JR Pass Calculator help (2024)

Hi all, I'm a little confused about the JR Pass calculator and hoping someone can help.

These are the major shinkansen trips I plan to take:
Day 2 - Narita to Hiroshima & Miyajima - 21,000 yen
Day 3 - Miyajima & Hiroshima to f*ckuoka - 9,000 yen
Day 4 - f*ckuoka to Yufuin round trip - 8000 yen
Day 5 - f*ckuoka to Kyoto - 15,000 yen
Day 6 - Kyoto to Nagoya round trip (Ghibli Park) - 10,000 yen
Day 10 - Kyoto to Izu Peninsula to Hakone - 13,000 yen
Day 11 - Hakone to Tokyo (and then Tokyo for the rest of my trip) 4,000 yen

Total Cost Without Pass: 80,000 yen*
* Based on JP Guide's calculate, have googled prices as well and they come to around $87,820 yen

The calculator has suggested these passes will suit:
- Japan Rail Pass 7 days (50,000 yen) - Pays off: 53,500 yen
- Japan Rail Pass 14 days (80,000 yen) - Pays off: 83,500 yen CLOSE CALL
- Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass 7 days (26,000 yen) - Pays off: 76,000 yen
- Only issue is that it can't tell hoe far apart these trips are...

Option 1: JR Rail Pass 7 Days
- Pay for the pass for day 2-8 (50,000 pass)
- Pay separately for remainder (17,000)
- Total: 67,000 yen approx

Option 2: JR Rail Pass 14 Days
- Use 14 Day pass for Day 2-15 (80,000 pass)
- Covers JR travel until remainder of trip in Tokyo
- Total: 800,000 yen

Option 3: Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass
- Pay for a shinkansen to Kyoto separately (15,500)
- Use 7 Day pass for Day 2-8 (26,000 pass)
- Pay separately for other shinkansen (22,000) approx
- Total: 63,500 yen approx

Looking at these prices it seems my best bet would be option 3, right? The last part of my trip will be in Tokyo, which we may do a few day trips like Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea, and strawberry picking somewhere. As we haven't made major plans to travel to another city (yet) I didn't included a breakdown of Tokyo, but we'll be in Tokyo for 12 days.

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thankyou. This will be my first trip to Japan.

Problems with Plan 3 are:

Day 2: You must buy a single ticket for Narita to Shin-Osaka. Kyoto to Shin-Osaka by Shinkansen is not covered by the Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass.

Day 5: You canft take Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Kyoto since this section is not covered. You can get off at Sin-Osaka and take conventional rail to Kyoto (covered by the pass) though.

You canft pick up your Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass at Narita station. Maybe get off at Shin-Osaka and exchange the pass there.

https://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/receive/?railpass=13&online=...

Problem with Option 1:

You canft use fastest Nozomi from Kyoto to Hiroshima. Take Hikari (very few to Hiroshima) or change at somewhere (Shin-Osaka, Shin-Kobe etc). Also you canft use Nozomi from Kyoto to Nagoya and vice versa.

All in all, I think your best bet would be Option 3. The difference between Narita to Kyoto and Narita to Shin-Osaka is rather small (maybe less than 500 yen).

Further from Hakone (Hakone-Yumoto) to Tokyo (Shinjuku), you might better take Odakyu Romance car

https://www.odakyu.jp/english/romancecar/

which is cheaper (than Shinkansen), convenient (no transfer) and comfortable, especially your Tokyo accommodation is around Shinjuku.

Just wondering, why donft you fly Narita - Hiroshima or even down to f*ckuoka and the work your way up back to Tokyo by train?

With the JRP you are essentially restricted to the slower & less frequent Shinkansen and a flight might turn out to be even cheaper. Ideally youfd get an open jaw ticket so that on Day 0 you do all the traveling and end up in f*ckuoka or Hiroshima.

I had thought about flying from Narita to Hiroshima (or even Osaka) but the timing just doesn't seem to work out. We arrive in Japan at 5:30pm on Jan 29th, and plan to stay at Narita then catch the shinkansen the next day which is approx 5 hours.

There's only a handful of flights directly out of Narita, and most seem to be in the afternoon/early evening (we could possibly make one at 7pm but that's cutting it close for my liking!)

There is a Jetstar flight that leaves at 7am the next day, so it's possible we could catch that flight to Osaka and continue on to Hiroshima & Miyajima.

Maybe because you looked now for January but there are definitely a lot more flights from Narita to f*ckuoka. Just look up a random day in the next few months and youfll see a lot. Maybe in January tgere are a few less, but there will definitely be flights in the morning.
Best actually would be open jaw to directly fly from your international flight to f*ckuoka.

Flying to Osaka makes a bit less sense. But flying to your furthest destination and then traveling back North would make a lot of sense unless there are specific days you need to be in x location

Maybe because you looked now for January but there are definitely a lot more flights from Narita to f*ckuoka. Just look up a random day in the next few months and youfll see a lot. Maybe in January tgere are a few less, but there will definitely be flights in the morning.

LikeBike is right. You should check on the end of August when most airline companies show up the fare for after November. The fare should be around 10000 yen which is cheaper than the one way train fare (about 17000 yen). After arriving in Hiroshima you can pick up your Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass.

The pros other than the fare is that the flight is faster.

The downside of the flight is you must check in, wait for substantial time, and must pay for your big luggage (if there is), and finally, the seat is uncomfortable as compared to the trains (Narita Express and Shinkansen).

Thanks LikeBike & frog1954. I'm very excited for our trip, so thankyou for your advice so far!

Discussed it with my co-traveller and it does seem like a bit of a hassle to go from Narita, to Haneda, going through the before and after of a flight. However if we look again later and there are flights from Narita we might consider flying to Hiroshima or f*ckuoka.

The dates are pretty set for us as we want to be on Miyajima island by January 30/31 so we can use the ropeway, apparently they're usually shut down in February for maintenance so that's why we're going there first. :)

If we take the shinkansen, looks like we could either take (from Navitime):
- JR Narita Line Rapid(Narita-Narita Airport) to Tokyo, then Nozomi to Shin-Osaka.
- Narita Express to Shinagawa, then Nozomi to Shin-Osaka
And from there could get the Sanyo Sanin Northern Kyushu Pass at Shin-Osaka station as suggested.

And then on the way back, the romance car from Hakone to Tokyo as you've suggested too.