Booked Japan hotels for May!

[AntonyJ]

Rather excited as we have booked our 2 hotels for Tokyo next May.

First 2 nights are at Hilton tokyo Bay, to do the 2 days at the parks there.

Then move into The Knock, Shinjuku for the other 7 nights of the trip.

Booked via hotel.com so can always cancel if a Hilton flash sale takes place, or if I make my mind up about 2 nights at Disney Hotel Miracosta

[Pumpkin Pie]

Great! You are ahead of us as we are still looking at how many days to allocate to different places. Hard to make decisions!

[AntonyJ]

We are only doing Disney and Tokyo, you going to visit more of Japan?

[Pumpkin Pie]

Yes - we are looking at staying in Tokyo and Kyoto spread over 14 nights and with several day trips from both centres (at least that’s the plan at the moment). We are thinking of only going to Disney Sea for one day. I know this is the Dibb but we are not Disney fanatics. We visited Hong Kong Disney this year for one day and that was enough. I am more interested in seeing as much of Japan as we can.

[Rae21]

Oooo it’s exciting when things start falling into place 😀

I’m looking at 6 nights Tokyo at Sunshine City Prince Hotel, 3 nights at Hotel Keihan universal city then 3 nights Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay (for my Disney fix). Thinking of flying down to or using the Shinkansen to USJ then back - price wise think flying is slightly cheaper but want the Shinkansen experience 😀

[AntonyJ]

We want a day on the Shinkansen but not decided where to yet

Got my Suica card on my iPhone already, am good to go lol

[dopson]

Going to look into The Knock, Shinjuku - Ta.

I struggling with understanding how 4 people will fit in some of these rooms (dont want 2 rooms to keep cost down).

We are planning 10/11 days next July. 4/5 days for Disney and then 5/6 days for Tokyo. Looking at a mt Fuji guided tour for 1 of the days, a visit to some temples another day, seeing the 'crossing' and Electronics in Japan.

I wanted to try to fit in Universal Studios but seems tobe adding too much to the holiday just for 2 days there.

Lots more research to pack in and fill up the schedule.

[dopson]

Originally Posted by AntonyJ

Got my Suica card on my iPhone already, am good to go lol

See more...

What is this?

[AntonyJ]

Originally Posted by dopson

What is this?

See more...

Think of Oyster card in London - but in Japan there are 2 or 3 different types of card by the different train companies in different cities, that come under a standard called "IC". Nope, no idea what it stands for But for Tokyo, it appears that Suica is the most widely used, but as not been yet am not 100% sure. also I understand in Tokyo the different IC card types are all inter operable, so you can use one on other systems no issue. I went with the one I saw as being the most widely used in Tokyo.

You can buy the cards at stations, top them up with cash, and use them to swipe in / out of train stations etc - like an Oyster card.

You can pop your Suica card in a machine at a station (they have English instructions there, you press the ENGLISH menu item) and it talks you through inserting notes into the machine, and it tops up the card.

You use it to pay for trips on the trains / metro etc, no idea about buses, sorry! Also you can use it to pay for small items at many shops around the station (think coffee, cakes, ice cream etc) and in many chains like 7-11, Lawsons etc. Also vending machines in the streets take IC cards too, so you could pay with your Suica

From the iPhone 7 on wards (I think it was that, I have an iPhone X and knows it has it) there was a special IC "chip" added to the phones. This allows you to "move" a physical Suica card, into your iPhone, and use it like any other payment card on your phone, with the one main advantage of the IC chip being on all the time, you do not have to activate it on phone, before you can use it to go through train barriers at stations, or to buy an item - you pop it on the reader at stores.

There is talk that some cards work in different cities, but often are able to be used in a different city, but not always.

This YT vid is only a min and 8 seconds long, shows you how to load money onto the Suica on your phone, in stations



You can also top it up "witihin the phone" with Apple Pay, but for myself I would get hit with a foreign currency type charge if I did so, as it loads in Yen and my bank / credit cards are all in UK £.

I hope to get round this before May, if Curve card become part of Apple Pay, but have to wait and see.

[AntonyJ]

so I bought my Suica card on eBay, added it to my phone - the physical card is then dead and can be binned - was quite easy but do have to change a setting or two while you do it, and it is there ready to go.