Day Trip to HAKONE JAPAN From TOKYO to see MOUNT FUJI Using HAKONE FREE PASS

Day Trip to HAKONE JAPAN From TOKYO to see MOUNT FUJI Using HAKONE FREE PASS

Hi, everyone. I’m Mark from Travelshorts. This is my daughter, Holly. That’s my son, Matthew. Today is our 10th day of our epic Japan
trip, and we’re going to go visit Hakone to hopefully see Mount Fuji. This is where we stayed last night. It’s the Asakusa View Hotel
in Asakusa in Tokyo. It has an amazing view out of the window. That’s the Tokyo Skytree over there. That’s the Sensoji Temple. That’s the oldest theme park in Japan. It’s even got a roller
coaster from 1953 in there. But we’re moving on from this hotel now. We’re actually going to be
stopping in a Disney hotel tonight. So we’re checking out. We’re actually sending our luggage to our
next hotel using a company called Airporter. We need to take them down
to the concierge, and then they’ll handle all the details for us after I did
it all last night on the Internet. We had to take some
photographs of our case. Total cost was about £25 to send two cases
to the other side of Tokyo to our Disney hotel, which I think is pretty reasonable
because we don’t want to be carrying our cases all the way to Disney later today
because it would involve us leaving our bags with Concierge
after our whole Mount Fuji trip today, coming back to this hotel,
going to Concierge, getting our cases, then travelling on the subway and the
train system all the way to Disney. Now, after we finish in Mount Fuji,
we can go directly to Tokyo Disneyland, saving us a lot of time and hassle. Anyway, ready to check out? Yeah. Okay, so we dropped off our bags. Now we need to get to the train station
and take two subways all the way to Shinjuku Train Station. The first subway we’re going to catch Which is from here, Asakusa Station. We’re going to go into Tsukuba Express
for just a few stops. To get around Tokyo, and in fact,
to get around Japan in general, we’re using IC cards. Ours, it’s okay Holly stand on the side,
we’re using IC cards. Ours is an ICOCA brand
because we arrived in Osaka. But if you arrive into Tokyo, you will
probably use a Suica or a Pasmo card. They’re all interchangeable,
so you can use them throughout Japan. It doesn’t matter
which brand that you have. This is the first part of the journey
from Asakusa Station to Shin Okachimachi. We’ve only got to go one stop. Then we go from Shin Okachimachi Station
all the way to Shinjuku. Platform 2. Yes, this is platform 2.
This is the one we want. It’s going to be very busy. We’re just going to have to go in here. We’re only riding one stop. We’re now transferring trains onto
the Odio Line, which is going to take us all the way to Shinjuku Station. So this next journey should
take about 20 minutes. So as you can see, it’s really
busy this morning in Tokyo. It’s rush hour. It’s just before…
What time is it? It’s 08:40, so this is
when everybody is going to work. We’ve got 20 minutes on board this subway. We’ve arrived at Shinjuku Station. That subway was really busy to begin with. Then it gradually got quieter and quieter,
and we managed to find a seat. And the guy next to us must have been
really tired because he kept going like that and leaning on us. Now we’re going to find our way
to the Odakyu Sight Seeing Centre, where we’re going to be picking
our tickets up to go to Hakone. So like I said, we need to pick up our
physical tickets for this Hakone Pass. I’ll talk all about the tickets
when we’re on the train going there. It’s an hour and a half journey,
so I’ve got plenty of time. So Shinjuku train station is
the busiest train station in the world. Up to three and a half million people pass
through this one station in just one day. And you can see why
there’s people everywhere And we’re going to follow signs for Odakyu
Siteseeing Service Centre. So we’ve arrived at the
Odakyu Service Centre here. Just got to pick our tickets up. We purchased them via Klook online
before we travelled to Japan. Like I said, once we’re on the train,
I’ll tell you more about this Hakone free pass tickets which we’ve got. Make sure you allow lots of time
before you get here because there will be a queue. One, two, three.
That’s why it’s for the. So I’ll just show to the staff
on the inside of station. No problem.
Okay, where do I get the… Yeah, where do I get the romance car from?
Is it that way? Yeah, go up and turn right?
Yeah. First course, report number two.
Two. Perfect.
Thank you. We’ve picked up our Hakone free passes. That took about 20 minutes waiting
in that line, so do leave some extra time on your schedule to pick these up. We got there for about nine
o’clock, it’s now 09:20. Our train to Hakone is at 10:00,
but we did want to leave plenty of time to get there. Now we’re going to find out
where we go to get on this train. It’s called the Romance Car. It’s an additional cost because
it goes direct without any stops. Let’s go. So we’re on the platform. We have left about half an hour. So once this train behind us goes,
I’d imagine all the benches on this platform will be freed up so we
find somewhere to sit and wait. So this is the train before us. And if you look, the chairs switch
around automatically to face forwards. I’ve just looked at the board and it looks
like these It’s actually two trains before ours, this one and another one,
and then it will be our romance car. And the reason why I chose to go
by the romance car, which is an unusual name,
rather than just the standard train which we can use on your pass. There is an additional
fee for the romance car. I think it was about
£15 for all three of us. It just means it’s a direct train
to Hakone rather than… Rather than a local train, which makes many stops.
So it’s a lot quicker to go in a romance car. And when you’re on holiday,
time is money, as they say. So we need to get to Hakone as soon as
possible so we can see as much as we possibly can before returning
to Tokyo later tonight. So our romance car has just arrived. We’re in carriage number 7,
which is right the other end. I think it’s the very final
carriage at the back. This is what our train looks like. The driver is actually up there
in that little compartment. We’re going to be sitting in row 9 and 10. I couldn’t get the very front seats,
but on the return journey today, later, I’ve got two slots and one of them
will be for in one of those seats. Anyway, I think it’s
time to board our train. We have made it on board. There’s Matthew and Holly
on Seats 10 D and C. That’s the observation area there. On the way back, we will
be in the observation area. That’s what it looks like. It’s up there where the driver
sits to drive the train. We’re off.
That is leaving at 10:08. Eight minutes delay at the moment. We’re on board the Limited Express
heading towards Hakone Yumoto station. Our journey time will just be
