I've been looking at spending a night in Hakone for a 2 week trip coming up in a few months. It's a group of 3 guys and we're planning to be coming in from Kyoto and leaving from Hakone back to Tokyo.
I'd like to be efficient but obviously have to be realistic. I'm hoping to catch an early train out of Kyoto and be in Hakone by ~11:30 AM but if we miss it or it's full will be in Hakone by ~12:30 PM, planning to book a ryokan around the starting Hakone-Yumoto area but it doesn't necessarily have to be there. I know the loop typically takes ~6 hours to do the whole thing from reading other posts, and theoretically we could do it as soon as we get in and be done by 5:30 or 6:30, go to the ryokan and have dinner there. That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for long lines/mishaps.
I guess my two questions is if there are ways to skip parts of the Hakone loop if needed to shorten the time. We're mostly interested in the cable car, the pirate ship, the Gora area, and doing a little bit of hiking which entails a lot of the loop but is there a taxi or a bus that will let us speed back to Yumoto if need be?
Second is that I've been to Japan before but this will be my first ryokan experience. I know that it's different from a hotel, but how do I go about booking a dinner time and/or onsen time – is it when we book or do we have to schedule a time when we check in that day? Would it be realistic to expect a time to do both around 7 or 8 PM or are they usually earlier in the day?
by fokxe