Tokyo: Pre & post cruise tours

[flossie009]

Regent cruises that begin or end in Tokyo usually include an optional  land tour. Either “Vibrant Tokyo” or “Tokyo & Hakone”

Having just returned from a very enjoyable Far Eastern cruise on Explorer we thought it might be of use to others to share our experience on one of these tours.

 

When we booked the cruise (our fourth attempt to do a cruise to this part of the world in the last 3 years), we looked at the pre & post cruise offerings and decided to pay the additional charge for the post-cruise “Tokyo & Hakone”.  For us the itinerary seemed more interesting and worth the extra.

 

 

 

Spoiler alert: For those who are already booked on this post cruise tour in the future and would rather not have a preview then stop reading this topic now!

 

 

[flossie009]

Day 1 (Tokyo)

Departing the ship around 09:15 we got through customs & immigration with ease; the Japanese authorities having plenty of officials on duty. There were also many helpful people on hand to direct us to our luggage and onwards to the waiting transport. We didn’t see any porters at the Tokyo cruise terminal but there were plenty of free luggage carts.

On boarding our tour bus we were pleased to learn that there were only 8 other couples sharing the experience. With a total of only 18 guests on this 3 day tour it made for a very uncrowded experience. We were also blessed with excellent weather.

 

Our guide was a senior citizen, who was sometimes difficult to hear - softly spoken & sometimes didn’t speak into the microphone.

 

First stop was for a walk around the city centre Hama Rikyu Gardens. Unfortunately we were a week or two early for most of the blossoms, but the trees & tea houses were immaculate.

 

The tranquility of the garden contrasted with the bustling city outside

 

Beautifully shaped trees and large lakes

 

One of the tea houses in the garden.This one you could enter but another had the very polite sign at its entrance "You can view easily from here"; so much more polite than a blunt "NO ENTRY"

 

 

Then it was on to the Tokyo Tower, from the top of which we had outstanding views of the city.

 

Looking up

 

........ and looking down (glazed panels in the viewing gallery floor)

 

Views from the top of Tokyo Tower

 

The Tower has its own shrine ................ and plenty of retail opportunities

 

 

Lunch was at a local hotel. Shoes off before entering our private dining room.

We were each served with a tray of interesting Japanese dishes. 

 

 

 

After lunch we set off for Odawara; just over 50 miles south west of the centre of Tokyo. Odawara is a town situated on Sagami Bay, fairly close to Mt. Fuji. It is best know for the beautiful Odawara Castle, and for being the gateway to the Hakone hot springs resort area, and the Fuji-Hakone National Park.

Our hotel was the Hilton Odawara Resort & Spa. We were allocated Japanese style superior rooms with outstanding views over the bay. The hotel has an excellent range of sports facilities.

 

Superior room with small balcony

 

View from our balcony in the afternoon

 

Sunrise over the bay greeted us in the morning

 

 

In the evening we enjoyed a buffet in the hotel dining room; an excellent selection of delicious food. We then retired for a night’s rest, having worked out the easiest way to get into & out of the futon beds which were mounted on a low plinth 😉

 

[flossie009]

Day 2 (Hakone & Odawara)

We enjoyed a good breakfast - a buffet with a good selection of western & Japanese dishes - and then rejoined our coach, driver & guide, setting off for a morning in the Fuji National Park. Our guide had forewarned us that it would be colder when we got up into the mountains at Hakone and we certainly needed our warm coats.

 

 

The coach made its way up very windy roads  to Sounzan where we boarded a cablecar. This took us higher and gave spectacular views, including Mount Fuji and the steaming ground of the volcanic area over which we were travelling.

 

 

 

Heated water from the this volcanic activity is piped to hotels & resorts in the area

 

Mount Fuji was a little shy and remained partially hidden behind the clouds

 

Leaving the cable car at Togendai, we boarded a “pirate ship” for a cruise across the mountain lake, Lake Ashi. The ship was a little Disney-like but the views were good.

 

 

 

Wait ................... surely us Regent guests should be the other side of this barrier 😉

 

Torii - the iconic gate showing the entrance to a Shinto shrine

 

 

We then re-joined our coach which took us a short distance to our lunch venue in a dining room overlooking Lake Ashi. This was probably the worst meal of the trip. Western style & described as beef stew! - a salad followed by meat & 2 veg, finished with a cakey dessert.

 

Lovely view from the restaurant

 

[flossie009]

Day 2 (continued)

After lunch it was off to Odawara Castle.

