evergrn

If your JL flight is scheduled to land at 16.25 and you're flying Y with checked luggage, then I think the NRT Express train departure time that you'll be able to make will range from ~16:45 with good luck (arrive 25min early, no immigration queue, bags come out 25min after parked at gate, no JR Office queue) to ~18:45 with bad luck (arrive 35min late, 30min immigration queue, 40min JR Office queue).

So I present potential train itineraries with starting time during the above time.

NRT Terminal-2 16:48 -NEx- 17:52 Shinagawa 18:10 -Hikari- 20:58 Kyoto
NRT Terminal-2 17:19 -NEx- 18:27 Shinagawa 18:40 -Hikari- 21:11 Kyoto
NRT Terminal-2 17:47 -NEx- 18:56 Shinagawa 19:10 -Hikari- 21:58 Kyoto
NRT Terminal-2 18:19 -NEx- 19:26 Shinagawa 19:40 -Hikari- 22:11 Kyoto
NRT Terminal-2 18:52 -NEx- 19:59 Shinagawa 20:10 -Hikari- 22:58 Kyoto

Print the above so you can just show it to the JR Office employee and point at the one you want them to book you on at the time of JR Pass exchange, depending on how you're doing with time.

But please verify the accuracy of the above times.

evergrn

Any airline is subject to potential delays. ANA is also a decent airline but it's not infrequent that they're delayed up to 30min for arrival into NRT.
If you're coming from America, keep in mind that most people end up waking up at the crack of dawn or even earlier the following day due to time difference.

Customs will be unlikely to be your bottleneck. Immigration queue could be long. If you get through immigration quick, then you'll probably have to wait a while for your bag... if you flew coach and don't have bag priority, then figure 20-35min from parked at gate till your bag comes out. The biggest potential bottleneck may be JR Pass exchange, though.

dici

Before getting any JR Rail Pass, first you ask yourself:

1. Will you take more than 3 shinkansen trip? (each trip at least 1 hr 30 mins)

If the answer is no, then don't bother with JR pass, it just not worth it

lsquare

The plan is to take the Narita Express, Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji, and back to Tokyo. By then I won't have enough time to take the Narita Express back to Narita so I'll have to use another form of transportation or train line. Will the Shinkansen take me to all of those places? If so, is it worth it?

I don't have bag priority. Is the line at the JR Pass exchange long? Even on a Wednesday? I'll be coming in during the summer so I guess it could be busy.

I'll be flying JL17 and it does appear that they land in T2, gate 84.

The timing looks really tight. Am I reading this correctly? The NEx leaves T2 at 18:52, arrives at Shinagawa at 19:59, and I have 11 minutes to catch the Hikari to Kyoto?

dici

Shinkansen can get you to those places, just you may be bounded to hourly train schedule.

But for Kyoto to Osaka, there are many other choices of limited express train which will get you to destination without much of traveling time difference, and it cost by half. Just take not, JR pass can't be used for subway and certain buses in Osaka and Kyoto.

For Osaka and HImeji, same as kyoto case, I believe the traveling time difference of limited express and shinkansen is 1 hour vs 45 minutes difference.

And the flight ticket from itami airport to NRT may cost even less than shinkansen from osaka to tokyo... But if you want to have an experience of shinkansen, I would say do the math first, then you might want to buy a one-way trip to experience it all the way from osaka to tokyo

evergrn

nishimark

Another thought. Stay near airport or in Narita City first night. Relax, have dinner, go to bed. You'll likely wake up very early next day because of jet lag no matter how tired you are. Take morning flight next day to ITM. Flight will be cheaper and no stress about trying to make connections.

ksandness

Since you will be jet-lagged, it will be no problem to wake up early and catch an early Shinkansen to Kyoto, leaving most of the day to explore. Instead of stressing about catching the train to Kyoto that very night, I suggest taking it easy and having a relaxing evening in a hotel near Shinagawa.

On one trip, I had to be in Hiroshima by noon the day after arriving. I took the N'Ex to Shinagawa, where I had a hotel reservation. Since I was jet-lagged, I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I had no trouble catching the 6:30AM westbound Shinkansen. That would have gotten me into Kyoto shortly after 9:00AM, if Kyoto had been my destination.

Twerk

I did similar US-NRT-KIX-US 9 day trip in May. In NRT I was with my bags at T2 train station 30' after getting off the plane (arrived in J). Line at JR office looked 30' long. I exchanged voucher 2 days later. Used Pass on Tokyo-Osaka plus daily trips to Nikko, Kamakura/Yokohama, Himeji, Nara, Ex to KIX, and many short runs like Osaka-Kyoto or Tokyo-Ueno. I estimate saving close to $100 with pass. Make sure to download HYPERDIA by VOICE app, it's priceless.

5khours

You're over-stressing. I don't think there is any way you can NOT make the connections.

mhy

You shouldn't have a problem making it onto the 18:52 N'EX to Shinagawa at the very worst case. I think my personal record is arrival on JL3 @ 2:40pm, deplane and through immigration in 5 minutes (Japanese passport), bags / customs in 10 minutes, go to train station and buy N'EX ticket @ JR ticket machine in 10 minutes, and board the 3:18pm N'EX to Tokyo.

The big factor for you will be the line at the JR ticket office. I use my Japanese credit card to buy tickets at the JR ticket machine (and I'm ineligible for Japan Rail Pass anyway) but those lines can be truly horrendous sometimes. I have seen "60 minute wait" posted there in the past.

Even if your immigration/customs + ticket exchange takes 2 hours total, you should still be safe for 18:52 provided the flight arrives on time. And as someone said the N'EX -> Shinkansen transfer at Shinagawa is very easy and fast. Make sure you change there and not Tokyo station!

paperwastage

Jl17. Out of past 62 flights, avg delay is 8 min, max delay is 21min. Only 2 have delays above 15 min

Basically, this is doable. Only risk = crowds @ customs/JL pass office, and they are small risks given the amount of buffer time you have

figure out a backup plan if you get delayed. As I said, you can still make it to Tokyo (or as far as Nagoya) and pay out of pocket for a cheap hotel room there.

Keep track of the time, and go to backup plan if you're still waiting on Jr pass line 5 minutes before last NEx departure for shinagawa/kyoto

That was what I was doing for my trip

s0ssos

If you're going to just be dead tired why not take a overnight bus?

nishimark

Overnight bus would be one of the LAST places I'd look for a good night's sleep when dead tired. Good way to save money if you're traveling cheap, but that's about it.

s0ssos

If I'm dead tired I'll sleep no matter what.

The thing is, OP might not be tired arriving. The people who talked about early morning awakening-I find it depends on when you sleep. If you arrive in the evening in Japan, from the US, you might not be able to sleep. You would stay up late. And then sleep during the day.