Anyone been to Japan with teens?

[HolidayHappy123]

Hi all

I'm looking for help with planning a trip to Japan. Current itinerary is:

Tokyo 4 nights
Hakone 2 nights
Kyoto 4 nights
Osaka 2 nights
Tokyo 1 night (before early morning flight home)

Is there any where I should add by dropping one or more nights in Tokyo/Kyoto?

And which places did your teens love?

All recommendations gratefully received.

Thanks.

We decided to reduce the places for our first Japan visit, with the hope that we will return and se either parts of the country. I felt like it would have been a mistake or us to try to cram too much in, and I'm glad we did. Japan is still on our nearish future plans for subsequent visits.

Our itinerary was:
Tokyo - 6 nights (but the first night was simply straight to hotel to sleep as landed early evening. This also included 2 days in the Disney parks. 3 days spent exploring Tokyo.
Kyoto - 4 nights, including a day trip to Nara
Osaka - 3 nights, including a day in Universal. The other 2 days were spent exploring Osaka.

3 days of theme parks might not be for everyone but it was a 'must do' for us - me, dh and dd, who was 17y at the time.

We used the shinkensen to travel between the cities, which were good value and fast, and efficient. We didn't get a rail pass as we didn't need one for this trip - the rail pass works well if doing a lot of travel though so worth looking into.

Was an amazing holiday.

There isn't an earthquake season.

That tends to be more weather issues that are linked to seasons, such as a hurricane or monsoon season, etc.

Disney

Following with interest as trying to book using Avios also!

We are doing Kyoto, Osaka and To

Consider open jaw so flying in to Tokyo and out of Osaka - saves time and stress

Tokyo!

Exchange rate is favourable and will do 14 nights and will budget £250 per day for two (everything, except flights so food hotel attraction tickets and internal travel)

I have been with work many years ago and it was an organised trip so no free time.

Husband is planning it all and I'm a little in the dark right now as we are trying to get plane tickets and not having luck right now mainly because Easter is peak Sakura season and we have to book reward flight which are few and far between.

We are booking using a reward flight companion voucher so don't think it eligible for open jaw.

Our teens loved going to Koyasan best of all and we stayed in a monastery. It’s within striking distance of Osaka/Kyoto.

We went to Nintendo world. It wasn't too busy but we booked it on a quiet day. There is a calendar on their site that's gives the predicted busyness.

We also booked fast passes and they were still useful.

For all those going watches shogun on Disney it's set around oska in 1600 and is great.

You can book an open jaw on CVs, subject to a distance rule (which wouldn't be relevant in this case).

You can also now book the second leg online if you have the spare Avios, and they'll add the CV and credit the Avios if you call up later. Not a fan of staying up to 1am which was required for my recent CV flights to Barbados.

@blue345 that's amazing news. Thanks so much.

I've had to make a few awkward calls to book the inbound flights and not having a clue!

Can you book them together or do you still have to wait to 355 days?

@RazzleDazzleEm we are carrying on with 2 weeks in New Zealand, 5 nights in Hong Kong and 4 nights in Mumbai on the way back. I expect that whole trip will come in at around that much but we haven't finalised all the transport and hotels yet so could be more.

Can you book them together or do you still have to wait to 355 days?

Are you booking economy or CW? If it's long haul, the CW tickets usually get snapped up almost immediately they're released (unless it's US east coast) so there's a bit of a strategy.

This is what we did.
In to Tokyo, out of Osaka.
We didn't want to have a wasted day travelling back to Tokyo.

DD15 liked Osaka, I didn't except for Universal Studios.
We also did bullet train instead of a flight and enjoyed the view from the window.

BA no longer fly to Osaka so no good for anyone wanting to use Avios / companion voucher for their flights.

My grown up daughters would recommend the hedgehog cafe in Tokyo.
(Similar to cat cafés. )

I thought that the animal cafes don't have good reputations regarding animal welfare. I know my adult kids didn't want to go to any of them.

@blue345

We will fly CW to Japan.

I think we may go July instead of April.

Will have a look at the return flights and booking online

In that case, I'd book the outward leg as soon as they're released. The return leg can't be booked online (unless it's both legs at once) with a CV but they've changed the rules so you can book it with airmiles (if you have enough spare), then call them and they'll add the CV later.

I have tried calling for the return leg but when I did a dry run last year, the US office that was open seemed to be clueless about booking the return leg with a CV and Avios so I went online. The first night I logged on at the second it turned 1am (later due to the time of year), selected the flights, entered my CC details and was in the final we're creating your ticket screen when it developed an error halfway through as I guess someone must have been a couple of seconds quicker. So I had to do it all again the second night...aagh.

Is it rainy season in July in Japan?

How annoying!

We did manage to get CV CW flights to San Francisco last year and it was glorious. Did involve ringing up ironically Japan BA office to book it as they are 8 hours ahead!

Thanks @blue345

To be fair I still do not understand it!

I'm watching this thread - I'm taking my dd who'll be 12 in the summer. I definitely don't have a budget of £30k. What do you think is a reasonable budget for a budget trip to Japan? I'll be staying in hostels, those capsule hotels and maybe Airbnbs. Possibly a ryoken too.

I haven't started planning yet -but we will go to Tokyo and climb Mt Fuji. Might want to go to a beach for a few days. DD is very excited! (I've been watching Race Across the World and am also very excited). It's my first trip with just me and DD.

We won't go to any theme parks as I hate them. But all tips welcome.

@Houseplantmad can you link to the monastery?

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but hopefully I can piggyback on it without starting my own!

@HelenHywater it was called Shukubo Koya-san Eko-in Temple and I booked via booking.com (using TopCashback to get cashback!).
They may have a website, I can’t remember. We went to some of the ceremonies there and also did the night tour of the cemetery, which was very memorable. I still think about how peaceful it was there.
As an aside, check prices of rail travel. We did multi destinations but in fact the cost of buying individual tickets was similar to the rail pass, as some things are excluded from it. Worth costing before purchasing.