Japan - JR Rail Pass - Travelling with Kids

[d.diddy_13]

Hi, wife and I are travelling to Japan with two kids aged 5 & 2 and i have some specific questions mostly around the JR Pass and getting from hotels to the station that I hope you can help me with....

Breakdown of our stay is below:

Park Hyatt Tokyo 3 Nights
Intercontinental Osaka 4 Nights
Ritz Carlton Kyoto 2 Nights
Park Hyatt Tokyo 1 Night (fly home)

Questions:

1. Understanding i need to exchange my voucher for a rail pass (and show passport details), but can i do this for a future day? IE can i sort out the day before first travel date so its valid for 7 days?
2. Once i have my pass i then can reserve a seat, which i am guessing i can do for a specific travel time the next day?
3. Most Japan Rail Pass offices are located at stations and the closest to the Park Hyatt is Shinjuku, so best to go there?
4. The Trains leave from Tokyo station to Shin-Osaka Station Correct?
5. Is it practical to get taxis to and from above stations to hotels?
6. Osaka to Kyoto looks to be only 1 stop away on the Shinkansen line best to use this or just turn up and get on next available train?

Any other advise would be greatly appreciated

 

[TomVexille]

IIRC you can set your start date to a future day.

Just a heads up that Shin-Osaka station is quite a way out of town. Your best bet is to hop on a local JR train to Osaka Station which is a 500m walk to the Intercontinental.

From Osaka Station it's actually quicker to get one of the local express trains to Kyoto than to go back to Shin-Osaka and connect to a Shinkansen service. Google maps is certainly your friend as it has the timetables loaded and will tell you which trains to get.

 

[junbugging]

Just a heads up that Shin-Osaka station is quite a way out of town.

That's a bit misleading, it's just a different part of town. It's around 4km away from the Intercontinental, so a taxi would be cheap enough.

That said, in the Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto-Nara region you're often better off forgetting about JR and using the Hankyu or Hanshin lines.

These passes can be good value, too:

Hankyu Tourist Pass | Golden Route 360°

 

[Hvr]

Use this site: HyperDia | ä¹—æ›æ¡ˆå†… 路線検索 時刻表 旅費精算 通勤費 ダイヤ作æˆãªã‚‰ to plan your trips.

There are a few options to uncheck but play with it a bit and you can plan your trip with remarkable ease.

 

[chl15]

you can exchange your voucher for a rail pass when you arrive at Narita. Just get them to set the date to first day you want to use the pass.
should you want to reserve a seat, you can do so there when you do the exchange, they will be able to help you with the trains and reservations.

 

[yohy?!]

download the hyperdia app less than a month before your trip and you'll have a free subscription to use their Japan rail search (far better than google)

 

[Willsmere]

Hi, wife and I are travelling to Japan with two kids aged 5 & 2 and i have some specific questions mostly around the JR Pass and getting from hotels to the station that I hope you can help me with....

Breakdown of our stay is below:

Park Hyatt Tokyo 3 Nights
Intercontinental Osaka 4 Nights
Ritz Carlton Kyoto 2 Nights
Park Hyatt Tokyo 1 Night (fly home)

Questions:

1. Understanding i need to exchange my voucher for a rail pass (and show passport details), but can i do this for a future day? IE can i sort out the day before first travel date so its valid for 7 days?
2. Once i have my pass i then can reserve a seat, which i am guessing i can do for a specific travel time the next day?
3. Most Japan Rail Pass offices are located at stations and the closest to the Park Hyatt is Shinjuku, so best to go there?
4. The Trains leave from Tokyo station to Shin-Osaka Station Correct?
5. Is it practical to get taxis to and from above stations to hotels?
6. Osaka to Kyoto looks to be only 1 stop away on the Shinkansen line best to use this or just turn up and get on next available train?

Any other advise would be greatly appreciated

Hi, probably the first question is, have you bought the passes yet? Because a. Your kids are young enough to to travel free anyway and b. Your not covering huge distances and you would be roughly up for $720 for 2 adult passes and your fares for the Shinkansen will come in just under that anyway, you might make a little up on some JR line fares here and there so it's a bit line ball on whether to get the passes.
I thought that once you validate the passes they have started, so in the past I validated them the day we wanted to start using them. After that, it's easy to reserve seats , just go for out of peak times and it's no problem. We travelled as a group of 4 (2 adults,2 kids), we found it much easier to get cabs from stations when we first arrived somewhere to our accomodation. Never paid more than $10-12 and once we deposited all our gear we would find our way around.

