wendy236

We're headed to Japan in April for a bit over 2 weeks. We saw a bunch of great spots last trip - Kyoto, Nara, Takayama, Kazazawa, and Tokyo. Plan is to explore some new areas.

We are a senior couple. Interests include culture and museums, historical spots, gardens, and scenery. Good food,not necessarily expensive. Not looking for a lot of shopping or night life. We are "slow" travellers. We don't dash through a museum, we are more likely to stay until closing. The same with gardens if the weather is nice.

One limitation on travel. My husband uses a rolling walker. He has an "all terrain" model with big tires and can walk several miles with it. Basicially if you could go someplace with a jogging baby stroller we should be fine. Curbs and a few steps are manageable. Carrying the walker up and down a huge number of stairs would not be fun.

Our plan. Please give advise about what works and what looks like a problem!

Day 1 - Arrive Narita. Overnight Narita hotel.
Day 2 - Collect JR passes and seat tickets. Buy IC card. Train Narita to Okayama. Overnight Okayama.
Days 3-5 Okayama (Korakuen Garden and Okayama Castle), Kurashiki (Canal area and old storehouses, Ohashi House), Takamatsu (Ritsurin Koen, Noguchi Museum, maybe Shikoku Mura). I have e-mailed to hopefully book the Noguchi Museum tour. We will sort out whether to split hotels between Okayama and Takamatsu, or whether to do day trips from Okayama train station area hotel. Either Kurashiki or Okayama Garden and Castle may get moved to Day 6.
Day 6 - Days 3-5 left overs and train from Okayama to Hiroshima.
Days 6-8 Hiroshima and Miyajima (Great Torii and Itsukushima Shrine). It appears the semi-annual Noh festival may be on at the Itsukushima Shrine.
Days 9-10 Fukuoka (yatai, museums, parks). Maybe day trip to Dazaifu (Daizu Tenman-gu Shrine, National Museum, Government ruins).
Days 11-12 Nagasaki. Art museum, temples etc. Are there other suggestions for a two night trip from Fukuoka?
Day 13-14 Train Nagasaki to Hemiji. Day 14 Himeji castle and gardens, train to Kyoto.
Day 15 Fushimi Inari Shrine (2 trips to Kyoto and we have never seen it) and whatever else we have time for. Train to Yokohama (Rail Pass day 14!)
Days 16-18 Yokohama (Sankei-en Garden, Art Museum, Ramen museum, Day trip to Kamakura). Day 19 board ship for next part of this trip. First stops will be in Hokkaido.

I started out assuming a JR pass would not make sense. In the end it seems to be a "break even" option, or a small savings. I included the charges for seat reservations. With one handicapped person it will be good to know we have seats together. I can also imagine missing a train or two. With the JR pass we won't need to pay to rebook.

I have generally booked hotels close to the train station. Less schlepping with a suitcase and easy access for side trips. Preference is for multiple night stays in one place, sometimes using day trips from a hub rather than a lot of hotel changes.

Does this itinerary make sense? Suggestions please!
Thanks
Wendy

mrwunrfl

Yes, it makes sense. Do you have any objection to taking a domestic flight? I suppose you are arriving later in the day at NRT which doesn't have many domestic flights. There are some, though. I see Jetstar hss $33 one-way flights to Takamatsu (the seating on that airline would probably be too small for me).

Basically, you are going from Narita to Nagasaki. From Nagaski you make a stop to see Himeji-jo and another stop to visit Fushimi Inari. You can eliminate one or both of those stops.

>> day trips from a hub rather than a lot of hotel changes
Okayama sh/could be your base for Himeji and would make for an easy day trip to Kyoto
The shinkansen travel time from Okayama to Himeji is 19 minutes.
The shinkansen travel time from Okayama to Kyoto is 1 hour 5 minutes.

Good news is that am virtually certain that all of the JR stations you will use on this trip will have elevatofrs to the platforms.

mrwunrfl

So, eliminating those two overnight stops by basing in Okayama means that you can fly from Nagasaki to Tokyo Haneda Airport which is convenient for Yokohama.