slightly under an hour and a half. I’ll do a quick seek tour so you can
actually see what they’re like, and then I’ll tell you more about
the tickets, how I got them, what we can use them for, etc. But first, I think
there’s an announcement. Welcome aboard
the Limited Express Romance Car. Number 3, to Hakone Yumoto. We will stop briefly at Kamakura, Enoshima and Odawara. We will reach the Hakone Yumoto Terminal. I I think it’s time to do a quick seat
tour on this Hakone number 3 GSE train bound for Hakone Yumoto. First thing you notice,
there is a load of leg room here. Look at that there. On the seating front, there’s
two coat hooks, there and there. There’s a place to hold your bottle
of water, some information in there. Small little tray on the
side to put your phone. Really big windows. These are meant for tourists,
so you can see there’s big observation windows each side. I chose the right-hand side because if
there is a chance of seeing Mount Fuji later on in the journey, it’s
from the right-hand side of the train. If you want to,
you can see as this family opposite have done, you can swing your chairs around so
you can sit facing each other, like them there. And there’s also a tray table
so you can have something to eat in the chair, a bit like an airline. And you can also recline your seat. I won’t do it too much because
Matthew is sitting right behind me. Let’s see how far back it goes. It goes that far back. I’ll put it forward so it’s
comfortable for Matthew. There we go.
But plenty of space. Like I said, this journey is just under
an hour and a half, and it cuts out a number of the stations. You can do this on a local train,
but it stops in every station. This one is called a limited Express,
or it might even be an Express. It stops, I think, in either two or three
stations before it arrives in Hakone Yumoto station. I guess I got to tell you about what this
pass actually is to take us to Hakone today. It’s called the Hakone Free Pass. You If you can get it for either
two days or three days. It’s really good value. In fact, it’s such good value. We’re only going to be using it for one
day, but it’s still cheaper to get the two-day pass rather than
paying for each individual element. And what it entitles is transportation
from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo all the way to Hakone. And then all the transportation options
once you get to Hakone, which includes the bus,
a pirate ship, just went through a tunnel. It also includes It’s a cable way, a rope way, which is cable cars, more buses. I’ll open this here. There’s a whole map around
the Hakone area in here. I’ll show you that in a second. And it’s also one of the best spots
that you can actually see Mount Fuji from, which is why we’re going to do it,
although it’s a little bit cloudy. So seeing Mount Fuji
isn’t guaranteed today. You can also go up a volcano. But the main thing to do
there is you eat volcanic eggs. So that’s boiled eggs which have
been cooked in the volcanic sand. So you can see this is the Hakone area. All the transportation between all those
areas is covered by the Hakone free pass. We’re going to start off on the right-hand
side where it says Hakone Yumoto Station. We’re then going to take a bus,
the lower bus, the Hakone Tozan bus to Lake Ashi. We’re starting there. That’s where we’re going to get
dropped off by this romance car train. Then I’m going to follow that
to Lake Ashi, which is there. We then get a pirate ship
across Lake Ashi to here. We’re then going to take the rope way
over in that direction, and then we’re going
to continue doing a loop. So basically, it’s just going to be a loop
around the Hakone region in the hope of seeing Mount Fuji. And if you are interested where I
purchase these tickets from in advance. I used Klook.com. I checked online before we came to Japan,
all the usual spots to where we can buy tickets from.
Klook.com. seem to be the best option for these. I purchased them online before we go. There’s two options. You can have the digital pass,
so you can have the Hakone free pass on your mobile phone,
but you do need a separate mobile phone for everybody in your party,
which although Matthew and Holly have got separate mobile phones,
they don’t have the Klook app on there. So I thought it’d be easy
to do the physical ticket. They’re both exactly the same price,
physical tickets or digital passes. But if you do opt for the physical pass,
you do need to go and collect those tickets where we did earlier at the
Odakyu Service Centre where we picked those up. If you are interested in this Hakone free
pass through Klook, I’ll leave a link in the description down below. You can also scan the QR code
on the screen here as well to go directly to their website. If you use this referral code that’s
on the screen here, TravelShortsKlook, you’ll get 5% off your first purchase
when you purchase these tickets. Now, I think I’m going to sit
back and enjoy the journey. You okay, you two? Yeah, relaxing. You can put your seat back,
Matthew, if you want. There’s nobody behind you. It’s that black button. You can see the observation
carriage there. There’s two observation carriages,
one facing backwards and one right at the very front of the train. We do have that reserved for the
journey home later today. I’ve just noticed it There’s a power point
on the chair armrest as well, right by there. No USB chargers, though. Now then, do you want to have
a look what the bathroom is like? So do I.
Let’s go. Okay, there’s two bathrooms. There’s a men’s there and a lady’s there. We’ve also got a sink
in the corridor here. Somebody’s in the men’s at the moment,
so I’ll go there in a second. Okay, this is a men’s toilet. It’s really small. That’s what you’ve got. The door’s there, and there’s
actually no lock on the door either. So if you’re going to be doing business
in here, you’ve got to be really quick and maybe lean on the door so it doesn’t open. Anyway, that’s about that. Let’s go back to the seats. So my travel charger plugs
it into there quite easily. No issues about shape. We will soon arrive at…
Sagami-Ono OH 27. The stop after…
Sagami-Ono. Will be Ebina please transfer at the station
for the Yokohama Line. The doors will open on the left. We’re arriving our first
stop along the journey. It’s been just under 30 minutes since we departed Shinjuku. You can see we’re getting
into the countryside now, but it is a bit cloudy, so there’s a high
probability we will not see Fuji today. Fingers crossed we will,
but like I said, it’s not guaranteed. I think we’re about 10 minutes away from our final destination
of Hakone Yumoto Station. We got one more stop to do along the way,
which is Odawara Station. I think that’s where the local trains
actually terminate, and then you have to get a bus or
another train to Hakone Yumoto Station. We’re just about to stop
