Itinerary Ideas/Help

Haley R

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 3, 2017
Hi everyone, we finally got our business class seats booked for Japan and we are super excited! We will be there May 28-June 15. Here is my itinerary below. I've slowly been making edits to reflect our plans.


Arrive Tuesday, May 28
Tokyo May 28-June 2
  • One day at Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku
  • One day in Tokyo-temples, museums, Yoyogi Park, and Akihabara
  • One day at the War Museum, Pokemon Cafe, and Tokyo Dome baseball game/roller coaster
  • One day at the Ghibli Museum and Odaiba
Hakone June 2-June 3
  • One day to do the Hakone Circle Route
Kyoto June 3-9
  • Take train from Hakone to Kyoto, Fushimi Inari shrine, and Gion district
  • One day in Kyoto for temples and Arashiyama (monkey park, bamboo forest, and scenic railway)
  • One day in Nara
  • One day in Kyoto/Osaka (Kyoto Railway Museum, Osaka Aquarium, and Dotonbori)
  • One day in Hiroshima and Miyajima
  • Last day in Kyoto-Philosopher's Path
Tokyo Disney June 9-15
  • Take train from Kyoto to Hilton Tokyo Bay
  • One day walking around Ikspiari and resting, might go to the different Disney resorts to look around
  • Four days at Disney parks (Tuesday-Friday)
 
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I loved Miyajima. We stayed one night in a ryokan. The torii gate is beautiful at night and it's so quiet and peaceful walking around after day trippers have left.

Would recommend adding Arashiyama from Kyoto (bamboo forest, monkey park, charming riverside town).

CupNoodles museum in Yokohama was fun. Design your own flavor of cup noodles and put it in a cute inflatable bag. You can also make your own instant ramen (class in Japanese but they provide printed instructions in English).

Have fun planning! It's exciting when the dates are set! :)
 
I loved Miyajima. We stayed one night in a ryokan. The torii gate is beautiful at night and it's so quiet and peaceful walking around after day trippers have left.

Would recommend adding Arashiyama from Kyoto (bamboo forest, monkey park, charming riverside town).

CupNoodles museum in Yokohama was fun. Design your own flavor of cup noodles and put it in a cute inflatable bag. You can also make your own instant ramen (class in Japanese but they provide printed instructions in English).

Have fun planning! It's exciting when the dates are set! :)
Thanks for the ideas! I added your notes to my Google Doc that I made. It's super exciting to really plan now that we have dates set.

Do you think Disney last will be okay? We will miss Easter, but that's okay not a big deal.
 
It looks pretty good. A lot of the things you have down for an entire day, won't actually take an entire day (e.g. Studio Ghibli Museum, Yokohama and Ikspiari). Don't forget to book your tickets for the Studio Ghibli Museum ASAP.

What do you want to do in Osaka? Universal Studios? The aquarium?

Are you going to Matsumoto for the castle? If so, I'd possibly consider visiting Himeji Castle instead. Maybe look at photos of, and options for, both to see which you prefer?
 


Would it be possible to fly into Kansai and leave from Tokyo (or vice versa) so you don't have to take the Shinkansen back and forth? Would be nice if you can do Kyoto -> Tokyo -> Tokyo Disney
 
What kinds of things are you interested in & what do you already have planned?

The Ghibli Museum really only takes a couple of hours. There's a cool hammock cafe nearby if you'd like to stop in there.
 
I loved Miyajima. We stayed one night in a ryokan. The torii gate is beautiful at night and it's so quiet and peaceful walking around after day trippers have left.

Would recommend adding Arashiyama from Kyoto (bamboo forest, monkey park, charming riverside town).

CupNoodles museum in Yokohama was fun. Design your own flavor of cup noodles and put it in a cute inflatable bag. You can also make your own instant ramen (class in Japanese but they provide printed instructions in English).

Have fun planning! It's exciting when the dates are set! :)
Would you rather do two days in Kyoto or one day in Osaka? We will have to pick and choose because we will only have 5 days there. Or we can take out Arashiyama.
 


It looks pretty good. A lot of the things you have down for an entire day, won't actually take an entire day (e.g. Studio Ghibli Museum, Yokohama and Ikspiari). Don't forget to book your tickets for the Studio Ghibli Museum ASAP.