As with most of the castles in Japan this one is a reconstruction. Earthquakes, fires & wars caused destruction of the originals.

We were able to climb to the top, with many interesting displays inside on the way. We collected the typical Japanese visitor’s stamp on the way down

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gardeners were preparing thousands of plants for the summer displays for which the castle grounds are famous

 

 

Then it was back to the hotel.

The view from our balcony never disappointed

 

With some time before dinner we decided to try out the hotel “hot springs”.

We donned our swimming costumes and a kimono cover up and set off. On arrival we had to split up to the men’s & women’s sections, and soon realised that the swimming costumes would have to come off as well as the kimonos! Bathing suits - no; birthday suits - yes. It was an experience for sure 😳

 

 

The meal tonight was in a private dining room in the hotel where a Kaiseki (Japanese multi-course) dinner was served. (Sorry, but we didn't get photos of all the courses)

 

 

For the “hot pot” we were supplied with the raw ingredients which we each cooked at the table in individual small “woks” containing a delicious hot broth

 

Sashimi

 

Hot Pot

 

Dessert

 

 

After dinner our guide gave us our instructions for the morning (luggage out for 7am; coach would leave at 10am). We all agreed that 10am was late so negotiated to meet at 09:15 with departure at 09:30

[flossie009]

Day 3 (Tokyo)

After a leisurely breakfast, we identified our luggage before it was loaded on the coach. Then it was off on our return journey to Tokyo which included final fleeting glimpses of Mount Fuji

 

 

 

 

First stop was Asakusa, which has traditional craft shops and street-food stalls along Nakamise Street near the ancient Sensō-ji temple. The area was teeming with tourists.

 

 

 

One of the giant paper lanterns

 

Some early blossom 🙂 (new Tokyo Telecom Tower in the background)

 

Many tourists ............. and plenty for them to buy

 

From parasols ..................... to apple pies

........... and not just any apple pie .........

 

No need to walk 😉

 

 

We then drove to our lunch venue. This was a slow journey as our return to Tokyo coincided with the historic visit by the President of South Korea. There were even more traffic jams than normal in Tokyo due to the large police presence and a number of road closures.

The coach driver finally found a spot where he could drop us and then we walked a few hundred yards to a Yakiniku restaurant (Japanese BBQ). 

Various thin cuts of beef, pork & chicken were served for us to cook on hot grills set into the centre of the tables. This was a delicious meal; the beef was succulent.

 

We arrived at the Tokyo Hilton mid to late afternoon, where our guide & driver said their goodbyes to a round of applause from us all.

 

Having checked in to our spacious western style room we took the hotel shuttle bus to Shinjuku Station (famous as the world’s busiest railway station with over three million passengers per day).

The bus dropped us outside the Keio department store; with 8 floors it had plenty to satisfy our need for a final flurry of retail therapy before leaving Japan. It also had a very efficient and simple tax refund process for us foreigners.

 

 

Day 4 (Departure)

Final packing & weighing of our suitcases, breakfast in the hotel and then a transfer to Haneda airport at 09:30 arriving in plenty of time for our 13:15 flight back to London Heathrow. After a 14 hour flight we arrived at 19:30 with a local car service waiting to pick us up. Back through our front door at 21:30, ready for bed and to reflect on our fabulous holiday.

 

[1rochelle]

Wow, thanks so much for all this great information.  We are looking forward to this tour in April

[flossie009]

Conclusions

We are glad we did the Tokyo & Hakone post cruise, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe someone who has experienced “Vibrant Tokyo” can chip in with their thoughts.

The tour was certainly enhanced by having so few guests participate and we liked having all the meals included. Apart from anything it ensured that we tried the local cuisine, and had the dishes explained to us. Lunches & Dinners all included one alcoholic drink (usually beer, wine or sake) plus water & soft drinks available.

Seeing Odawara and Hakone for us was better than staying all the time in Tokyo.

The weather was very kind to us throughout, but it was a shame that we were maybe 2 weeks too early for the famous blossoms.

Everyone on the tour was always on time at meeting points along the way.

 

 

We found Japan and its people to be polite, courteous, helpful, efficient, safe, often cute and sometimes quirky.

Here are some of the quirky items we encountered:

 

You are more likely to find dogs rather than children in strollers in Japan.

The Japanese love their pets and there is a low birth rate and falling population. 

