The Pleasure
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Friends, I'm close to finally taking a trip to Japan.
- Thread starter Heimdall_Xtreme
- Start date
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
Can I share the itinerary, even in Spanish?
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Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
Its a good route?
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TwiztidElf
Gold Member
That's very good. Hits a lot of good stuff. Looks exhausting though. Covering a lot of stuff in a short time, so it might feel rushed on a lot of stuff.
You will feel the urge to go back and wander around at your own slower pace.
You will feel the urge to go back and wander around at your own slower pace.
Werewolf Jones
Member
Tokyo Tower was shit after doing the Sky Tree btw.
Werewolf Jones
Member
Akihabara is fucking awful too btw. If you're 16 years old and new to anime it's gold otherwise only the arcades are good.
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
Looks like you're going to hit so many famous places, I hope you have a fabulous time.
If I may say, Japan's seeing crazy high numbers of tourists at the moment owing to a weak Yen. We just came back from a trip (not to Japan) where the crowds were massive in some places. As a result, for a few things where we knew it would be busy we got up really early to make sure we could see the sights with fewer people around. You're not going to see a number of things on your itinerary without a crowd of people with you at any time, but getting out early might mean there are fewer people to magic erase from your pictures!
If I may say, Japan's seeing crazy high numbers of tourists at the moment owing to a weak Yen. We just came back from a trip (not to Japan) where the crowds were massive in some places. As a result, for a few things where we knew it would be busy we got up really early to make sure we could see the sights with fewer people around. You're not going to see a number of things on your itinerary without a crowd of people with you at any time, but getting out early might mean there are fewer people to magic erase from your pictures!
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
I'd say the same - it might be a good idea to schedule a couple of quiet days where you can get up late, just enjoy being there, etc.
AJUMP23
Parody of actual AJUMP23
Are you cruising across the pacific or around Japan?
Pagusas
Elden Member
Around Japan, (flying into Seoul, South Korea, where we'll spend 2 days exploring it, then cruising the coast of Japan, and then spending 2 days in Tokyo before flying Back to Dallas!)
Here is the route:
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GHG
Member
Around Japan, (flying into Seoul, South Korea, where we'll spend 2 days exploring, then cruising the coast of Japan, and then spending 2 days in Tokyo before flying Back to Dallas!)
Here is the route:
Just an FYI, 2 days isn't nearly enough time to see all of those places mapped (unless you mean 2 days in each place)?
I went last year with the mrs, visited most of those places (in addition to Hiroshima and Kobe) for 3 weeks total, and we still felt like we didn't have enough time.
GHG
Member
Ah ok gotcha, that's a far better proposition then. Sounds like it should be a great trip. I'm itching to go back and visit again, such a unique place.
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Pagusas
Elden Member
We're excited about it. We know that 12 hours at each place won't be enough to fully see everything, but we see Cruise trips like this as a sorta "sampler plate" that lets us have a taste of each place and if we really love anything, we'll take a future land based trip there for a longer period of time to explore and enjoy. That's what we did this year with a 2 week cruise around the Mediterranean, and now we're planning a longer trip to just Corfu as we loved it so much.
Tams
Member
I'll be quite honest. With 12 hours in each place, especially with ports not being near urban centres, is not enough to properly enjoy most of them.
I know people who have done cruising around Japan and they seem to have liked it well enough, but I could tell they felt tbey had missed out on a lot. Those same people also did a land tour and had a much better time.
I hope you have a good time all the same.
Pagusas
Elden Member
It'll be a good sampler for us to get a feel for some of these places and what we want to do the next time we're around (which we always follow these trips up with a land tour within a year or two). We know there are major limitations, but for a very very first time in Asia, we wanted to be able to see alot while not having to change pack and unpack every few nights, the cruise is basically a floating hotel for us to make it easy, get a feel for the area than return again for a week long tip in specific areas. Right after this we're doing a week in Tahiti though
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navii
My fantasy is that my girlfriend was actually a young high school girl.
I would need a 2 week holiday after this holiday of dragging my luggage around japan every day.Around Japan, (flying into Seoul, South Korea, where we'll spend 2 days exploring it, then cruising the coast of Japan, and then spending 2 days in Tokyo before flying Back to Dallas!)