in Odawara Station. A few people have got to get off on here. This is a a tourist attraction itself. I believe there’s Hot Spring here. So some people with suitcases got off
probably to spend the night or a couple of nights. Our stop will be the next one, though. So when we get off a Hakone Yumoto station
there, we’re going to get this Hakone Tozen Bus K all the way over to Lake Ashi. It’s a shrine by there,
which usually has lots of people queuing up because it’s a really beautiful
shrine overlooking the lake. We’re probably going to look to see if
there’s any cafés or restaurants to have our lunch there because we’re all
starting to get a little bit hungry now. Next stop, Hakone Yumoto station. Holly’s just woken up.
Ready before we get off the next stop? We will soon arrive at the
Hakone Yumoto Terminal, O-H- 51. Please transfer at your station for
the Hakodaitosan line for Gora. The doors will open on the right. Thank you for taking
the Limited Express Romance car, Hakone. Number three. It also looks like there’s
Wi-Fi on board as well. We’ve arrived at the Hakone
Yumoto Station. That took about an hour and 40 minutes. It was running a little bit late. Plan is now to get on our first
bus to take us to Lake Ashy. But first, we’ve got to find
out where that bus stop is. So it says this way for the bus stops. Although it has got bus stops numbers one,
two, three, and four, our bus is a K. But let’s see what that’s
going to do, shall we? So I just asked the guy,
he said to come to bus stop number two. It doesn’t actually say Tozen Bus on here. And why are people getting on before everybody else. The guy’s put us in a line for bus R, not K, which is all… I think it’s a bit of a longer
route than it’s the K one. As you can see, there’s a huge
queue to get on it as well. I don’t know where the K one is. Very, very busy. This is our first bus, Bound for Lake Ashi. They really ram you on board,
and I mean really ram you on board. There’s virtually not even space to stand,
and they keep pushing you in. Not a very pleasant bus journey,
if I’m going to be completely honest. I’m not sure how long this journey
is going to take to Lake Ashi. The more direct route was
the Tozen K bus route. This is the Tozen R route It seems to be a lot more country winding roads when you look at the map
for this particular bus journey. Right. I’m not going to lie,
that was a thoroughly, thoroughly unpleasant bus journey. I didn’t time how long it took. It was probably about 20 to 25
minutes, maybe a little more. As you saw, there was absolutely no space. We were on it, chock-a-block,
no space whatsoever. And the roads were so winding,
going up the hills, down the hills. Awful.
Poor Holly. It’s feeling a bit travel
sick now, aren’t you? Yeah. I tell you what, we’ll sit
down before we go on this boat. Should we and sit down and get a drink?
Yeah? Okay, let’s go in and have a sit down. Shall we have a look at these
anyway to snack on as well? Do you want something to eat? So we’ve got you some strawberries. Now me and Matthew are just
going to get a sandwich. So we’ve got our sandwich. I went for a roast beef,
Wagyu roast beef sandwich. Matthew’s gone for a hot dog
and we’re going to eat it outside. It’s very cramped in there. So we’re going to wait outside here. This is where the boat is going
to hopefully go from from shortly. I don’t know what time it will be. We just need somewhere to sit
by the lake and eat our lunch. I think Holly is going
to enjoy your strawberries. And you can have some beef off
my sandwich as well if you want. No?
Okay. So we’re going to eat our lunch
on the shores of Lake Ashi here. Just sitting on the steps
overlooking the lake. Nice scenery. It is cloudy, though,
so we’re probably not going to see Mount Fuji today,
but it’s more about the experience doing this Hakone loop than anything else. There’s Holly’s strawberries
and Matthew’s Hot Dog. And here’s my Wagyu beef sandwich. A lot of beef on there. I think it was
1,150 ¥, so it’s over £5 for that sandwich, whereas Matthews was, what, 700? 700. I think I would have preferred his
hot dog, actually, because it’s warm. Anyway, let’s dig in and then we’ll have
a look at the schedule for the cruises. Finish the sandwich.
It tasted really nice. I’m now coming over to the ferry terminal
building to see if I can see a timetable when we go first class. Hakone free pass. So I’ve just checked
the timetable in there. The next pirate ship, Cruise, is due to depart at 13:10. It is now 12:57,
so we’ve only got 13 minutes to wait. With the Hakone Free Pass, we have
free travel on the pirate ship. But if we want to upgrade to first class,
which I believe is at the front of the ship or an observation deck, we can pay an additional 700 ¥ each.
So that’s about £3.50 each. To upgrade to first class. I think we just go
standard economy, maybe. So we did it easier to upgrade
to first class in the end. There’s quite a lot of people in economy,
so we always wanted a bit of extra space while we’re on board. We also get looks like priority boarding. They give you a wristband to wear. I tried to put mine on twice,
it’s fallen off twice. So, yeah, I know I tightened it,
but then the thing came off. So here’s the boat coming. So here’s the pirate ship arriving. Ready to go, Holly? It looks like the name of this
boat is Queen Ashinoko. So this is the first class lounge, but we
want to go upstairs and go outside. So it looks like this is the first class
area right at the front of the boat. If I’m being completely honest,
it’s pretty small. And that looks like economy there,
where you can go even higher and have more space. But we’re at the front, I guess. Looks like you can go one layer higher as well. Here we go, right at the very top. You’re right at the very top now, you two. Looks like we’re about to set off. Let’s have a look at us pulling away. Now, I’ll be completely honest,
it’s probably pointless upgrading to first class. The area outside is smaller. Maybe if it was raining and the weather
wasn’t very nice, that lounge downstairs would be a nice place to sit rather than
just underneath the shelter bit over there. But when you’re going to ride a pirate
ship in a Japanese Lake, so I’m happy to upgrade. It didn’t cost that much. Me and Matthew was 700 ¥ each,
and Holly was half price for 350. So it wasn’t a great deal of money
to upgrade to first class. It looks like we’re
spinning around to head in that direction. So that gate over there, the Torii Gate there, that’s the Hakone Shrine. If we stayed on that bus for another two
stops, we could have got there, but we decided it was better to just get
off and go on the cruise straight away rather than
go on the bus for a bit longer. So we’re arriving at the next port. After this one, it will take us all the
