Itinerary Check – Family of 3 – Tokyo and Osaka

Hello everyone. My wife (39F) and son (7M) and I (39M) are traveling to Japan from the USA at the end of this month. This is the second trip for me and my wife, and she was pregnant the last time we went in 2015, so maybe you could almost count my son… That trip was only 4 days because of her pregnancy. and it just was not long enough. We loved it there. We originally planned THIS trip for 2020 so that we could attend the Olympic games, but when that got cancelled, we were able to get all of our money refunded – eventually. We booked our flights through Air Canada via a deal website, and it took over 2 years to get that money back in the form of a credit voucher. We held onto our money we had saved for the trip, and rebooked everything this past fall.

My cousin lives and works in Japan as a teacher at the US Army base in Zama to the SW of Tokyo proper, and we are staying with her for most of the trip. She is my favorite cousin, and has a son a couple of years older than mine, so we are looking forward to seeing them. This of course saves us a lot in lodging costs, but will definitely cost us some convenience, since we will have to travel in and out of the city each day, and she has to escort us in and out through base security. They are off for spring break, so they will be doing a lot of the activities with us. I mention all this because i think it’s relevant to scheduling, since it’s a rather unique lodging situation. My wife’s main goal for this trip is to eat good food, and mine is to eat good food and squeeze in as many Japanese craft beers as I can find without dragging the rest of the group down. I have several restaurants and breweries/tap rooms with addresses in my notes for when we are out and about. My son’s goal is Super Nintendo World.

**We are arriving at Narita on Friday 24 March at 17:00**

Exchange cash – Collect wifi hotspot (we both have brand new iPhone 14s, locked, so I can’t get an eSIM) – Collect 7-day JR Passes and seat reservations (not activating pass yet) and purchase Suica cards – Purchase tickets for Keisei Skyliner and travel to Zama where my cousin will pick us up from her local station – Will there be issues with trains running through 21:30 – 22:00?

**Saturday 25 March**

Rest and hang out with my cousin, make plans for “free days” with restaurants and beers as mentioned above

**Sunday 26 March**

Free day – Travel into Tokyo for some shopping/eating based on input from cousin

**Monday 27 March**

Activate JR Pass for this day – I am leaving by myself at 09:00 to travel to Hakone where I have booked a car rental/driving tour with fun2drive where I will drive with a group around mountain roads near Mt. Fuji, with a stop at Fuji Speedway. This drive starts at 12:00 and goes to 17:00 when I will travel back to Zama. I don’t know what the rest will do. Maybe nothing, maybe going into Tokyo again.

**Tuesday 28 March**

We have tickets for Disneyland for all 5 of us for this day. It is our only plan.

**Wednesday 29 March**

My family (3) is traveling into town for brunch or lunch before we board the Shinkansen for Osaka. Packing as light as possible. I have routed this out to arrive around 17:00 to our ryokan hotel a couple of blocks west of Dotonbori. Check in, and head out for dinner, return to hotel.

**Thursday 30 March**

Transit to USJ from hotel to arrive \~08:00. We have tickets and express passes with entry to SNW after lunch (13:30 I think), so we plan to check out/ride what we can before we head into that area. This is the planned highlight of the trip, and a major bonus from the 2020 letdown, since it was not open back then. I have purposely tried to avoid outright walkthrough videos of the park to avoid spoilers, while researching the process of actually getting into USJ and SNW as much as possible. Stay as long as we can stand and transit back to hotel.

**Friday 31 March**

Check out of hotel, visit Osaka Castle and stuff ourselves with street food for lunch at Dotonbori. Transit back to Shinkansen station for trip back to Zama.

**Saturday 1 April**

Free day – Travel into Tokyo for some shopping/eating based on input from cousin – we may do the Ninja Restaurant or Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu (the Kill Bill restaurant)

**Sunday 2 April**

Free day – Travel into Tokyo for some shopping/eating based on input from cousin – we may do the Ninja Restaurant or Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu, whichever we didn’t already do, or something else entirely lol

**Monday 3 April**

Pack up and travel back to Narita via N’EX. Outbound flight is at 17:00 – we land in Toronto at 16:00 same day, and I have booked a hotel at the airport for our 15hr layover. All of the available Air Canada flights stopped at Toronto and Montreal, and most were 6-8 hrs at BOTH places. I opted for the longest layover possible in either of the two, so that we could get some rest instead of just sitting in the airport for what would have to be the most miserable day of our lives…

**Tuesday 4 April**

We fly out of Toronto at 07:00, connect to Montreal for 3 hours, then finishing up at Atlanta where we drive home to Alabama. I am hoping this extra night before in the hotel helps get us on the road to recovery for the jet lag.