Other options:
On arrival day, just go to Yokohama. There is a bus from Narita to the Yokohama YCAT. The Narita Expresss goes to Yokohama. If the timetable allows then this would be more comfortable than the bus and not subject to traffic.

You could stay in Yokohama for a couple of nights to see the sights and then head to Okayama. Fly back to Haneda the nighht before your cruise to stay in the same hotel the night before your cruise. Or just the first night in Yokohama. Either way, you could leave luggage at that hotel.

Or, from Yokohama go to Haneda and fly to Nagasaki and work your way up to Okayama and then back to Yokohama. You certainly could fly from Okayama to Haneda.

I just added to the following thread for you:
Japan domestic flights - Fodor's Travel Talk Forums (fodors.com)

wendy236

Thanks for the suggestions.

We are a bit adverse to internal flights. Thanks to some complications from DH's spinal cord injury, we travel with a carry on size bag of medical stuff. Some airlines allow it. Others (JetStar for one) do not. Asking airlines whether we can bring stuff or not is a hassle. Occasionally going through security, someone threatens to throw it all away. So for a "short" trip, we prefer to see the countryside from the train.

It is good to hear our stops should come with elevators in the train stations! Thank you.

Assuming train travel, does our itinerary make sense? This morning I got confirmation for our Noguchi Museum tour in Takamatsu. I have adjusted our plans to use Takamatsu as our base for 4 nights after leaving Narita instead of Okayama. It works better for an early am museum tour, and for ferry to Naoshima. We will back track an hour to see sites in Okayama, but that is offset by not having to switch hotels. And the Marine liner train sounds nice.

The overnight in Narita is because our flight from LA arrives around 6pm. We are seniors. Over night on the plane. We will be jet lagged. We need to get JR pass, IC cards, ATM cash before heading off. A shower and a bed sounds like a good plan before we jump on a bus or train. And we can have the Narita hotel folks forward our larger suitcase to Yokohama with stuff we won't need for a couple of weeks. Good for the able bodied spouse!

More suggestions please! The internal flights won't work well for us. But you may have other great ideas about how we can tweak this!

curiousgeo

Nagasaki is known as a city of hills and slopes. You may find taxis helpful to access some of the sites there due to your husbands condition. We don’t have any physical limitations but sometimes use taxis in Japan to save time and our legs, especially after walking 5-7 miles a day.

wendy236

Thanks for the suggestion! On a fall trip to Norway, our first real trip with the walker, we used taxis several times. No hunting for elevators or climbing in to buses. It was more expensive, but easy and efficient.

mrwunrfl

Ok. I do want to point out a few things.. Japan Airlines is a full service airline. The security checks at Japan airports are pretty easy. Nagasaki to Haneda is a 1 hour 40 min flight and they do have business class. The backtracking by train from Nagasaki to Yokohama is 6 hr 30 min or so with a minimum of three transfers if you made the trip in one shot (transfers at Takeo Onsen, Fukuoka, and Shin Yokohama.

But ok, by train.

I recommend going from Hiroshima to Nagasak to Fukuoka. That will make it easier on the day you head back to Honshu (for Himeji/Kyoto). Hiroshima to Fukuoka is only about an hour, you can just continue on to Nagasaki. You can then take a shinkansen from Fukuoka to Kyoto and then visit Himeji from Kyoto instead of overnighting in Himeji..

mrwunrfl

Hiroshima to Nagasaki would be shinkansen to Shin Tosu (south of Hakata, Fukuoka) and the limited express Relay Kamome to Takeo Onsen and then transfer to shinkansen to Nagasaki. The transfer at Takeo Onsen is a matter of crossing the platform. The "relay:" is between the two shinkansen lines but eventuallty it will be replaced by shinkansen.

Would be the same between Hakata and Nagasaki, though I think there is an option of taking limited express Kamome between Takeo Onsen and Hakata station in Fukuoka. That Kamome train was nice, wood floors, leather-ish seats, and did the trip between Nagasaki and Hakata before they built the Kyushu shinkansen.

wendy236

mrwrnfl,
I arranged our itinerary to be in Hiroshima/Miyajima for the spring Toka-sai and Shin-Noh performances April 15-18th. Our tickets to Tokyo were fixed, so I left a few stops for the trip north to Yokohama. If we are going to be in Hiroshima April 15-18th, flying from Nagasaki to Tokyo will not work well.