way to the other end of the lake that way. Looks like we’re departing. Next stop, the other side of the lake. People queue for up to an hour to have
their photo taken by that torii gate. We saw a little bit
of a line then going up. But you want to go back on the bench? Holly’s a bit cold, so she’s
going to sit on the bench again. As you can see, there’s a lot busier
now that people got on on that stop. You can see the sister ship to this pirate boat here In fact, well,
I should say the brother ship. That’s the king.
We’re on the queen. It’ll be a husband ship. A husband ship, then. We will see it? I don’t think we’re
going to get to see it. Well, aren’t we going on a cable car?
Yeah. Where even is the cable car? I think it’s over there.
It’s probably going up that hill, maybe. Now, I’ve just been thinking,
this is an inland lake, and these are two very large ferries. So how did they get them here? Did they bring them in pieces
and build them just on the Lakeshore? Or did they build them
all on the Lakeshore? Or did they
No, they couldn’t even bring them by lorry because they’re all country roads
everywhere, winding country roads. Helicopter.
Yeah. Matthew said helicopter, but I don’t think
there’d be a big enough helicopter to fit these boats. So they must have actually
constructed them on the Lakeshore. So there must be a dry dock or somewhere
by here to allow them to build these and then launch them. Really big helicopters. Really big helicopters, yeah. And bolt them together. I’m going to think this is where We’re
going to be stopping over by here. We’ve just seen another pirate ship docked
over there, which means there must be three pirate ships operating on the lake. Matthew’s saying we can see the ropeway
or the cable car system going up there. I can see one. Oh, yeah, I can see them now. We’re just arriving into Port now. We’re going to disembark and we’re
going to go on the cable car there. Well, I call it a cable car. They call it a ropeway. We’re going to take the ropeway
up the mountain in that direction. Next stop, ropeway, or as I’d
call it, cable car or gondola. This way, straight on. Hello. Thank you. So we’ve arrived in Owakudani station. Just as far as the cableway or gondola
or cable car is going to take us up the mountain. As you could see on the way here,
it’s very volcanic over to that side. So that is, I guess, a volcano. Well, Mount Fuji is a volcano as well. One of the main things you could do here
is get a volcanic egg, which is an egg that’s been boiled in volcanic ash. Anyway, we’re going to head out.
We’re going to have a look around. We’re probably going to get a snack here
as well as a volcanic egg at some point, somewhere to eat, somewhere to drink,
and generally just have a look around. This is probably meant to be the best
place you can see Mount Fuji on this trip. But there’s clouds everywhere,
so we’re definitely not going to see Mount Fuji today. It’s also stinks of sulphur and rotten eggs. But that’s what you expect when
there’s volcanic activity going on. What do you think of that smell, Holly? Absolutely stinks. I think that’s going
to be the volcanic egg. Oh, that really does reek. Oh, that really does stink,
doesn’t it, Matthew? Yeah. What even is it the egg? It’s the sulphur from the volcanic activity. So do you remember when we were
in Iceland by those geysers? Do you remember those stunk of eggs? Yeah. It’s like this, but this
stinks even more This is the It’s a different route than the way we came up. This is the way we’re going to go back
down, probably in about half an hour or even less because of the smell. Now, if you can imagine the most eggy
of egg smells, double it, and that’s what you’ve got here. Really, really does stink. When we were in Iceland
and we were there by the geysers, that’s volcanic, and that stinks of sulphur,
but nothing as bad as this. This really does reek. There you go, there is the egg. So we’ll have a little look
in the souvenir shop, see what’s here. But we really want
to try and get some food. Looks like they’re just
selling cold French fries. If you want to buy a volcanic egg,
the queue starts down there and goes all the way down there. Okay, there was nothing to eat in there,
apart from boiled eggs. I would have got one. Well, the coming pack
of four was for 500 ¥. So I would have just had one for me
and the rest would have gone to waste. But there was a huge line, so we weren’t
going to line up just for a boiled egg. So although it’s not sunny,
the way that the cloud and the steam is from the volcano makes
it extremely bright. So we have to put our sunglasses on. We’re going to see if they’ve got anything else to eat other than eggs in these couple
of buildings which are right on the top of the hill. Shall we go in this one first, Holly? Something by there.
What’s this? Here we go So you’d potentially have that, yeah?
Yeah. Go to the other place?.
Yeah. Okay, let’s go. We’re here at the moment, Owakudani we then go on the cable car, lower down. That’s where we then get that, well,
what they call a cable car But it’s just a tram down to there, Gora. Then we get on a train all the way
to where we started in Hakone Yumoto. And then what do we get?. Then we catch the romance
car back to Shinjuku. Then we go from there to Disney.
Yeah. On the Metro.
Yes. So we’ve just come to a cafe
on the top of the hill. It does stink up here.
It really does. Matthew and Holly have
ordered a curry cutlet each. I’m not that hungry, I don’t think. Holly doesn’t eat rice,
so I’ll probably just have Holly’s rice after she finishes her curry cutlet. And then we’ve still got either three
hours or four hours before the two reservations I made
for the romance car back. But as you can see, there’s no
chance of seeing Mount Fuji today. So we might just go and see if we can get
a reservation on an earlier romance car and then and go back to Tokyo and onwards
to our next hotel, which is the Disney Celebration. And if we do go to Disney,
we can go to Ikspiari, which is their version of downtown Disney or Disney Springs. Lots of restaurants, lots of shops. We could get something to eat
there for our evening meal. I think, tell you, I find it hard
to breathe with this smell of egg. I think we may leave
that a little bit early. I’m going to have a look on my phone
to see what the earlier schedule is out for the romance car. I don’t think there’s any point in going
on an earlier train because it will be stopping at every station. And it is a shame that we couldn’t go
on the later one because for the 6:30 reservation, Well, the first one
is 5:48, I think, reservation. We’re row two in that observation car. But for the 6:30 reservation
on the romance car, we’re row one in that observation car,
which would have been really nice to actually sit there and see the view
and everything going back to Tokyo. But that’s four hours away,