 

 

The Japanese like giving confectionary as gifts and most souvenir shops are packed with interesting and beautifully presented boxes of sweetmeats

 

 

 

For some reason Nestle produces hundreds of flavours of the Kit Kat bar for Japan. We only returned with a few!

 

 

One final piece of quirky trivia we learnt was how a certain fried chicken brand managed to market itself as the ideal Christmas Dinner for a Japanese family: 

KFC at Christmas   😂

[1982CruzStart]

Thanks Susan for the great pictures and commentary. Looks like a wonderful tour after an equally wonderful cruise. 

[forgap]

Fabulous narrative, Flossie, thank you!  We are on the Explorer next year going from Tokyo to Vancouver.  We went back and forth as to which tour would suit us.  We finally decided to take a ten day land tour of Tokyo, Hakone, Gifu, and Kyoto/ Nara then back to Tokyo for the pre cruise tour.  There is only one overlapping site in Tokyo.  We are very excited about seeing Japan.   I lived there as a teenager so it will be very interesting to see the changes.  

[Snackdaddy]

Flossie,

 

Thank you for taking the time to share your wonderful thoughts and pictures.  We are booked on the "Vibrant Tokyo" tour and will board the Explorer on April 11, 2023 Tokyo to Tokyo (Yokohama). Then we will spend one post-cruise night at the Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta. 

 

Take good care.

[MarcyLondon]

1 hour ago, Snackdaddy said:

Flossie,

 

Thank you for taking the time to share your wonderful thoughts and pictures.  We are booked on the "Vibrant Tokyo" tour and will board the Explorer on April 11, 2023 Tokyo to Tokyo (Yokohama). Then we will spend one post-cruise night at the Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta. 

 

Take good care.

Snackdaddy, hope you have a wonderful cruise next month. We have booked the "Vibrant Tokyo" tour for our cruise in October so will look forward to hearing all about it. Many thanks in advance

 

[Techno123]

Wonderful description - thank you.
 

We are doing the Tokyo to Bangkok trip later in the year as an alternative to the cruises including China which were cancelled. Sadly no pre or post trips but we get the 'forced' overnight in Tokyo so hopefully we will get to see a little of the city.

 

was the applause received by your guide and driver all that was 'required' 😜

[MarcyLondon]

Flossie

 

thanks so much for your reviews about your land tour.  I enjoyed reading it.

We too are from the UK so I wondered when you arrived in Tokyo did you manage to get an early check in at the hotel and also did you take your Covid Test before you left home? I know it's supposed to be 72hrs before you embark on Explorer. I'm trying to work out when to take ours with the overnight flight.

Hope you can help me out, thanks in advance

Marcia

[flossie009]

1 hour ago, MarcyLondon said:

We too are from the UK so I wondered when you arrived in Tokyo did you manage to get an early check in at the hotel and also did you take your Covid Test before you left home?

We arrived by sea into Tokyo. No testing required.

We had a tour after leaving the ship so arrived at our hotel in the afternoon.

See post #2 above.

 

1 hour ago, MarcyLondon said:

I know it's supposed to be 72hrs before you embark on Explorer. I'm trying to work out when to take ours with the overnight flight.

Since your cruise is still 9 months away I would not fret about covid testing prior to your embarkation. Just check any specific requirements when they are issued by Regent about 30 days before your cruise.

 

[makai 7]

We will be doing this same Post cruise tour- and you confirmed that it was the right choice for us.  Thank you for taking the time to share!

[rkaratsu]

Thank you so much for this Flossie.  We are going to Japan in October of this year (doing the "Vibrant Tokyo" pre-tour) and absolutely cannot wait (your travelogue only made the wait harder!)

 

(And yes, that certain American chicken fast food chain has indeed somehow hijacked Christmas in Japan. As the article mentioned, the significance of Christmas in Japan is not like it is in many other countries but even then, my ancestors would be turning over in their graves!  At least make it chicken karaage... 😀 )    

[Avidtravler]

It would be great if someone would give a detailed description, day by day, of the "Vibrant Tokyo" pretour.

Please include how you selected dinner restaurants, which are not included on the tour. Any suggestions

on where to dine and how to get around would be appreciated. We are booked on the Splendor October 24.

[RetiredandTravel]

On 3/23/2023 at 11:32 AM, flossie009 said:

Conclusions

We are glad we did the Tokyo & Hakone post cruise, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe someone who has experienced “Vibrant Tokyo” can chip in with their thoughts.