Has anyone been to these performances? Do you need to get reservations ahead of time? I haven't found an e-mail address to use to make an inquiry. The Miyajima Tourist Association website says "Enjoy Noh performances for Yen 300, the entrance fee to the shrine." My fear is we will arrive, only to find out "reservations" of some sort were sold out months ago.

Thanks for the suggestion to swap Nagasaki & Fukuoka, and to go to Himeji as a day trip from Kyoto. I had changed our itinerary to put Nagasaki first so that we would not visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki back to back. I will look at changing to Hiroshima - Nagasaki - Fukuoka - Kyoto.

mrwunrfl

Kyoto - Himeji with no change of trains is frequent enough with Nozomi and Hikari shinkansen.. If your pass doesn't cover Nozomi shinkansen then you would need to check the timetable for the less frequent Hikari trains that travel between Himeji and Kyoto. A change of trains on that trip would probably require a platform change and you want to avoid that.

mrwunrfl

The JR Pass doesn't include Nozomi or Mizuho shinkansen. You would have to pay up to use them Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass) (japan-guide.com)

A JR Pass and no supplement means that you would have to change trains between Hakata and Kyoto, most likely at Shin Osaka. There is enough time to make the transfer.

I think you said that the pass was about break even with pay-as-you-go, But you get the big benefits of using Nozomi and Mizuho shinkansen if you just buy the individual tickets.

For Kyoto to Himeji you optinos would be:
Time required: 1:36 Price: 2,310 Special Rapid Service for Himeji
Time required:0:45 Price: 5,370 Shinkansen Hikari
Time required: 0:44 Price: 5,800 Shinkansen Nozomi
So, would be an extra $20 to $24 each way to take the shinkansen instead of JR rapid to save 50 minutes, have a more comfortable ride, and most importantly a better frequency.

wendy236

The pass advantage seems to be the flexibility. Partly a "do we want an early am train - or late afternoon one?" With a spinal cord injury, we are likely miss a few reservations whatever the plans. The bladder that does not communicate with the brain causes unespected delays. So it is good be able to switch from a 4pm train to one an hour later without penalty.

I do see the advantage to be able to book fast trains. In our case, it may be expensive.

mrwunrfl

You can probably do better by getting a regional pass or two and paying for some tix instead of just the 14-day nationwide pass. Those regional passes often include Nozomi shinkansen.

>> The pass advantage seems to be the flexibility.
It is not. It is less flexible because it limits the shinkansen trains that you can take. And using the trains you can take could require a change of trains. Without the pass you have more flexibility because of train frequency: you can take any train including faster travel and no transfer required. You will have more opportunities for getting reserved seats on a Nozomi train than on a Hikari trains because the JR Pass holders are limited to Hikari trains.

Two advantages of the JR Pass are 1) not having to buy a fare ticket and 2) not paying extra for a reserved seat. The first would apply for the day trip to Himeji where you can use the rapid train which has no reserved seats.

You can cancel/refund/change seat reservations in advance. If you have a JR Pass and miss your train then you can't get a free seat reservation for a later train. You would have to pay for a reserved seat or go non-reserved.

Seat reservations are not particularly expensive.
Reserved seats would be 1170 from Narita to Okayama (or Takamatsu), 1380 for Hakata to Kyoto, 850 for Kyoto to Tokyo. That is 3400 yen or $23. That is the total you would lose by missing all three trains.

Now that JR has online booking and self-serve machines, there is less advantage for a JR Pass In the past when you had to buy tickets from a human you would get in line to pay for the fare and reserved seat. But with a JR Pass you could go to a separate counter that only issued reserved seats (midori no madoguchi) where there may be no line.

Actually, that advantage was in olden days. In November I was in Hakata Station and decided that while I was there I would get a reserved seat on a train the next and to pick up the regional pass that I purchased online. That line was painfully long.

I have learned by experience that I don't want to book a train trip that is longer than 4 hours. If I really, really, want to do it then I would extend that travel time limit to 5 hours. Beyond that I would have to rearrange the trip.

