sameruval

Wondering if anyone here has recommendations for English Speaking tour operators for day trips to Fuji +/- the Fuji 5 lakes region out of Tokyo. Looking for group coach or more private small bus tours,

Q Shoe Guy

https://www.hatobus.com/v01/en/topic/mt-fuji-tour

Sorry looks to be unavailable in the near term .

jib71

Fujikyu is the operator of the railway to Kawaguchiko, the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park, and the local buses.
Fuji Five Lakes Sightseeing Bus Tour - FUJIKYUKO BUS

I have a horror of Japanese bus tour guides, constantly prattling away like Belcebrons. Perhaps you can drown out the babble, by turning up the volume on the multilingual GPS guide device that the company offers.

LapLap

Someone, somewhere will still have fitful nights remembering the time they took the role of tour guide to the Pickles’ family. I doubt there was any technique to turn down or subdue THAT reality…

Has Anyone Tried JTB's Longer Tours?

Q Shoe Guy

And I never learned that lesson and paid the price.....story of my life.

Pickles

Ah yes, had forgotten about that story, which took place in 1985. There is, however, a corollary and a moral to this story, that takes place much later, in 2010. The Mise en scčne this time is Hirobun in Kibune, Kyoto. Hirobun is famous as a nagashi somen restaurant, where people sit on a stage above a flowing river and have a fancy dinner where the highlight is noodles cooled by the flowing river waters. It is a lovely setting, and the meal is a classic Japanese set menu that leans towards kaiseki-level formality. Burger and fries or Panda Express this wasn't.

The participants are a number of attendees to that fateful 1985 trip, which, in the intervening quarter century, went to Japan multiple times and got the "hang" of things and even acquired a modicum of good behavior. Other attendees are a number of Japan neophytes and newbies, whom we somehow projected would behave with an equivalent level of civility. Well, if you concluded the neophytes had been raised by alpaca goats in a remote Andean village, you could be forgiven. Their bewilderment and behavior was so bad that even the exemplar #33 of the 1985 trip complains to this day about the mud in the face.

The highlight of that trip was probably one of the participants, at a teppanyaki restaurant, loudly declaring she would not eat anything she had previously seen alive, at the exact moment when the chef took out a couple of live giant shrimp from a bucket and slammed them onto the grill.

hikouki

Just came back from TYO, and took the JTB tour for Mt. Fuji/ Hakone. Weather was bad and clouds obscured any view.

Never saw Mt. Fuji.

Hakone tour was damp and miserable.

We were served an individual sukiyaki lunch at an obscure hotel. Not bad. I don't usually eat beef but gladly ate it that day. Felt sorry for the vegetarians who did not book a meal (only one out of 5 did). Once one of them made the slightest complaint, she got a dressing down from the usually very sweet tour guide. (almost like Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde).

More than 2/3 of the time was spent traveling on a bus.

Will hope to take a tour to Mt. Fuji at some future time, but will not take JTB again. (As much as I know that weather is nobody's fault, I do not think specific tours should operate regularly during seasons where there is not a greater chance of achieving the goal of the tour - viewing Mt. Fuji in this case). Even tour guide said so. JTB should probably only have this in late Spring through Summer.

LapLap

Am afraid that there’s even less chance of catching sight of Fuji San in late Spring through Summer. However, whichever season you do return my suggestion is to find a way to get there even earlier. I understand that your tour left Shinjuku at 8:15am. On my own late Spring and beyond visits to Hakone, Mt Fuji is usually already becoming obscured by 10am and invisible by noon. Your best chance is to either leave Tokyo at 6am or so or/and to book somewhere to stay in the area (an obvious base line lodging used by tour operators with rooms and baths that face Fuji San is the Green Plaza Hotel Hakone).
Now you’ve been already you should have no problem exploring the area as the Hakone Free Pass is just like purchasing your own DIY travel kit https://www.odakyu.jp/english/passes/hakone/

The higher up you go in Hakone the worse the food gets. Once you go beyond Ubako Station on the Hakone ropeway route the restaurants mostly serve Japanese Curry Rice sets; the stand out food item are the boiled black eggs. The consensus in the area seems to be that Curry Rice is the defining local speciality - there is a reason; it’s the most well known dish of the venerable Fujiya Hotel which has an illustrious history, and they served it to the Emperor in the 1960s
Book a curry at the Fujiya Hotel by all means, but if you’re looking to enjoy a higher altitude meal and can deal with some potential wind, take up a Bento. At least you can have a genuinely delicious lunch whilst facing the grey misty void where Fuji San is hiding.

ETA - found one. This is what I might hope to see in Hakone in late Spring. It was taken on April 16th a few years ago near Ubako Ropeway station on a very nice day and is typical of what would still be visible at around 10am or so. Within 2 hours (midday) Mount Fuji would be invisible.