The tour was certainly enhanced by having so few guests participate and we liked having all the meals included. Apart from anything it ensured that we tried the local cuisine, and had the dishes explained to us. Lunches & Dinners all included one alcoholic drink (usually beer, wine or sake) plus water & soft drinks available.

Seeing Odawara and Hakone for us was better than staying all the time in Tokyo.

The weather was very kind to us throughout, but it was a shame that we were maybe 2 weeks too early for the famous blossoms.

Everyone on the tour was always on time at meeting points along the way.

 

 

We found Japan and its people to be polite, courteous, helpful, efficient, safe, often cute and sometimes quirky.

Here are some of the quirky items we encountered:

 

You are more likely to find dogs rather than children in strollers in Japan.

The Japanese love their pets and there is a low birth rate and falling population. 

 

 

The Japanese like giving confectionary as gifts and most souvenir shops are packed with interesting and beautifully presented boxes of sweetmeats

 

 

 

For some reason Nestle produces hundreds of flavours of the Kit Kat bar for Japan. We only returned with a few!

 

 

One final piece of quirky trivia we learnt was how a certain fried chicken brand managed to market itself as the ideal Christmas Dinner for a Japanese family: 

KFC at Christmas   😂

 

Agreed the Japanese people are lovely.  Quirky in a nice and fun way. When we were leaving a restaurant in Tokyo I asked the maitre de where we could get a taxi.  He sent (which I felt bad about) the young lady a the front desk to hail down a taxi from the street and then he walked us to the cab and opened the door and thanked us.

 

Maybe we went on a bad day but we didn't enjoy the tower.  It was extremely crowded, we could barely get near a window also the tourist maze in the bottom was over the top.  The Tokyo only package didn't include meals which was fine.  Tokyo has many of the best restaurants in the world.  I think Kyoto from a historical prospective was much more interesting.  We enjoyed Tokyo, it  is a vibrant modern fun city but for a city of this size there isn't a great deal from an historical perspective.

 

 

[RetiredandTravel]

19 minutes ago, Avidtravler said:

It would be great if someone would give a detailed description, day by day, of the "Vibrant Tokyo" pretour.

Please include how you selected dinner restaurants, which are not included on the tour. Any suggestions

on where to dine and how to get around would be appreciated. We are booked on the Splendor October 24.

 

 

In the attached thread (#12) I discuss some of the restaurants we visited.  Its easy to get a taxi in Tokyo and the drivers are very professional.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2859002-links-to-any-tokyo-to-tokyo-trip-reports/#comment-63382085

 

[Gilly]

And I offered a suggestion about finding somewhere to eat in a Japanese city here too

 

[taxare]

For those going on a Japan cruise there is an article In today's New York Times (April 6, 2023) entitled 36 hours in Tokyo. I found it interesting...... I don't know if this link will work......sorry........

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/06/travel/things-to-do-tokyo.html?unlocked_article_code=4yxEEwlmyiC4vti8zqeUBi9lqTLxjdqzsQxlSOc062nhH8eaxbqrAh7htIH_ZD0jZjBKDxFTa7aRgKTe_AvSB44nu3Td33PyhR6ZrDRuQV_BrvH-Iba2DafhtGjcSFF6R1Nw9VfACu0zH1JebdUCOxJg8SkJ_GNX1q-7PZEYBuwlq25js3lHo-z3TqIosao2R1hknd03Z_084UEDCJnkhu99CFu_gkRNFD9hv4WZbbYElxgPtGQFRVgTk7tbsgonEugiLxCnU2OqaT7jrRNCclPFCJEcmrPOXmgemK5xaD14qjFWot4gm9NSQsxGWLUGDOoeTf3z8oPl7ZHd2iCGesIigyWMpsxwdZnaPg&smid=em-share

 

[Techno123]

6 hours ago, taxare said:

For those going on a Japan cruise there is an article In today's New York Times (April 6, 2023)

 

The link worked for me - many thanks

[marne-c]

MANY thanks, @flossie009, for this great thread!  My wife and I really appreciate the details you have described!

 

We are signed up for the "Edo Experience" post-tour after our Explorer cruise around Japan in April 2025.  We will compare closely the RSSC-provided text description of that 3-night tour with your wonderful photo-essay of the 'Tokyo & Hakone' tour to see if we want to switch.

 

--Marne

[marne-c]

Results!   After our itinerary review, we’ll be asking our TA to switch us to the Tokyo & Hakone post-tour.

 

—Marne 

[1rochelle]

What's the appropriate dress for dinners on the land portion of the cruise tour?