Narita Airport to Okayama would take 4 hr 49 min. That is in the unhappy but doable range being under 5 hours. Going to Takamatsu would add another hour. I would change the Takamatsu plan, probably going from Narita to Kyoto first, or just stopping in Okayama. Going to Takamatsu means spending 6+ hours in transit with JR the day after an 11-hour flight.

mrwunrfl

Wow, that took a while. At this point I would go into what regional pass might save you money and provide better service, but am thinking you have set your mind on a 14-day pass. You can learn about regional passes here: Rail Passes in Japan (japan-guide.com)

wendy236

Thanks for the suggestions. I will take another look at the regional passes. I know there was one that worked great for the trip from Okayama to Nagasaki.

The train trip to Takakamatsu is long. It was add an hour to the train ride or stay one night in Okayama and then move to Takamatsu. We have reservations for an early tour in Takamatsu the next morning. Fortunately we will have a night in a Narita hotel before the long train ride. We're not getting off the plane and jumping onto the train.

mrwunrfl

Ok, I took another look. That regional pass that gets to Nagasaki is 7 days and you need 8 for Days 6-13. There is no room for shortening that part of the trip just to fit that pass. There might be a way to use multiple passes and a ticket or two to get you the best train service at a good price.

But you could keep it simple and just get the 14-day JR Pass. I was surprised yesterday to find that there is pretty good Hikari shinkansen frequency between Tokyo or Shinagawa and Okayama. You would only have to make two transfers to get to Takamatsu. One itinerary was Narita Express to Shinagawa and then Hikari to Okayama then the train to Takamatsiu. Other itineraries transfer at Tokyo, which is fine, but you would prefer to transfer at Shinagawa.

I think it is a bonus that you could take Hikari shinkansen or a limited express train between Kyoto and Himeji, both ways using the 14-day pass.

The only thing not to like is the necessity of making a tranafer between Hakata and Kyoto. Prefer not to transfer at Shin Osaka, but that is the most common itinerary and is certainly manageable. That would involve stairs down from the platform to the tunnel, walk, take escalator up to other platform.There almost certainly would be elevators for both platforms but may take more time. And it is possible to find more comfortable transfer times (can explain more if needee) using the timetables at jr-west and jorudan.

For your Day 2 itinerary, use this: West Japan Railway Company - Timetables, Route Maps, and Station Maps (westjr.co.jp)

Enter:
From: Narita Airport
To: Takamatsu
click Search

On the next page:
choose Narita Airport Terminal 2･3
choose Takamatsu(Kagawa Pref.)

Adjust the time
(by default it shows current Japan Time which is ~midnight right now, so no trains found without adjusting the time)

check the box to Exclude Nozomi/Mizuho
click Search

Try that using 8:00 departure time and see three options
08:54 dep, transfer at Shinagawa and Okayama, 6h 11min
08:16 dep, transfer at Shinagawa and Shin Osaka and Okayama, 7h 20 min
09:49 dep, transfer at Tokyo and Okayama, 6h 17min

For Kyoto/Himeji, you can also uncheck the box labeled "Special Rapid Services/Rapid Services"

wendy236

I reworked our schedule and made several changes. Thanks for all the suggestions. Please see a couple of questions at the end.

It looks like two regional passes will work well. And allow fast trains that the JR pass covers only with an extra fee.