Here is the route:
Pagusas
Elden Member
You don't drag luggage around, you board the ship, unpack in your room (we have a large suite, so ussually a crew member or dedicate butler does it for us the first day) and then you are good and unpacked for the whole trip, the ship is just a giant floating hotel
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Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
Which line is that on? Looks like a great itinerary.Around Japan, (flying into Seoul, South Korea, where we'll spend 2 days exploring it, then cruising the coast of Japan, and then spending 2 days in Tokyo before flying Back to Dallas!)
Here is the route:
Pagusas
Elden Member
NCL (Norwegian). Normally we sail on Oceania, but going with NCL this time as we love their ship, Spirit. We were on it last year in Alaska.
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
Nice, I've been on an NCL cruise, very jealous!
navii
My fantasy is that my girlfriend was actually a young high school girl.
Aaaaah, nice! I misunderstood.You don't drag luggage around, you board the ship, unpack in your room (we have a large suite, so ussually a crew member or dedicate butler does it for us the first day) and then you are good and unpacked for the whole trip, the ship is just a giant floating hotel
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
The dilemma, take a travel tour or go alone?
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
If you mean pay someone to explain the details of what you're seeing, their significance and the story behind them, then it's not much of a dilemma to me.
Take the tour and learn something.
On our last holiday we went to a number of different sites and paid to go on accompanying tours. At the place we didn't do that we got the pictures, saw it, looked at it walked around. Couldn't really tell you much about it.
Other places we learnt what the spaces were used for, why they were built, how the construction was so difficult, what the symbols meant, why restoration was so time consuming and why though the building was so iconic, the one that stood alongside it was actually far more important to people of the area.
We'd have got none of that if we hadn't paid a relatively small amount to a guide.
Depends what you're doing of course, some of my favourite holidays have revolved around just being in bars and walking around a city. As navii says below
finding your own things can be fun and give you unique experiences. A few times we've ended up well off the beaten track in a tiny restaurant with only locals, which is much preferable to going to a tourist spot eating hamburgers because that's what visitors want to eat, etc.I still think if you're going to a historical site or whatever then a guide will make it a much better experience.
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navii
My fantasy is that my girlfriend was actually a young high school girl.
I love exploring and finding my own adventures. Tour guides know some awesome stuff (like a retiree volunteer tour guide who learnt English from the radio and is now giving free tours of Himeji Castle), but I wouldn't want my whole holiday planned out to the hour by others. That's just me though. I love finding secrets myself.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
If I decide to go alone, because some agencies don't want to include Disney in their packages.
At the hotel, can I hire a travel agent or staff to accompany me?
And those who have gone, what hotels do they recommend or how they managed to organize their days.
At the hotel, can I hire a travel agent or staff to accompany me?
And those who have gone, what hotels do they recommend or how they managed to organize their days.
Mr Reasonable
Completely Unreasonable
Take a look at Booking.com. Search the area(s) you want to stay and then filter by star rating and what you want to pay. Look at the reviews, filter them by most recent to make sure that the reviews you're looking at are current and not based on the opening week 10 years ago.
You should look at Get Your Guide, or Trip advisor. Type in the thing you want to go to and there'll be loads of people selling tours with reviews.
You must make these bookings in advance, because good ones will sell out.
In terms of organising your days, you'll have to work out if one of the things is good/bad on certain days. Want to go to Disney? Might be better to go on Tuesday than Saturday because one of those days is likely to be busier than the other. Going to a religious building? Is there a particular religious event going on? Is it better to avoid/go to that? etc. etc. There's not going to be a one-size fits all.
Just do a lot of reading of reviews, there'll be LOADS of visit Japan blogs, websites, etc. Some of the stuff we went to on my most recent holiday, we wouldn't have got to had we not planned in advance for months (as in, did a bit of reading daily, not treating it like a full time job). It's more work when you're travelling further afield than one city. But it depends what you want to get out of the experience, we went a bunch of places that we might never go to again so we made sure we made the visit count. If you're going to go back next year, you could always just visit various places and make a mental note for things you want to do next time around.
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