and we’ve done everything we need to do apart from going back down. So we might do, I think
we will go back down. We’ll see what time it is we get there. If it’s a couple of hours early,
then we’ll try and get an earlier reservation on that romance car. I think you can get them on the day
rather than pre-booking them. When you pre-book on the website
beforehand, I do believe it’s a little bit cheaper. It’s just a spoon?. You must get cutlery somewhere else.
Let me go. Right, Matthew and Holly’s
food has arrived. We can’t find the chopstick, though,
so we’re just eating it with a spoon. Okay, Holly? They have chopsticks.
I know there is chopstick somewhere. I couldn’t find them. I can’t find them. Like I was saying before the food arrived,
if we are there a good couple of hours early, we will
try and get a seat on a romance car back, but if we’re there,
we’ve only an hour to spare. There’s no point trying
to get an earlier train. We just go on our schedule one. And while we’re at the top here,
I think it’s a good time to tell you I wrote a travel guide to Japan. It contains all the places we stayed,
attractions we visited, places we’ve seen, tips and tricks we’ve
learned along the way. It’s totally free. And you can download it using the link
in the description down below, or you can scan this QR code there
and download it straight away. It’s totally free. I won’t even ask you
for your email address. Holly’s gone looking for chopsticks. Have you found them? No.
How was that? That’s so nice.
Yes. Holly’s got her chopsticks. We and Matthew have just been talking
and both of us feel a little bit dizzy, probably because of the sulphur. Holly has just said that she has
a little bit of a headache as well. Matthew and Holly finished their lunch. I also helped Holly finish hers. Stinks. Nature trail.
Oh, there’s hard hats.. Okay, so there should be a nature trail
here, but it’s closed today due to volcanic alarming area.
Sorry. So maybe this is a
bit more than it should be. So we’ve come to this semi-overlook
for where all the volcanic activity is happening. Really does stink. And you can look down to the car park. So that’s where Fuji is meant
to be over in that direction. There’s not a hope in
getting to see it today. So I might just have a look for the ice
creams down there, and then we’re going to head down
the hill where the air is a lot fresher. Do you want to put some
water on that Buddha? Can I have an egg and vanilla
soft serve, please? One mix?
One, yes. There you go.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, they do a specialty ice cream here,
an egg-flaved ice cream. I’m not brave enough to eat an egg ice
cream completely, so I we got an egg and vanilla ice cream. You can try it, yeah? Do you want the first bit? Holly wants to try the egg
and vanilla ice cream first. Let’s see what you think. Well, that’s just vanilla
at the top, by the look of it. I think the yellow is the egg. It’s like, well… It just tastes like vanilla.
Does it? Yeah. Okay, let Matthew try then and I’ll finish it. Yeah, it’s just vanilla. Really?
Yeah. Okay. I’ll take a big bite to see
if I can taste that egg. No, there’s no egg flavour at all. It’s just the vanilla flavour. Maybe I should have been brave and got
a whole egg ice cream then rather than egg and vanilla. But I’m not brave enough
to eat an egg ice cream. Okay, what we’re going to do now,
we’re going to eat this quickly, and then we’re going to head
down the hill to our next stop. So on a clear day, that’s what we should be seeing from this
observation point up here. Not a hope of seeing that today. Holly is going to finish
eating her kaki gori. Then we’re going to head
back down the mountain. I just went back and put all
the flavours on Holly kaki gori for her. It’s now got strawberry, melon, and what?
Soda. Soda?
Yeah. What’s the soda flavour? Soda. Okay.
Like a raspberry. Oh, raspberry?
Okay. Very close to strawberry. That’s probably… The melon. Is it the smell? No, it’s my eye.
I know. It hurts your eyes as well, doesn’t it? I think we should go down. Holly’s finished her kaki gori. We’re now going to get on the cable car,
head down the hills and get some fresh air, be able to take some
deep breaths into our lungs. That’s where Matthew and Holly
had their curry cutlet. Really nice and really friendly staff. He helped me use the machine
outside to order. I’d recommend that place there, which is just
by the cable cars, which are over here. And one last time, Mount Fuji
should be over there somewhere. Well, it still is over there,
we just can’t see it. Yeah, we’re disappearing Into the mist and fog,
into the abyss. So can’t see anything. We see that’s the station far. Yeah, we see the cables. So we’ve arrived by the cable car or the
gondler or the ropeway, as they call it. We’re now going to go to what
they call a cable car. I call it either a tram or
maybe even a funicular railway. And that’s why it’s called a cable car,
maybe because the cable runs underneath the actual train. We’ve made it onto the cable car,
or the cable way. No, cable car. There’s no driver in it yet, so I’m not
sure how long we’re going to have to wait. I think it’s probably going to be
a quite short journey as well. We’re almost right at the front
in the first carriage. You can see the… Yeah, looking at it,
it’s definitely a funicular railway because we have got a cable,
so it’s running on a cable. You can see all the way down there. We’re coming into the Gora Cable Station. Here’s where we’re going to change
to the Tozan train to take us all the way back to Hakone Yumoto, where we
started our journey in Hakone earlier. We’ve made it onto
the Tozen railway. I’m not particularly sure how long this
journey is going to last, but it’s going to take us all the way
to Hakoni Yumoto Station, where we started on the Hakone Loop earlier today. All the seats were taken before we got on. Caught at the end of an announcement then that said, Romance car suspended due to an accident. I’m not sure if that’s all the romance
cars or maybe the next one from now. I guess we’ll find out when
we get to the train station. We’ve been stuck in the station
now for about 10 minutes. There’s been no other
announcements at all. I’m wondering when it said that romance
car accident and all the services have been suspended. Maybe the accidents have happened just
ahead of us here, and that’s why we’re not moving. I said there’s been no other announcement. The driver has just been walking up
and down on the platform, probably getting a breath of fresh air. I’m not sure what’s happening. I’ve actually just had a look
on the romance car’s website as well, just to see what other time
slots are available, just in case we could go a little A bit early. But ours is due. There’s a train behind us there,
just to have a look if we were able to get… Oh, let’s hear what he’s saying. He didn’t give an announcement