 

[wokstar]

When you go to exchange your voucher for a JR Pass you'll have to fill in a form which you can nominate the start date. I also write dates as DD-MMM-YYYY to avoid any confusion, eg 14-SEP-2016, rather than 14/09/16.
(Also note that the date on the JR Pass and seat reservation tickets you will be given will be in Japanese year format, YY-MM-DD, eg: 28-09-14. [Japanese year 28 = 2016])

I would probably do the JR Pass exchange at Shinjuku (depending on how busy it is at Narita).

As mentioned before, use HyperDia to search for train times - untick "NOZOMI/MIZUHO/HAYABUSA" and "Private Railway" and that will bring up trains which are valid for use with the JR Pass.

Write down a list of the trains you want to reserve as that will help the staff member a lot - written english is a lot easier understood than spoken.
EG: 14-SEP-2016
18:03 TOKYO
SHINKANSEN HIKARI 525
21:16 SHIN-OSAKA

If you know all the trains you want, you can reserve them all at once at the same time as you exchange your JR Pass, or you can go to any JR ticket booth with your JR Pass to do the reservations later (does not have to be a JR Pass specific office).

And yes, Shin-Osaka is the shinkansen station at Osaka. Some cities have a seperate shinkansen station which is usually the "Shin-" prefix one.

Osaka to Kyoto will probably be quicker by a JR Special Rapid or Exp Thunderbird, as you can just go from Osaka and not have to change trains at Shin-Osaka.

Taxis will be fine, enjoy the service. Usually the left-rear door will be automatically opened/closed by the driver so you'll only need to operate the other doors if you use them. The driver will probably rush out to help you with your bags too.

Have fun on your trip!

 

[pootle]

Easiest to do at the airport, the staff have fantastic English, there are 2 Jr pass centres that you can redeem it at

 

[d.diddy_13]

Thanks for all your advise!

 

[d.diddy_13]

Ohh one more question...

How early before the train departs should i get to the station? 30 min ok if pass ect all ready to go

 

[Willsmere]

They pretty much run to the second. Arrive 5 minutes before if your organised.

 

[wokstar]

30 mins should be heaps of time to make your way through the station to the shinkansen tracks.

Depending on how much luggage you have you might want to line up early on the platform for your specific seat/carriage (will be clearly marked on the platform) so you can get your luggage into the limited space that they have for it. As there is no dedicated luggage car, you'll be limited to space the behind the last seat of each carriage and depending on how busy that particular train is, that space might already be taken up by someone else. Luggage in Japan

Alternatively if you don't want the hassle of taking your luggage on the train, you can use a delivery service from hotel to hotel. Takuhaibin - Delivery Services

 

[moa999]

Just be very aware of the time and look at the signboards on smaller stations. Some of the stops are pretty short, if you're not ready to go would be very easy to miss it. Also follow the car map for the carriage numbers.

 

[Denali]

Yes to using the luggage forwarding service!

My hotel would send staff to our room to measure the bags and fill out the paperwork/take the bags - well worth it, especially as you have kids. Pack your roller bag/carry on with what you need for the kids in an emergency.

 

[ReLoad]

As others have posted above, Hyperdia is the best app you can have!!!

We travelled in April with our twin8 yr olds in a very similar itinerary, with a single night in hakone. The luggage forwarding service totally rocks, and is so cheap!!!

Next thing I'd suggest with kids is to make sure you do either the Tokyo or the new Osaka train museum, was the highlight of the kids trip!

 

[d.diddy_13]

Thanks to all for your help... everything went smoothly and we had no issues.

Ended up walking to the Shinjuku station the day before and sorting out my JR pass.

Had my list of trains i wanted to catch typed out after using the HyperDia app to work out, so thanks for the tip.

Luggage was a bit of a pain walking it around the stations but no issue once on the carriage. All of our train rides were around the midday mark and no more than 10 people on our carriage.

Plenty of taxis at each station waiting to take us to the hotel.