zeo219

Hello- I have the following up coming plans in mid-December. I am trying to figure out when/where would be the best place for me to exchange our vouchers for JR Passes.

* land in Haneda at 10:20pm (connecting through KIX (arrive at 18:50 and departs at 21:10)
* stay in Shinjuku for the night
* leave in morning to take the 7:30 or 8:30am Fuji Excursion to Kawaguchiko.
* this will be the start of our 7 day travel around Japan and will be heading to Osaka the next morning.

I believe the Shinjuku JR service window only opens at 8am. If so, would that leave enough time to exchange our passes and reserve a seat for the 8:30am train that day?

It seems our only other option would be to nix trying to get our passes before Kawaguchiko and to pay separately/additionally for the Shinjuku > Kawaguchiko; Kawaguchiko > Osaka portions of our trip, unless I'm missing something?

• The Shinjuku > Kawaguchiko portion seems to be about 1600JPY/pp. Can these tickets be purchased online in advance of arriving to Japan? Would it be advisable to pay for seat reservations or can is there standing room if there are no seats? Can this also be done online?
• We will be going from Kawaguchiko > Mishima to catch the shinkansen to Shin-Osaka. If I'm reading the schedule correctly, we would like to catch the Hikari #505 which looks like it stops in Mishima @ 9:46am and reaches Shin-Osaka @ 11:57am. How much time should I allow at Mishima to exchange the passes and reserve seats for that train?

Thank you in advance for your help!

5khours

The line for JR passes can sometimes be long. A lot of customers are not just getitng the passe, they are also booking tickets. It could take well over 30 minutes if your unlucky. (That said, when I got a JR rail pass at Tokyo during Covid, they told me they hadn't sold a single pass in months.)

synergypi

Fuji Excursion will likely be sold out 1-2 weeks before your travel date so JR Pass will not be effective. Best to purchase a month in advance via eki-net.com. Public transport from Kawaguchiko to Mishima before 945 am may be impossible aside from going back to Yokohama, etc. Maybe revise plans to visit Fuji area later?

zeo219

Thank you, that’s incredibly helpful to know. I will purchase those Fuji Excursion tickets a month before. We unfortunately cannot revise plans as certain plans have already been made. We were thinking of taking a taxi from our hotel near Kawaguchiko station to Mishima to try and 1. Exchange our vouchers to JR Passes there and 2. Make that particular Hikari train to Osaka.

Does this seem doable? And if so, would getting to Mishima an hour before that train be enough time?

bpe

Mishima isn't a busy station so an hour should be fine for exchanging the pass. But Kawaguchiko to Mishima is an hour by taxi at best (and will be expensive), and I don't know if taxis will want to go that far.

For the Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko part, if the Fuji Excursion train doesn't work out for whatever reason, there are other limited express trains stopping in Otsuki that are less popular. Or use the local trains that can't sell out, then local trains from Otsuki to Kawaguchiko.

synergypi

I'd guess taxi to Mishima would take about an hour, more if weather is wintry, and budget an hour for JR pass etc.

zeo219

Is there a list somewhere of train tickets/reservations that cannot be made/purchased through eki-net.com? Can non JR-EAST trains tickets/seats be purchased reserved? I am trying to schedule the following reservations/purchase tickets - can these all be done through eki-net.com?

1. purchase tickets for Fuji Excursion Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko
2. reserve seats for shinkansen Mishima > Shin-Osaka, using JR Pass and purchase 1 ticket so we are seated together
3. reserve seats for shinkansen Shin-Osaka > Kyoto, using JR Pass and purchase 1 ticket so we are seated together
4. reserve seats for shinkansen Kyoto > Tokyo, using JR Pass and purchase 1 ticket so we are seated together

How can one tell whether a ticket/train is "Tokuten" or not? (as there seems to be different allowances for # of times tickets can be changed depending on whether it is Tokuten or not)

bpe

In general, the train must be operated by JR East to be bookable on JR East eki-net. Check the website for their maps, and if it is covered by either the JR East Nagano/Niigata pass or Tohoku pass it will be available to book, if it isn't, then it won't. (A few trains of the trains that are not JR East but are covered by some of the passes are also available such as the Hokuriku shinkansen, southern Hokkaido, and a few third-sector railways).

For 1, part of the trip is on the Fuji kyuko railway, which afaik does not accept online reservations for through trains to Tokyo, only on trains that operate between Otsuki and Kawaguchiko. If you don't mind changing trains, you can book a (paid) Fujikyuko train online plus a Shinjuku-Otsuki train on eki-net with the pass, and the overall cost should be the same.

For 2-4, they are all on JR Central, which also does not accept online reservations for passes, only paid tickets. From Osaka to Kyoto (3), it's probably not worth taking the shinkansen since the local trains are fast and frequent, and go directly to Osaka station.

If the trains listed here are all of your big trips, you'd be better off not getting a JR pass and just booking paid tickets. It will about break even (at old pricing) or be significantly cheaper (post-October pricing) at about 31,000 yen or 29,000 if you take local trains for (3), but you can also use advance purchase discounts so it can easily be less than that. (Not counting about 1500 yen for Fuji Kyuko which you'd have to pay anyway).

And with paid tickets you can reserve most of the trains online (JR Central's SmartEX for 2-4), you can save a bunch of time by taking the nozomi trains for only marginally more money, and you don't have to wait to pick up the pass.