in English anyway. Like I was saying,
I went on the Romance car website just to see if there’s earlier trains,
and it said there was no available trains left. Same as for our slots and even later. So either they’ve all been suspended
and you can’t purchase them anymore, or the tickets are sold out. But I guess we’ll find out. We’re moving again, but I guess we’ll
find out when we get to the train station. Maybe we were just waiting here
for that train that side to arrive. Maybe it’s just a one track line. The train will be down the three
switchbacks to change direction, are the way to Hakone Yumoto. We’re now going backwards because it’s
said that there’s three switchbacks in total on this track. I don’t know whether to believe it or not,
but the second steepest commercial railway on Earth. I’m sure there’s steeper
ones in North Wales. Don’t quote me on this,
but I am sure that the Switchback railway or railroad was actually invented
in North Wales for the slate quarries in North Wales. And for some random reason,
they’ve got the Bernina Express poster on the wall inside this train. If you’re interested in the
Bernina Express, we went on that in 2022. So if you go routing around in my channel
somewhere, it’d be the epic European adventure playlist. We’ve got a whole video
on the Bernina Express going all the way from Chur
in Switzerland to Tirano in Italy. So when I said that switchbacks
where invented in North Wales. I might of been mistaken. I think it might be something like this,
like on the Bernina Express, where instead of the train coming straight
down, it actually swings around and goes around like that. And I’m sure it was created by an engineer
who was working on a train track for these
slate mines in North Wales. So it does look like the Romance cars have been
cancelled due to an accident. We’ve got to board
a local one back to Tokyo. Problem is this one here,
there’s no place to sit, and this is going to be about a two-hour
journey, and there’s no way we’re going to stand for 2 hours. No way.
I’ll just have to wait for the next one. Okay, this is the 17:17. Totally full.
So we’re not going to get that. So we’re going to wait for the
17:39 because there’s no way we’re going to be standing for two hours. So we’re just going
to wait for the next train. Once this one clears the platform,
we’re probably going to stand down there just to guarantee us a seat on the next
train because the romance car, which is a limited Express, took 1 hour, 40 minutes. This would be a local train
stopping in lots of stations. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it was going
to take over 2 hours to get back to Shinjuku. I’ll have to look as well and seeing how I
can get a refund on the romance car tickets as well, because we did
book two two different time slots. So it’s not a great deal of money. It’s £15 per trip. So that’s still £30 that should be
refunded back to my credit card because they’ve cancelled the service. currently, there are less people on this train, but we just heard the announcement
again then, and it sounds like we just go on this train, just one stop to Odawara. There we’ve got a change on another
train bound for Shinjuku. If I heard that before,
then we would have gone that previous train, even if it meant
standing just for five minutes. But as it stands now,
I’ve got no clue what time we’re going to be getting into Shinjuku. And then once we do get to Shinjuku,
we’ve still got a really long journey to head over to Tokyo Disneyland,
where our hotel is for the evening. So all in all, I I don’t think
today has been that good. We didn’t get to see Mount Fuji. We rode that awful bus. Now we don’t have our
correct return train. I actually, just while we were waiting,
I just e-mailed the romance car people who sent me the original confirmation emails. Even though it was a legitimate email
address, it wasn’t like a no reply or anything like that. It’s bounced back as a failure because I
was just asking how I can get my tickets refunded. Anyway, I deal with that when
we’re back home after this trip. If not, if I get no response from them,
I’ll just claim it back via my credit card because that’s one thing. Make sure whenever you’re buying travel
purchases, use your credit card because if there’s any issues,
normally they sort it out for you. So I think we’re going to be catching this
6:07 I’m train to Shinjuku from Odawara Station. Currently, 5:46. We’re not going to catch
that earlier one, which is 5:49. The 17 minutes past one looks like
the one we’re going to have to take. The seven minutes past one,
I should say the 7 minutes past 6 isn’t actually even appearing on there. We have got 20 minutes and then
we’re going to be boarding that way. We’re at Odawara Station. I’m just lining up to make
sure we do get a seat. Matthew and Holly are behind me just
sitting on a bench for a little bit. But over an hour and a half standing
on a train, not something I want to do at the moment. Then even when we do get to Shinjuku,
we’ve still got to get at least two more trains to go to Tokyo Disneyland. I think it’s going to be about 10:00
at night before we get there. I really want to go in there, settle down,
ready for our very first park day at Tokyo, Disneyland tomorrow. I’ll try and get some rest on this train. We managed to get a seat. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take. It’s going to be definitely over hour
and a half, and then another about hour, hour and a half to get to Disney. At least we have got a seat
and we’re not standing. But, compared with what we paid for,
the romance car, where there’s that lovely comfortable reclining seat,
great views out of the observation deck. This is just like a standard subway car. At least we’re going back, though. Imagine if all the train services had
been cancelled from here to Shinjuku. Don’t know what we would have done then. At least we don’t have to stand
for the next hour and 30 minutes or more. We’ve arrived into Shinjuku. Yamanote, Yamanote, Yamanote. J, A, there we go that way. One and four.
We arrived in to Shinjuku. That took over an hour and 40 minutes. To begin with, it was okay,
but then lots of people came in and just standing right in front of our face. We were so lucky to get a seat. That’s why I didn’t film
really at all in there. Now we’re looking for the J-A line. It’s going to take us
part of the way to Disney. Then we’re going to switch and go
on the Keiyo line all the way to Maihama Station, which is in Disney. I don’t know how much I’m going
to film with this because it is busy. We’re very tired. We want to get to the hotel. JA, Saikyo Line. Okay, we’re at our next station,
about to catch another subway. We’re in Osaki we’re on the Rinkai Line
heading towards Shin-kiba Station. Should be due in 6 minutes. We just got Matthew water from the vending
