JR Pass
 

Because the FT Search function is not working,I have to post the question which has probably been answered 1000 times.
I arrive in Tokyo on 29 March(by Limo bus).. On 4 April I will be traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto(by train), and on 8 April I will be travel from Kyoto to Odawara(by train), and on 11 April I will again travel by train from Odawara to NRT.
The question I have is, should I purchase a JR Pass (7 day ?or 14 day?) , Ordinary Pass? or Green Pass?.
Or should I just purchase one way tickets for these three trains?
Thank you. :confused:

Definitely get the JR Pass. If you use it more than 3-4 times (I think), then it makes it all up. Here's another thread on it: Tokyo to Kyoto

Unfortunately, you are in that dead area where the 7 day Pass isn't quite long enough. The 11th is the eighth day after your travel would begin on the 4th, so you would need a 14 day Pass to cover all of your planned travel. If you have no other train trips planned, the 14-day Pass might not be cost effective. You could use the 7-day Pass for most of your travel and pay cash for travel at the end of your trip. Or, you could return to Tokyo the evening of the 7th day (on the 10th) and cover everything with the 7-day Pass. It is good up to midnight of the 7th day.

If you are not going to be using any trains other than the 3 you mention, and your dates are firm, it might not make much difference if you use a 7-day Pass for the first 2 trips and pay cash for the ticket from Odawara to Tokyo or buy all 3 tickets and forget about the Pass. If there is any chance you might use any other trains during the 7 day period from the 4th to the 10th (such as a day trip from Kyoto to Nara or Himeji) then the 7-day Pass will more than pay for itself.

Since the Sanyo-Tokaido shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto does not have green cars on the trains you can use the JR Rail Pass for, the standard Pass makes more sense (the green cars are only on the Nozomi, which is not available to Rail Pass users.)

More confused now? :)

JR

Do the 2 week pass and take the Narita Express in from Narita. Plus it will give you free JR in Tokyo from the 29th to the 4th.

I don't know where you get that idea from, every Hikari Shinkansen I've been on between Tokyo and Osaka has Green cars, and the JR pass is good on Hikaris.

Odawara to Narita is not a big deal. You can take a JR rapid train to Ofuna or Yokohama and connect to the Narita Express there. This will cost about Y4500, much less than the cost of adding 7 days to your JR pass.

While in Kyoto, with your JR pass, you could do a long day trip to Miyajima and Hiroshima, also very interesting.

Well, I thought I got it from an earlier post in this forum. :confused: If I was mistaken, I need to offer an apology to the OP. I've never bothered with the green car, so have no personal experience. The standard Pass has always filled my needs admirably.

I agree with the rest of your post. The trip from Odawara to Tokyo (or Yokohama) is no big deal and could be easily purchased for cash. There are so many good day trips from Kyoto that a Rail Pass would be valuable, assuming the OP has any time for excursions. Also, as another poster pointed out, the 14-day Pass would cover trains all over Tokyo while spending time there. It all depends on what the OP is going to be doing while in the points he has planned to visit.

JR

A one day unlimited ticket that covers all JR trains in Tokyo and a few stations beyond the Yamanote loop in all directions costs Y730. It's usually not economic to add a week to a JR pass just for local Tokyo travel, especially since it doesn't include the subways.

Most of the non-Nozomi shinkansen SOUTH of Osaka don't have green cars, maybe that's what you read about. I do agree that in non-holiday periods, you generally don't need a green car ticket to get a seat on most any train you want and regular seats are certainly comfortable enough.

Thanks to all of you for the great information. :)

JR pass rules / JR office at NRT
 

Hi!

Have a question on JR pass redemption and use.
On the JR pass brochure given to me with my JR pass voucher, it says:
"valid 7 days from the day the pass is used".
and
" within 3 months from the date the exchange order was issued, you must turn in your exchange order to obtain your JR pass. At that time, you have to specify the date you want to use start using the pass.

As I will be in transit in NRT airport 4/5 (on way to Seoul) and have time to go to JR office, is it possible:
- to exchange my voucher and book ahead shinkansen trains for 4/11 to 4/17 period (heard early-mid april is rather high season)
- also get a JR West pass for 4/8 to 4/11 so I save time when i arrive KIX airport on 4/8 early evening?

Need JR pass train experts on this.
Thanks!

As I understand it, having been researching this for a while:

You can book tickets online a month in advance even before you have the JR pass. Then once you have the pass and have activated it, you can collect your reservations from the station, and they don't charge you.

Once you have your pass, you have to write a start date on it or something to activate it (I can't remember exactly). But you don't have to do that until you want to. I'm planning to pick up a 7 day JR pass at NRT when I arrive, but not activate it for another three days when I want to go to Kyoto. I'll pay for the Narita Express into Tokyo.

I don't know anything about the JR West pass, I'm afraid.

You tell them at the time you trade the exchange order for the pass when you want it to start, and they write it in. This is true for the regional passes as well.

For 4/11 to 4/17, it is not really high season so advance reservations (like before you get to Japan) are probably not necessary. Using the eki-net website (which requires that you pick up the tickets within the JR East region only) has a number of problems. One of them is that if you do anything the slightest bit wrong or miss your train, your credit card will be irrevocably billed for the ticket. As a result, most of us who have gotten JR passes have tended to consider this website, if at all, only for REAL high season travel, such as Golden Week.

It's perfectly OK to buy multiple JR pass exchange orders in advance. In fact, if you don't use them, most of them seem to allow you to return them when you get home for only a 10% charge.
Won't save you much time since you still have to trade the exchange order for an actual pass when you get there. The folks at the JR West desk at KIX seemed to me to be the most efficient exchange agents of all the ones I have dealt with.