Reserving Seats
- Thread starter Spintriae
- Start date
AichiAlex
先輩
- 20 Nov 2007
- 50
- 0
I'm pretty sure that you get reserved seats for free with the JR pass. I might be wrong though, but reserved seating on JR express trains usually only costs no more than an extra 1,000 ($10 US) compared to the unreserved section. I'm not sure about the shinkansen, but it shouldn't be more than an extra $20? (maybe).
- 18 Oct 2004
- 2,497
- 110
I've always got a reserved seat on the Shinkansens, although I've never been to Japan during the New Year's period. I've never shown up at the last minute to travel by Shinkansen, I usually reserve a seat by going to the ticket office a day or two before, show them my Rail Pass, tell them when and where I'm going and they spit up a ticket.
My understanding also os that there is no cost to reserve seats if you have a JR Pass, not that I've been yet!
- 18 Oct 2004
- 2,497
- 110
Here's what I did last April. After going through immigration and customs at Narita, I went downstairs to the JR office to get my Rail Pass. I asked them to start it 3 days from then. After doing this, I requested and got my seats on the Shinkansen for the day my Rail Pass starts. I was going from Tokyo to Hakata (Fukuoka) and a change of trains had to be done at Shin-Osaka (they handled the ticketing for that, too). I was able to select the departure time from Tokyo Station and whether I wanted a smoking or non-smoking car. Since it is basically a 6-hour train ride, I took an 8 am departure from Tokyo. There's no extra cost to get a reserved seat.
The people in the JR office are very efficient and do speak English. So it is really not difficult to get reserved seats on the bullet trains. I would just do it at least a day or so ahead of time of your planned departure.
The people in the JR office are very efficient and do speak English. So it is really not difficult to get reserved seats on the bullet trains. I would just do it at least a day or so ahead of time of your planned departure.
Fantastic: we've been told you can't get the pass until the day you want to travel: obviously not!!!! We know pretty well all our travel times, except the Tokyo to Kyoto bit, but may be able to lock that in closer to the time. The morning after we arrive we are going up to Utsunomiya in order to get to Mashiko so to be able to organise that the night we arrive at Narita will be wonderful, rather than very early on our first morning.
So we would be able to book our Narita Express seats for our last day then? (We have a shuttle organised to pick us up at Narita as we don't want to activate the Pass until the next day, and we'll be droppped at the Hotel door which is good as it will be quite late: arriving Narita at 6.30pm)
