JR Pass - Do my kids need them?

Hello,

I will have to buy my JR Passes this month before the price increases in Oct. Seeking advice in terms of whether to purchase passes for my kids:

I'll be travelling with my two children, 2 & 4 years old. Based on what I know, they don't have to pay for their tickets due to their age. But that would mean they would have to sit on our laps if all the seats are taken.

So then should we take the risk and save about $900 in pass fees (covering 28 days) for both kids? Would there always be seats available for us to seat together?

These questions apply to the shinkansen as well as local trains from our city bases to the outskirts...

The main plan is to travel over 28 days from Fukuoka to Hiroshima, then Hiroshima to Osaka, then Osaka to Nagano, then Nagano to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Yamagata, then Yamagata to Aomori, then Aomori to Sapporo, then Sapporo to Hakodate, then Hakodate to Fukuoka straight. Would the shinkansen have seats in the unreserved sections for us to seat together easily? Or would it be best to bite the bullet and buy the passes for our kids and reserve seats for all shinkansen rides?

At each city base, we'll be travelling out, eg we'll be going from Hakata to Beppu and back, and another day we'll be going to Mount Aso... so for these local / regional trains and buses, would it make sense for us to buy the pass? I've planned almost all trips around JR lines...

Any advice would be most appreciated! Travel period is 2-30 Dec 2023.. coming very soon and I'm super excited...

One free child under 5 travels with one paying adult.

If 1a plus 2c. You need 1a and 1c passes.

Thanks H! I'll be travelling with my wife and 2 kids... so each child should be able to travel free... but I just am thinking if we should buy the pass for them anyway... any advice as to seats availability in the non-reserved seats? Cos for our day trips, we're looking at 2-4 hours train rides one way...

it depends on your priority, comfortability or inexpensiveness ?
also, it depends on your choice for hotels, locations, grade, etc.

if I were you, I buy 4 tickets to reserve seats for children, because it is a long travel in total.
also, I recommend to use Takkyubin efficiently.

by the way, small children's actions are unexpected. when they get tired in daytime, how do you take care of them ?

Just a note: if you decide to book your seats, do it as soon as you can, because there is no guarantee that you can get 4 seats next to each other. I advise booking the front rows of a car if it is in a 2-2 layout or 2 consecutive rows of 2 for a 2-3 layout.

Some trains on the Tohoku line don't have unreserved seats, by the way. We (a couple without children) travelled in November last year, booked our tickets for the next day, and were not seated together between Tokyo and Ichinoseki due to the train being almost full.

I wouldn't buy extra passes for the kids.

Sometimes there are free seats around you that you might be able to use. Just vacate them before each station.

Also good thing about trains is there is enough room to get up and move around. They won't be glued to your lap for 2 hours.

Hello Ken,

All my hotels are near the main stations... the furthest is actually at Hakata, about 1.1 km away... based on Google Maps... and at Hiroshima, we have the free JR buses to take us from Hiroshima station to our hotel... and 400 m from Ashihabarashi station to our hotel in Osaka... 450 m from Nagano Station... 270 m from Bakurocho Station in Tokyo... 300 m from Yamagata Station... 260 m from Aomori Station... 550 m from Sapporo Station and 210 m from Hakodate Station...

All this train travel sounds like a challenging proposition for both the kids and the adults, and by my standards the hotels aren�ft all that close to the stations in some cases. But I�fm sure you will manage. If I were you I would cough up for the kiddie rail passes, though. At that time of year, especially earlier on in your trip, the trains probably won�ft be very crowded, but at least having the passes will give you more assurance that you can get seats for the children. Two or three hours with a two-year-old on your lap doesn�ft sound all that fun to me, and the four-year-old could potentially be even harder. (Certainly not much fun for the kid. These sorts of things can end up with children running up and down the aisles of the train, although I�fm sure you wouldn�ft allow your children to do such a thing.)

A question that I have wondered about since I saw the post originally is what you mean by �gHakodate to Fukuoka straight.�h Just sort of curious. I would say if you intend to take the train between those two points in one day (?) you would definitely want to have seats for the kids. The shinkansen (and other trains) will start to get crowded as you get close to New Year�fs.

One nice thing about rail passes (whether you buy them for the kids or just yourselves) is that you have a lot of flexibility for making itinerary changes on the fly, without it adding to your trip costs. If you find that all of the hotel changes and day trips are becoming just too much at some point, then you can rework the rest of the trip. I have done this (to a small extent) on trips a few times. Just make sure you keep track of the cancellation policies for your various hotels. They tend to vary quite a bit. Recently I have been doing a lot of hotel shopping for upcoming trips, and I have excluded some hotels from consideration because their cancellation windows are too long (such as 7 days), when similar hotels in the same area only have a one or two day cancellation window. Of course, when I make a reservation I never think that I�fm going to cancel it, but things happen�c

I guess another option (although a somewhat complicated one) might be to forego the extra cost for the rail passes but buy point-to-point tickets for your children in a few cases where the trains are going to be crowded. You can check seat availability using JR Cyberstation. If you find that a train you are planning to ride is running out of seats in the reserved section, then you might start to worry and buy tickets. You could do that a number of times for a lot less than the $900 the passes would cost. Sometimes when trains are sold out there are still plenty of seats in the nonreserved cars, but you definitely can�ft count on that. JR Cyberstation will at least give you a sense of how much in demand a given train is.

