Early flight out of NRT
 

I have flight OZ107 C NRT-ICN scheduled at 9am at late April. I have never been to NRT (and Japan).

Given that NRT is far away from Tokyo, should I actually stay at airport hotel the night before, or it is OK for me to stay in Tokyo and catch like the first train to NRT? I don't know where I will live in Tokyo yet (for about 3 nights) and will be my first trip to Japan.

I am currently looking at Holiday Inn Narita Tobu which is 5300 Yen for 1 night for 2 people under Family and Friends rate. It looks pretty cheap compared with the other Narita Airport hotels, I think?!

I think you are pretty fine if you manage to jump on NEX @ Tokyo station around 6:30 (or similar time at Ueon for the Keisei Skyliner), you should arrive airport around 7:30 which should give enough time for check-in / security. That means you need to wake up at 5 and check-out at 5:45 or so, depend your hotel in Tokyo

If that sound too crazy for you, goto Narita one night before makes lots of sense (and you can take the cheap Keisei commuter train as well)

It is possible to reach NRT for that flight.
For example, 06:18 Narita Express from Tokyo station will reach NRT at 7.18.

If cost is a major factor, then I'd say you have a good deal with that friends and family rate. You probably should take that.

You don't state whether you're just in transit at NRT or whether this is the last night of a trip to Japan. That might affect your choice, too.

Thanks for that. I was thinking whether to try to stay in Tokyo downtown late night, as "all the shops still open at night" or just take it easy and go. I love late night shopping so it is very tempting given i have not been in Tokyo before.

But my better half doesn't really like waking up early anyway, so the 5am wakeup may not be her cup of tea. We did it before but she insist that we sleep like 8-9pm so it becomes pointless ......

Just wondering about Keisei Limited Express, looking at the Skyliner/Metro Pass deal, it looks like that it is only applicable from NRT to Tokyo only, and not the other way around (ie Tokyo pass for 2 days, then travel to Narita), is that right?

http://www.keisei.co.jp/keisei/tetud....../index.html

Well that will be the last night of my 3 days in Tokyo (coming from Osaka and Hakone). I am wondering whether to stay in Narita to save costs, given that Tokyo is not a cheap place to stay.

If it's me to decide, I will go for Narita for a less crazy town to tune myself back for "home" mood, buy an hour more for sleep before the long flight home (well not applicable to me as HK-er, which TYO and HK are equally busy, or, crazy)

OR

Is it possible to left your wife behind and you head to Roppongi yourself, head back to hotel on taxi and wake her up to airport :p

There's no discount for your Tokyo --> NRT travel, From Keisei Ueon to NRT it is 1920 yen for the Skyliner

Off topic, For my previous trip exiting at KIX, I stay up till 3am hanging around at Namba (reading manga at shops, buying CDs and watching people), check-out at 7:30 am and just manage to catch the check-in deadline :p

This post belongs in the fiction section of the library.

U mean this is impossible?!

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3Gs: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

??? Why fictional ???



http://www.jreast-timetable.jp/1004/train/095/098121.html

or you only read the promotion page? The full timetable is at

http://jreast-shinkansen-reservation.eki-net.com/pc/english/common/timetable/e_nex_d/index.html

Flight to ICN is not long, only like just more than 2 hours. The next flight from ICN-SYD would be 10 hours but that occurs the day after.

Looks like it is best to stay at Narita on the last night instead. I will try to catch the Keisei limited express given it is pretty cheap ride.

Yes, I can leave my wife behind but I may never see her again :p

Sorry - I was looking at the full timetable but I missed that one. In any case, though, arrival at the station 90 minutes prior to departure would be cutting things a little finer than I like. The immigration queue can be quite long for the first flights of the day.

Naah. I regularly take the 7:00 AM NEX to make CX509, which leaves at 9:15. Plenty of time for the festivities, even time for a brief stop at the lounge. And I don't even use the sparkly eyes technique, that's not a morning thing.

Personally, I almost always stay at NRT the night before because I absolutely hate waking up early.

I'd consider a 9:15am flight as requiring waking up too early, even if I was sleeping in a hotel room located right next to the gate! You'd still have to set your alarm for 6:30-7 even if staying at a Narita hotel.

Yeah, but 6:30 am is still better than 5 am!