Pickles

If tours to Mt. Fuji should not operate when the chance of seeing Mt. Fuji is low, there would be no tours to Mt. Fuji. As a matter of fact, it is in Winter (i.e. now) that the chances of seeing anything are highest.

As for your crappy tour, I can imagine exactly how it played out, including the scolding by the tour guide! Been there, done that!

AlwaysAisle

I am sorry to hear that the weather was not the ideal situation. I am not sure choosing other tour companies would have made much of a difference. Visiting both Mt. Fuji and Hakone in one day is a slightly ambitious schedule. Since there is no ideal public transport between Mt. Fuji and Hakone, if you want to do Mt. Fuji and Hakona in one day the option will be a tour with a dedicated bus or drive on your own. Even driving on your own, you will end up spending time driving more than touring the site if you want to do Mt. Fuji and Hakone in one day. Most local people in Tokyo planning to do a day trip by car will plan either Mt. Fuji or Hakone, not both. I do not think many will plan Mt. Fuji and Hakone in one day.

As for the meal, the tour information says:

The Japanese-style meal (sukiyaki) for lunch includes a serving of seasonal fruit and unlimited coffee.

If a person has a dietary restriction then they should have arranged with the tour operator prior to the day of the tour.

The weather is mother nature, I do not think can fault the tour companies. As mountain weather changes quickly, it is unreasonable to decide on the tour in the morning in Tokyo. Mt. Fuji and Hakone can be drizzled in the morning, but the sun can come out by 10-11 a.m. The situation will be the same regarding the weather if you decide to drive on your own.

About being able to see Mt. Fuji or not, there is a guy who did a study on that. The guy got help from conductors on Shinkansen. He asked Shinkansen conductors to take look toward Mt. Fuji when Shinkansen is passing over the Ooi River bridge in Shizuoka, then report if they could see Mt. Fuji or not. The survey indicated that Mt. Fuji is visible only about 30% of the time. Taking the tour or driving on your own, if you head to Mt. Fuji, the chance of being able to see Mt. Fuji is about 30%. And, yes, as others have indicated, the survey also showed that the best chance to see Mt. Fuji is early morning in the winter.

sameruval

Some useful information here, and amusing anecdotes. Thanks! Sounds like we should be prepared not to see Fuji-san 70% of the time (we're going Late May), and for comically rigid tour guides .

Are there any other operators that any of you have tried that were less rigid or had a more enjoyable experience with?

sameruval

On further reading, seems like it's fairly simple to get to Fuji Five Lakes (specifically Kawaguchiko) and Kawaguchiko 5th station from central Tokyo using bus/train. May just do that rather than booking a tour.

I am a bit worried about finding our way around and getting stranded the further we get out from cities given none of us read or speak Japanese, but given that this is a fairly well traveled route by tourists I'm thinking it should be fine. Happy to hear from anyone who has first hand experience regarding this.

LapLap

All I can say is that, in over 20 years of regularly visiting Japan, and having made repeated visits to the Hakone area, I have never been to Fuji 5 Lakes nor any of the 5th stations.
This August will be the first time I plan to go to Mt Fuji and that will be for the purpose of climbing it.

I learned right from the start to consider any sightings of Fuji San to be a thrilling bonus, never something I can ever count on.

And in all this time reading contributions and listening to people’s experiences of going to Japan, I’ve never worked out why exactly people want to go to a 5th station of Mt Fuji outside of climbing season, I’ve never experienced anybody describing such a visit to the bottom slopes as a trip highlight (whereas what @hikouki related in this thread is all too typical).
Perhaps it will be a trip highlight for you. If you decide on doing it, I hope it is.

sameruval

Good to know. I guess the plan would be to perhaps walk some of the shorter trails around the 5th station/the panoramic ropeway.

Pickles

<raises hand> Me! Me! Back on that fateful 1985 trip where we hijacked our tour bus and unceremoniously dumped (by our actions) the tour guide, we went to the 5th station. Why? Because it was there. So what do we do when we get there? We start climbing Mt. Fuji, completely unprepared, and without any idea of how long it could take or even how to get there. We went up a volcanic-ash covered slope (not the main trail) for hours until it became clear we had no idea what we were doing and where we were. And then we just slid back down to the 5th station. Memorable indeed!

And the ultimate joke was that in 2018, my sister (a teenager in 1985), did the exact same trip with her husband and her teenage children. This time they knew better, so they didn't climb it willy-nilly. But on the bus back they drove by the Fuji-Q Highlands amusement park, decided it looked like fun, got off the bus and proceeded to ride the roller coasters until the park closed.