machine because the water in my bag is too warm. The Fanta is too warm. Now, just one more train to go,
the Keiyo Line all the way to Disney. There’s always time for Holly
to have a gashapon. And you twist it round. It is that one.
That one. Yeah. Are you tired?
Not really. Is it Monday today? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Monday.
Oh, yeah. So there’s the Tokyo Sky tree. That’s where we were. Almost right by there this
morning in our original hotel. It’s been a long day since then. It looks like there might be a baseball
stadium or something by here as well. Those floodlights.
There’s a little kitty. Yeah. I can’t be bothered getting it on the bag,
but that’s what looks like. Oh, yeah.
Okay. Just take a photo of that. Oh, it’s so cute. We’ve arrived at Maihama Station. This is the main station for going
to Tokyo Disneyland Resort. What we’re going to do now,
we’re going to find our bus that’s going to take us to our hotel. Just for this one night,
we’re staying in the Disney Celebration Hotel, which is
about a 20-minute bus journey away. When I came to book this whole holiday
a month ago, I was not able to get a other Disney hotel for tonight. The only availability on site,
unless you wanted the Mira Costa, which is about one and £1500
to £2000 a night when I came to book it was the Disney Celebration Hotel. I’ll tell you about it
when we were further away. It was very loud. So bus stops for hotels? Yeah, so like I was saying,
when I came to book this whole trip about a month ago,
there was no availability for tonight in any of the main Disneyland hotels. So for the next few nights,
yes, there was. So we’re going to be staying
in the Disney Ambasador hotel for the next three nights from tomorrow. But the only availability on site,
except for a really expensive Mira Costa, and I wasn’t going to pay £2,000 a night,
was the Disney Celebration Hotel, which is lower than a value resort in Florida. So these hotels we’re going to now. There’s two, there is
Discover and there is Wish. Disney purchased them a few years ago
from another hotel chain and just rebranded them as Disney. They’re a 20 minute bus journey away. That’s where we’re going to now. Bus number,
say, number four, we’re going to go. I think so. So we just need to find that bus stop now. We have arrived at last. We’re in the lift, we’re almost there. Floor three. Okay, we’ve checked in. We’ve arrived at our room. Do you want to have a quick room tour?
Of course you do. This is Room
3051, so we’re on the third floor here at Disney’s Celebration Discover Hotel. There’s actually two celebration
hotels, Discover and Wish. Discover is themed towards adventure land,
whereas Wish is themed towards fantasy land. So as you walk in, it’s actually
a better room than I imagined. It’s quite spacious. So this is a three bed, triple family room. Matthew is already exploring over there. So this is the place where
you can get your drinks from. So they come through with
a kettle, cups, fridge. I tell you what, let’s
go through the draws. There’s a kettle, cups there, pyjamas in there, nothing in that one, and nothing in that one. And nothing in that In here,
we’ve got a fridge. Nothing in there.
There was no water in the room either. I expected it to be some water
bottles, but there wasn’t. There’s a safe in there. Tv and tissues, Power
point there, telephone. Then you’ve got this
sofa here and a table. Then we’ve got the three
triple beds there with Holly. And on the back, we have got,
like a mural with Stitch over there. We’ve got, that’s from the Jungle Cruise,
Splash Mountain, Chip and Dale. So all themes around
the adventure land areas. More Jungle Cruise down
Then there’s a bit of a strange wardrobe set up, but there’s the wardrobe there
to hang things up behind that wood panel. We have air conditioning. Then in here,
we’ve got the toilet, Japanese-style toilet, obviously,
with the bidet function. Then here we’ve got the sink. There with a hair dryer
and some amenities there. Toothbrushes, hair brush, bubble, body sponge. Then in here we’ve got the bathtub
and the shower. So it’s a wet room situation in there. Some more things on the wall there. So Chip and Dale in the canoes
and Jungle Cruise. Holly is checking out the amenities. Space to put your cases in there. And one thing that did surprise me as
well, rather than just a standard window, we’ve actually got a balcony,
which I didn’t expect. So it’s overlooking the road. Yeah, there we go. That’s the view from our balcony. I think that hotel across there might be
the Disney Celebration Wish, I’m not 100% sure. Let’s go back in and close the door. Oh, the window, I should say, for the balcony. Lock that there. And that’s it. A quick tour around our room
here at Disney Celebration. We’re only staying here for one night. Tomorrow, we’re going to be
going to Disney Ambassador Hotel. So stay tuned for tomorrow’s video,
where not only will we be going around Tokyo Disneyland, we’ll also be
staying in the Disney Ambassador Hotel. Oh, hello, Holly.
What’s that? That’s what you got out of
the gashapon earlier. So we’re doing a room tour there tomorrow. We’re quite hungry. It’s very late, but we’re going to go
downstairs to the convenience store and see if there’s anything we
can get to actually eat tonight. On our floor, there’s a vending machine. Apple juice. So if you’re interested, there we go. And there’s an ice
machine in there as well. Here’s the theming in the lift. These chairs in the lobby
are based on Big Thunder Mountain. See there, Big Thunder Mountain
railroad carriages. Then you’ve got
Mickey Davey Crocket there. Globe there. Okay, here’s a map.
We’re here. We’re going to walk down
there and turn I’ve left. This is called Disney fantasy. I’m going to assume it’s a kids club? Maybe. Okay, here we go. Snacks and sunries. There wasn’t much choice
in the convenience store here. We got ourselves a selection
of drinks and some snacks. But I’ve had a look on Uber Eats
and there’s a Domino’s Pizza just around the corner. I know we shouldn’t be having pizza
in Japan, but we just want to eat. That’s quick.
It’s after 11:00 now. We’re going to be up at 7:00
in the morning to go to the park. I’ve just ordered
Uber Eats Pizza from Domino’s. It should be arriving
in the next 10 to 15 minutes. Yes. As we’re waiting for the pizza,
I think we’re going to actually end this episode here. If you made to the end of the video,
thank you so much for watching. It’s really appreciated. If you’re new here, my name is Mark,
along with my daughter Holly, son Matthew. We make travel and theme park
videos from around the world. And here’s Holly, with
a very special message. If you like this video,
please remember to like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell button.
Bye. Bye. Next time on Travelshort’s Epic Japan Trip.