What do you want to do in Osaka? Universal Studios? The aquarium?

Are you going to Matsumoto for the castle? If so, I'd possibly consider visiting Himeji Castle instead. Maybe look at photos of, and options for, both to see which you prefer?
Yeah I kind of just put some random things on there that we would like to do. Right now we are in the early planning stage as far as planning actual activities. We have a huge list of things we want to do on a Google doc if you'd like me to share that with you and you can make comments on it. I haven't looked up where everything is located so I wasn't able to group things together yet.

We have a list of things for Osaka, but I would almost rather do two days in Kyoto unless someone on here can convince me that a day in Osaka is necessary. We are NOT interested in Universal at all or the aquarium.

I'm actually not sure why Matsumoto got added to our list. I don't see anything on our things to do document that are there. I'm considering getting rid of it all together for another Tokyo day. We have a long list of things we would like to do/see in Tokyo.
 
Would it be possible to fly into Kansai and leave from Tokyo (or vice versa) so you don't have to take the Shinkansen back and forth? Would be nice if you can do Kyoto -> Tokyo -> Tokyo Disney
Unfortunately, no. It was extremely difficult to get the tickets that we got. We used credit cards points to book and we are actually flying out of a different airport in the US than planned because it was all we could get. I thought it would be easier to start with Tokyo and end in Tokyo since we have to fly in and out of there anyway.
 
What kinds of things are you interested in & what do you already have planned?

The Ghibli Museum really only takes a couple of hours. There's a cool hammock cafe nearby if you'd like to stop in there.
Do you want access to my Google doc with our list of things to do? It's really long and I don't want to post the whole thing on here since it will take a lot of space up. You can leave me comments on the document if you want. Let me know and I can PM you.

I mainly just put Ghibli on there because it is a high priority for us. We would love doing things in the area after we finish up at the museum. Do you know the name of the hammock cafe?
 
I'm going to add a list of some things we would like to do on Post #1 for anyone that is interested.
 
the Tokyo part looks busy. Sanrio Puroland, Ghibli, Okutama and Hakone are locatrd outside Tokyo and may require separate day trips. You can actually see Mt. Fuji from the Tokyo-Kyoto Shinkansen. So if you only want to see it without the photo op, you dont have to go to Hakone

When we went there, we hired a driver and he knew the best photo spot to see Mt. Fuji from nearby Hakone.
 
I'm actually not sure why Matsumoto got added to our list. I don't see anything on our things to do document that are there. I'm considering getting rid of it all together for another Tokyo day. We have a long list of things we would like to do/see in Tokyo.
The Crow's Castle in Matsumoto is cool, but you'd probably be better off skipping it and doing other things in Tokyo. It takes some time to get up there, and we wouldn't have done it if we hadn't been meeting a friend of my wife's for dinner in a nearby town.

You might be better off hitting Osaka castle instead. There's nice views of Osaka from it.

You could probably combine a trip to Yokohama with one to Kamakura.

We went up to Hakone but couldn't see Fuji from there. We saw it on the train from Osaka to Tokyo though.

I'd also recommend the Edo-Tokyo museum.
 
the Tokyo part looks busy. Sanrio Puroland, Ghibli, Okutama and Hakone are locatrd outside Tokyo and may require separate day trips. You can actually see Mt. Fuji from the Tokyo-Kyoto Shinkansen. So if you only want to see it without the photo op, you dont have to go to Hakone

When we went there, we hired a driver and he knew the best photo spot to see Mt. Fuji from nearby Hakone.
Are there good hiking trails in Hakone? We like to do mild hiking and love walking on trails if they have good scenic views. Otherwise, I think we could take Hakone out and just see Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen.

If we got rid of Hakone do you think our Tokyo list is still too busy?
 
Do you think Disney last will be okay? We will miss Easter, but that's okay not a big deal.

We did Disney last too, the thinking being that was the stop we would buy the most souvenirs. I might worry a little about it being closer to the start of the rainy season though, but then I tend to be a worrywart.

Here's info about when the rainy season starts in each region:
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2277.html

Would you rather do two days in Kyoto or one day in Osaka? We will have to pick and choose because we will only have 5 days there. Or we can take out Arashiyama.