New schedule -
Day 1 - Arrive Narita, overnight hotel near Narita 1 night
Day 2 - Train Narita to Kyoto separate tickets. Pick up JR Setouchi Area Pass and (hopefully) JR Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass. Hopefully see Hushimi Inari Shrine. Kyoto 1 nights
Day 3 - Train Kyoto to Okayama. Stash luggage in lockers and visit Korakuen Garden and Okayama Castle. Train to Takamatsu. Takamatsu 3 nights.
Day 4 - 10am Noguchi Museum tour. Afternoon Ritsurin Koen or maybe Shikoku Mura.
Day 5 - day trip to Naoshima
Day 6 - Train to Okayama, train to Hiroshima. Total under 2 hours. Plan to arrive in Hiroshima early enough to drop bags and go to Miyajima for the Toka-sai ceremony. Hiroshima 3 nights
Day 7 - Miyajima and Shin-noh plays
Day 8 - Hiroshima sites, Shukkeien Garden
Day 9 - Train Hiroshima - Hakata (end of Setouchi area pass). Train Hakata to Nagasaki (begin JR Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass). Nagasaki 1 nights.
Day 10 Nagasaki
Day 11 AM train Nagasaki to Hakata. Fukuoka 2 nights. Fukuoka afternoon, Yatai dinner.
Day 12 day trip Dazaifu Yatai dinner 2nd chance
Day 13 Train Hakata - Okayama. Either AM Hakata or PM Okayama. Okayama 2 nights
Day 14 Day trip Kurashiki
Day 15 Train Okayama - Himeji (20 min). Himeji Castle and garden. Train to Kyoto (1.5 hrs) Kyoto 1 night.
Day 16 Train Kyoto to Yokohama (separate ticket). AM Fushima Inari if we couldn't fit it in at the beginning of the trip. Yokohama 2 nights
Day 17 Day trip Kamakura. Sankeien Garden this day or next morning.
Day 18 Afternoon board boat for next part of trip. First stops Hokkaido

DAY 15 OPTION - and a question. We could take an evening train from Himeji to Yokohama. Our pass would be good to Kyoto, and we would need a separate ticket for Kyoto - Yokohama. Do we have to actually get off the train in Kyoto and take the next train to? Or can we remain on the train as long as we have a ticket for the Kyoto - Yokohama portion?

Day 9 train QUESTION - We are taking a train from Hiroshima to Nagasaki. The stop in Hakata is because we need to switch from the first pass to the second pass that includes Nagasaki. Do we need to get off the train to do the switch? If yes, we will need to book a later train for the Hakata-Nagasaki portions. If we have both passes, can we just stay on the train? We may need to switch trains at Hakata anyways. When I looked up the trains, I treated it as 2 trips, allowing time to pick up the second pass at Hakata station. It appears we may be able to pick up both passes in Kyoto.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions! This looks much better than my original plan.

mrwunrfl

>> Day 9 - Train Hiroshima - Hakata (end of Setouchi area pass). Train Hakata to Nagasaki (begin JR Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass). Nagasaki 1 nights.

No, you would just use the latter pass to go from Hiroshima to Nagaski. You don't need the Setouchi pass that day.

>> Day 14 Day trip Kurashiki
You can visit Kurashiki and the castle and garden in Okayuama this day. or day before/after.

>> DAY 15 OPTION
Leaving from Himeji using either of the passes means you can only take the shinkansen as far as Shin Osaka. You can't take the shinkansen to Kyoto with the pass. You would just buy a ticket on the shinkansen from Himeji to Shin Yokohama and then the local to Yokahama Station.

17,000 Narita to Kyoto ticket
22,000 Setouchi pass (Kyoto, ..., Hiroshma) - no shinkanasen between Kyoto and Shin Osaka
26,000 Sanyo pass (Hiroshma - Nagasaki, ..., Himeji - Kyoto) - no shinkanasen between Shin Osaka and Kyoto but could take a limited expess from Himeji to Kyoto
13,500 Kyoto to Yokohama ticket
====
78,500

The 14-day JR Pass at 80,000 would be better.as I explained in my previous post.
If you decide to go from Himeji to Yokohama then fhere are hourly Hikari shinkansen that you can use with the 14-day pass. No change of trains. Same if you stopped in Himeji on the way to Kyoto -you could take the Hikari to Kyoto and next day another Hikari to get to Yokohama.

mrwunrfl

The two regional passes are issued by JR West and can be used on shinkansen operated by JR West. That is, the Sanyo shinkan sen between Shin Osaka and Fukuoka.

The Tokaido shinkansen between Tokyo and Shin Osaka is operated by JR Central. Kyoto is on the Tokaido line. Going from Tokyo, Kyoto is the shinkansen stop before Shin Osaka.

The national JR Passes, like the 14-day JR Pass, can be used for travel on Tokaido and Sanyo shinkansen and others, as well as other JR lines.