Join us on our day trip to Hakone from Tokyo to see Mount Fuji. To get there we used the Hakone Free Pass which gave us unlimited transportation around the Hakone Region on trains, buses, cable cars and even a pirate ship.
👉 Free 56 page Japan Guide Book PDF with all our tips, tricks, best hotels, places to visit and more: https://bit.ly/TravelshortsJapan

We start the day at our hotel the Asakusa View Hotel in Tokyo and catch the subway to Shinjuku Station. We then pick up our Hakone Free Pass from the Odakyu Service Centre. The Hakone Free Pass provides unlimited use of Odakyu-affiliated buses, trains, boats, cablecars and ropeways in the Hakone area as well as a return train from Shinjuku.

We take the Romance Car from Shinjuku all the way to Hakone Yumoto Station. and there we board a Hakone Tozan bus to Lake Ashi.

At Lake Ashi we get a snack and then eat it sitting by the lake.

We then board a pirate ship for the Hakone Sightseeing Cruise across the lake to Togendai where we catch a ropeway (cable car) to Owakudani.

Here we get some lunch and an ice cream, but we can’t stay for too long as due to some volcanic activity we can’t really see anything and it stinks of rotten eggs due to the sulphur.

We then catch the ropeway again down to the other side of the mountain to Sounzan were we get the Hakone Tozan Cable way (Funicular Railway) down to Gora.

At Gora we go on the Hakone Tozan Train all the way back to Hakone Yumoto. This is were problems start, due to an accident all Romance Cars were cancelled so we had to take a local train all the way back to Tokyo, this took a long time and was pretty uncomfortable because it was very busy.

We then travelled across Tokyo to Tokyo Disneyland were we went to our Disney hotel for the night, the Disney Celebration Hotel.
________________________
All my Japan Links:
___
Travelshorts Guide to Japan:
👉 Totally FREE 56 page Guidebook: https://bit.ly/TravelshortsJapan
___
Accommodation:
👉 Asakusa View Hotel Tokyo: https://bit.ly/AsakusaView
👉 Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay: bit.ly/SheratonGrandTokyo
👉 Tokyo Disneyland Partner Hotels: https://bit.ly/TDLRPartners
___
Activities:
👉 Mount Fuji Tours: https://bit.ly/FujiTours
👉 Tokyo Go Karting Experience: https://bit.ly/TokyoGoKarts
👉 Shibuya Sky: https://bit.ly/ShibuyaSkyTKTS
👉 Tokyo Skytree: https://bit.ly/TokyoSkytreeTicket
👉 Teamlab Borderless: https://bit.ly/TeamlabBorderless
___
Theme Parks:
👉 Tokyo Disneyland Ticket: https://bit.ly/TDLTicket
👉 Tokyo Disney Sea Ticket: https://bit.ly/TDSTicket
👉 Sanrio Puroland: https://bit.ly/SanrioPurolandTKTS
👉 Studio Ghibli Tickets: https://bit.ly/StudioGhibliTKTS
👉 Warner Bros Studio Tour Tokyo: https://bit.ly/WarnerBrosStudioTokyo
___
Transport:
👉 Hakone Free Pass: https://bit.ly/Hakonepass
👉 Trip.com, the best place to get Flights, Hotels and Activities: https://bit.ly/TripFlights
👉 Japan Train Tickets: https://bit.ly/JapanTrainTKTS
👉 Haneda Airport Transfers: https://bit.ly/HanedaLimo
👉 Narita Airport Transfers: https://bit.ly/TokyoLimo
___
Other:
👉 Airalo Esim: https://bit.ly/Airalo-ESIM use referral code MARK6579 to get $3 off.
👉 Astrill VPN, my favourite VPN: https://bit.ly/TS-VPN
👉 Osaka and Kyoto Luggage Delivery Service: https://bit.ly/OsakaKyotoLuggage

For all Klook links use code TRAVELSHORTSKLOOK for 5% off
* Please note that these are affiliate codes which I may receive a commission on at no additional cost to you.
_______________________

👉 Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=travelshorts
👉 My blog: http://travelshorts.com
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/travelshorts
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travelshorts/
👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/travelshorts
👉 Travel Guides: https://www.travelshortsguide.com
👉 Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelshorts
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@travelshorts.com
👉 Find more videos: http://www.youtube.com/travelshorts
📷 My camera and editing gear: https://bit.ly/travelshortsgear

Unlike most YouTubers I don’t want money from you via Patreon, I make these videos for fun not for profit, but if you feel like you want to donate anything please consider giving to charity instead:
👉 Just Giving: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/travelshorts

Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:08 Getting to Shinjuku Station
00:06:42 Hakone Free Pass and Romance Car
00:08:21 Romance Car to Hakone
00:20:56 Hakone Yumoto Station
00:22:02 Hakone Tozan Bus
00:23:54 Lake Ashi
00:26:58 Hakone Sightseeing Cruise on Pirate Ship
00:33:10 Hakone Ropeway Cable Car
00:35:59 Owakudani Volcanic Activity
00:48:34 Hakone Ropeway to Gora
00:49:20 Hakone Tozan Cable Car
00:51:16 Hakone Tozan Train
00:56:33 Train back to Tokyo
01:00:40 Tokyo to Disneyland
01:05:36 Disney Celebration Hotel