I haven't been to Osaka, except to Kansai airport. Arashiyama is one my favorite places in Japan along with Miyajima. I think I tend to like scenic beauty and how the Japanese can add something man-made to enhance it.

If you go to Odaiba, the giant Gundam is fun to see.

We stayed in Asakusa near Tokyo Skytree, but we didn't go up. It didn't seem worth the price from what I read. The Sensoji Temple area is fun to walk around, lots of little shops selling snacks and trinkets.
 
The Crow's Castle in Matsumoto is cool, but you'd probably be better off skipping it and doing other things in Tokyo. It takes some time to get up there, and we wouldn't have done it if we hadn't been meeting a friend of my wife's for dinner in a nearby town.

You might be better off hitting Osaka castle instead. There's nice views of Osaka from it.

You could probably combine a trip to Yokohama with one to Kamakura.

We went up to Hakone but couldn't see Fuji from there. We saw it on the train from Osaka to Tokyo though.

I'd also recommend the Edo-Tokyo museum.
I think I'm just going to take Matsumoto off so that we can have another day for things in Tokyo. We have so many things I'd like to do in Tokyo and I don't want to constantly be going long distances to see everything when Tokyo already has some cool things to see.

Based off our list of things for Osaka, do you think we should even spend a day there or do two days in Kyoto?

What fun things are in Kamakura?

I added the Edo-Tokyo Museum to our list. I mainly just need help figuring out which things to group together so that we can get the most out of each trip without backtracking everywhere.
 
We did Disney last too, the thinking being that was the stop we would buy the most souvenirs. I might worry a little about it being closer to the start of the rainy season though, but then I tend to be a worrywart.

Here's info about when the rainy season starts in each region:
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2277.html



I haven't been to Osaka, except to Kansai airport. Arashiyama is one my favorite places in Japan along with Miyajima. I think I tend to like scenic beauty and how the Japanese can add something man-made to enhance it.

If you go to Odaiba, the giant Gundam is fun to see.

We stayed in Asakusa near Tokyo Skytree, but we didn't go up. It didn't seem worth the price from what I read. The Sensoji Temple area is fun to walk around, lots of little shops selling snacks and trinkets.
Yeah I'm having a little trouble with the whole rainy season. I really don't want the rain to ruin our experience. That's a good note about the souvenirs, though, because I would like to buy a ton if I can and those wouldn't be fun to tote around. Do you think Disney would still be best to do last then? I just don't want to miss out on rides or anything being closed from rain. The problem is we land on a Tuesday and I would like to do Disney Tuesday-Friday.

We really like scenic places as well so I added a note that we should definitely go to Arashiyama.

Do you think Odaiba is worth a special trip or is it something we could skip? Will it take up a lot of time?

Thanks for the notes about the Skytree and Sensoji Temple. I added those to my doc!
 
Just noticed Maricar Experience on your list and looked up what it was.

OMG.

:rotfl:
Hah! Have you never heard of it? Dh and I both thought that would be such a fun thing to do. I feel like you could only do something like that in Japan. I wonder if they let you drive in the rain? lol There could be some serious drifting!
 
Yeah I'm having a little trouble with the whole rainy season. I really don't want the rain to ruin our experience. That's a good note about the souvenirs, though, because I would like to buy a ton if I can and those wouldn't be fun to tote around. Do you think Disney would still be best to do last then? I just don't want to miss out on rides or anything being closed from rain. The problem is we land on a Tuesday and I would like to do Disney Tuesday-Friday.

Ah, the Tuesday arrival would be another reason to do Disney last. I think that crossed my mind too, I didn't want to be jet-lagged when we went. I've read that rain keeps the crowds away. Don't recall ever reading about rain closing rides. Maybe someone can chime in about that.

Do you think Odaiba is worth a special trip or is it something we could skip? Will it take up a lot of time?

We went to Odaiba because of the kids. It's a lot bigger and more spread out than I anticipated - basically a whole bunch of different malls. There's a Toyota museum/showcase (Mega Web) that DH and DS liked. I think you can skip if there's nothing in particular that interests you.
 

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