Hi everyone.
I’ll be travelling to Japan for 3+ weeks in August next year with my wife and two kids (2 and 6 years old). As background, we’re well aware of the heat/humidity of Japan’s summers (I’ve spent most my summer vacations there while growing up) and jet lag implications, have a fairly good level in Japanese (N2 level more or less) and have travelled/hiked with our kids before under suboptimal conditions. Long story short, open jaw tickets were overpriced and we’re starting our trip with Kansai as I want to be in the Kanto area for Obon.
We thought that stopping in Hakone and Legoland Japan (Nagoya) on our way to Kyoto was a good idea but we’re having some second thoughts on how to best organize this.
We’ll be landing in Haneda early in the morning (6am) and once customs/passports controls cleared, luggages will be sent to Kyoto. We’ll be travelling for the first 3 days with just a travel backpack and a foldable stroller (GB pockit air or yoyo).
As a starting point of our journey we’re envisaging the following:
Day 1 :
– Go to Hakone Yumoto (Odakyu Highway Bus or by train Keikyu/JR Tokaido/Hakone Tozan lines).\
– Have lunch\
– Visit Hakone Open Air Museum\
– Potentially spend a couple of hours at Yunessun with the kids\
– Hotel/ryokan check-in (Kowakidani or Gora area)\
– Enjoy private and public onsen, kaiseki meal, sleep
Day 2 (potentially the tricky part):
– Wake-up early\
– 9am: Hakone ropeway up to Owakudani and down to Togendai\
– Cross Lake Ashi with the pirate ship and go to Motohakone port\
– Quick visit to Hakone shrine (we won’t be lining up for the torii) and/or checkpoint (could potentially skip this)\
– Bus to Mishima Skywalk and spend 1 hour there\
– Bus to Mishima Station and take – at the latest – the 5:45pm JR Tokaido-Sanyo shinkansenb (Hikari) to Nagoya\
– Sleep at a hotel close to Nagoya Meitetsu station
Day 3: Legoland Japan and then head to Kyoto.
How realistic is day 2, i.e. doing 2/3 of the Hakone loop and visiting Mishima Skywalk in time to take a 5:45pm train at Mishima station considering tourists influx/queues ? Hotel bookings are flexible so we can reschedule for now.
Many thanks in advance for your insight/help.
by Dry-Check8872
2 comments
>How realistic is day 2, i.e. doing 2/3 of the Hakone loop and visiting Mishima Skywalk in time to take a 5:45pm train at Mishima station considering tourists influx/queues ? Hotel bookings are flexible so we can reschedule for now.
Ok so we’re going to walk this plan backwards assuming you want to be at Mishima at 5:45.
Alright if you want to catch the 5:45 train at Mishima station to Nagoya You’d have to **leave Mishima skywalk around 4:00**.
You want an hour to spend at the skywalk so you’d need to arrive there at 3. This means that you’ll have to **leave Motohakone at 1:30** to get there by 3.
It’s a 20 minute walk to Hakone Shrine from Motohakone Port. So round trip is 40 minutes. That leaves you with only about 20 minutes of an hour to enjoy the shrine. I guess that’s do-able. Let’s just assume from 12:30-1:30 you are at moto-hakone port/Hakone shrine.
Now the Tokaido checkpoint is at the previous stop from Motohakone so now we have to factor in the pirate ship ride from Hakone-machi. This is a 10 minute ride, not including the wait for it to actually arrive though. The boat that leaves from Hakone-Machi to Motohakone that fits this schedule is set to **leave Hakonemachi at 11:15.**
This means that the only two times to leave Togendai are now 10:00 or 10:45. If you pick 10:45 you’d have 30 minutes to do the checkpoint I suppose so we’ll pick this option for the sake of it and assume you **left Togendai at 10:45** for the checkpoint and departed Hakonemachi to do the shrine at 11:15.
Well the ropeway from Togendai to Owakudani is 30 minutes. So we’ll at an extra 20 minutes to account for ticketing/lines. So you’d have to **leave Owakudani by 9:55** to make sure you are in Togendai by time the 10:45 boat leaves.
**The first cablecar leaves to Owakudani from Sounzan at 9:00**. It’s a 15 minute ride from Sounzan Station to Owakudani Station. Assuming you leave right at 9:00 you’d only have about 40 minute to enjoy Owakudani. But now you have to get on the **cablecar from Gora at 8:44 at the latest.**
All of this is assuming you don’t get behind on anything. That you catch the right boats that you leave each area at the right time. That there isn’t a long wait to get onto the ropeways or anything or that they aren’t down due to weather, that your 2 year old or 4 year old don’t throw a tantrum and that everything goes smoothly. It honestly doesn’t even account for eating lunch either.
That’s super tight to try to fit all of that into one day. That would require by the minute planning. Miss a boat or need to take a detour via bus because something isn’t running and you’re off by a good chunk of time to be at Mishima by 5:45.
This is really rushed.
Edit: I think my math got mixed up in Owakudani. Had to fix.
From my own experience with hakone is take it slow and easy. Enjoy the Onsen to its maximum! Don’t worry if you can’t do everything, it just gives a reason to go back. Also keep in mind that Hakone does get quite a bit more rain then Tokyo does