Taiwaned

We are actually considering commuting from Osaka.

Taking the first shinkansen, we should arrive about 8 am. -> watch the event -> take shinkansen back.

evergrn

That may actually be cheaper. I'd imagine hotels are going to do some serious price gouging. At least JR will not change fares. I wonder if ANA domestic flights will remain at 5k each way during the Olympics. ANA award seats get released 2mo out... I'd imagine those seats will get snatched up right then in a blink of an eye.

FlitBen

Would you consider somewhere along the Hokuriku or Joetsu Shinkansen lines past Omiya? JR-East regional passes tend to be reasonably priced.

evergrn

Some of the cities within 75-min radius (60min if using bullet train) of Yamanote line with numerous choices of decent yet reasonably priced hotels include Tachikawa, Chiba, Narita, Utsunomiya and Takasaki. And various areas of Yokohama, needless to say, although I expect Yokohama hotels to be really booked up also.

But there's a lot you would need to think about cost-wise. If you're a　couple deciding to stay in Utsunomiya and take the bullet train to/from Tokyo, it'll end up being 17,000yen combined for that one day. So the cost difference between Tokyo hotel and Utsunomiya hotel must be enough to more than make up for that cost of transport. Train cost may not be that much, though, if you decided to do Train Pass. But then there will be the question of how user-friendly those Train Passes will be during these crazy-busy Olympic weeks (Will reserved seats be hard to get? Will the line at JR offices be crazy? Are you okay with free seating cars?).

Anyways, I will be looking to stay as close to the city center as possible at a nice enough hotel without going over $30,000yen per night for the family. And then I will expand my search areas as needed.

Given the expected lodging scarcity, I sure hope people will refrain from making double bookings during the Olympics.

nishimark

Might be a good strategy. Consider Nagoya as well. You could save an hour each way on the commute. Several hotels in the downtown station area.

asovse1

That's really clever. Combine that with the Japan Rail Pass (no Nozomi though so I might look to the Tokaido/Hokuriku Shinkansen) and there could be some decent savings if one could find a cheaper hotel room on the HSR but outside Tokyo...shouldn't be too hard I hope!

groovbusta

After more checking with co-workers, about 30% of them got tickets to something. Best event has been finals of swimming, 4 tickets for 130,000 yen.

bigmadden

I applied for a bunch of events, mainly medal games as I figured that the non-medal ones will be easier to get for the general sale. Did a lot of fighting sports such as judo, karate, fencing, boxing, etc. In the end won only 2 events, I bid for 2 different fencing days and won them both. I can only imagine that fencing isn't very popular at all, but I'm glad to have gotten something! I know people who bid the max for every member of their family and got nothing.

K7Beach

evergrn

This article puts a damper on things, I must say. All you FTers who won tickets to something are extremely lucky then.
I was also doing some math regarding space availability to watch the marathon.
The Tokyo course is essentially 21km long (since the entire course is 2-ways). Let's say 1/3 of the course is blocked off from spectators due to cross-streets, lack of sidewalks, security, etc. And let's say 2 people standing side by side fit per metre. We're then talking 21,000m x 2/3 x 2 x 2sides = 56,000 people. That's really not a lot at all.
Starting to wonder if we should stay away. If we're going to go, I'd like to see something. But even things like marathon and cycling will likely be crazy, given the reported popularity of the Tokyo Olympics.

K7Beach

I suspect that there will be tickets for events when the window opens up...I don't expect that all the ticket allocated in each country all went, I think the more popular events went but I don't believe the they all would go. I would say that the rest may not last long after the queue opens up though....few hours at best. Hope the site stays up.

mxqisit

So much for the availability of tickets in Canada

Went live at 11am (actually about 10 minutes early), lots of timeouts on the site, extremely low availability, tickets disappearing from my cart during checkout.

airoli

+1 :-(

LazycatLAX

We got tickets. Yay! The venue is the new Aquatics Center.

Now the hotel part: first Hyatt app showed everything to be unavailable starting from July 23. Then I used a hotel booking website, and it showed all hotels to be sold out starting from July 23 too. Not sure what's happening.

Please suggest some alternative cities within reasonably easy commuting distance. I saw Osaka & Nagoya being mentioned.

K7Beach

Congrats. In the same boat....Assume you are US based...Did CoSport offer any packages when you booked? I suspect that will be the path to go. I am not trusting an AirBNB not to get cancelled a month out. Whatever happens, I expect a frenzy. Hope someone has suggestions.
K