get places.

We can use it from Tokyo Station to Maihama Station at Disney.
After looking back at our Airbnb of Tokyo we will be able to walk to Harajuku and Shibuya from our Airbnb so won't need train passes that day.
Getting to Hakone looks like it's going to be a pain no matter what (lots of changes), but we can use the JR Pass for part of the way.
We can use the JR Pass to get from our Airbnb to the Tokyo Dome when we want to go to a baseball game.
We can use it for our Ghibli Museum/Odaiba day.

I think my point is we may want to just get the 21-day and not worry about buying a bunch of different passes. I know we will have to get a PASMO card no matter what, but most of the time we can use the JR Pass. What do you think?

 

[Douglas Dubh]

I just checked the price for the NEX and it looks like it's about $80 for a round trip for the two of you, so maybe a 21 day isn't worth the difference. You might be able to squeeze by with a 7 but you definitely would want it to begin by the day you go to Kyoto and not end until the day you get to Disney.

 

[Haley R]

I just checked the price for the NEX and it looks like it's about $80 for a round trip for the two of you, so maybe a 21 day isn't worth the difference. You might be able to squeeze by with a 7 but you definitely would want it to begin by the day you go to Kyoto and not end until the day you get to Disney.

Dang I thought I had it figured out to get the 21 day pass and now you threw a curveball at me lol. Why is it so hard to pick a rail pass?

 

[Haley R]

Okay I used this JR Pass calculator to figure out what would be worth it. Here is what I got:


This doesn't include using the JR lines to and from Disney or places inside Tokyo. I saw we could use the JR lines to get to Odaiba and the Tokyo Dome. So maybe the 21-day pass is worth it?

 

[Flossbolna]

We were not planning to do a lot of train trips and wondered whether the 7-day pass would be worth it or not. But we decided to go with it and were really happy that we did as it just took one less thing to think about out of the equation. It turned out that we were able to add a number of little trips (local trains in Tokyo) and we ended up saving money, but not by a lot. I never get the dining plan at WDW, but I felt like our experience with the train pass made me understand why people get it. Pre-paying something and then not having to worry about it really helped.

As others said, getting reservations was not an issue for us. We actually got them at the Maihama train station while we were at TDR!