Hakodate to Fukuoka straight
Consider flying. Seriously, that is a long time on a train and with international add-on fares, flying is cheaper than train travel for that leg.
Also, while you are looking at 28 days of passes, it could easily be that you don't need passes for the whole time as you are not actually travelling that quickly and they could end up costing you more.
You can also buy seats for your kids on certain legs if you wanted. Buying one extra seat will give the four of you extra space.

Hello Kim,

Thanks for the lengthy reply which is super helpful...

Yes, I thought about having the kids on our laps for 2-4 hours if the trains we take happen to be super busy... not fun at all... so I will bite the bullet and get the kids their passes to secure a seat for them. At least we can have some space to ourselves.

Would it be considered bad form if we reserved two rows of 2+2 or 3+3 type seats (one behind the other) and then turned around one row so that the two rows are facing each other? This would be immensely helpful as I can inflate the leg cushions I bought and stuff them in between the seats to make a semi-flat space for my kids to sleep if the train ride is particularly long...

And definitely no running up and down the aisle... we would be carrying books and toys (non-noisy non-electronic type) to occupy their time... at least my kids tend to sleep on long car rides...

And YES! I'm taking the train from Hakodate to Fukuoka straight with no breaks... that will be a 12-hour train ride including stops at Tokyo & Okayama... based on the Navitime app... a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I doubt we will do anything like this in the future for other parts of the world... hence the question about turning the seats to form a bed for the kids...

I'm not so sure I would do much adjustments to the schedule cos as it is, it has been planned to death taking into consideration the travel times and planning rest days (every 4-5 days) with low tempo activities... if anything, I would likely cut stuff from the itinerary if the going gets to heavy rather than re-arranging... the approach is to see what we can, and we can find joy even in going to the local supermarket to buy food to eat or cook...

Definitely not considering buying individual tickets... thanks for the link to JR Cyberstation... very useful but I think I'll just reserve all my tickets when I land... it's just very useful to have a pass where you can simply hop on and off without thinking too hard about payment, destination etc... as it is, I would probably have my hands full trying to ensure we're at the correct platform, getting on the correct train & carriage, and making the timing to get to the trains (even with ample buffer time built-in to the schedule)... so I don't want the additional hassle of negotiating the ticket machines or queues at ticket offices and fussing over payments... cos a lot of my train trips are to out of town areas and I'm mainly taking just JR lines or buses... it's just a very small percentage of my trips which are conducted on non-JR lines and for those I will just have to buy on the spot... so just leave the stress to that few spots...

Thank you very much! The discussion has helped to crystallise my thoughts and priorities about this trip in relation to the getting of passes for my kids...

Hello JapanCustomTours,

What do you mean by 'international add-on fares'? Do you refer to the train tickets or the plane tickets?

I would already have paid for the 28-day passes, so taking the last day back to Fukuoka in one go on the JR shinkansen makes economic sense... I'll be out of pocket to close to $700-800 or more having to buy 4 plane tickets... plus it will take more time to get to the airport, check-in, wait to board, then repeat at the other end... I find taking the train from end to end more helpful as I'm staying right next to the train stations...

Hakodate to Fukuoka is an almighty train trip. Flying for sure is faster.

Also I would not leave it to the last day (ie day before departure). UNLESS you have a through airplane ticket. Reason: while Japanese trains are famously punctual, Japan is also prone to typhoons. In which case the Shinkansen and other trains get stopped for a day (or 2). That�fs not too much of a problem in the middle of your trip as it doesn�ft happen all the time, but it happens several times every year. And with a Hakodate - Fukuoka trip you are essentially exposed to all typhoons that hit Japan. You need to be unluckily that it strikes precisely your last day, but it can happen. In that case stay flexible. Look at the weather forecast a few days ahead and if something is coming head South a few days earlier.

Regarding turning your seat. If you are in a 3+3 row you can�ft do it because you don�ft �gown�h the entire row. In a 2+2 you can do it. I have seen groups of elderly ladies traveling together doing it. And also done myself on a company WE outing. Not very loved by everyone around you, but doable and done.

No no no no and no.

Do not do a 13-14 hour train trip with kids.

Sorry but that isn't a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Shinkansens go fast, have small windows, with fairly boring and sterile. Small windows and noise barriers really make shinkansen travel boring.

First time is fun cos you are doing 300kph. But after that, one realises they are justvon a really fast commuter train with crap views.

Increasing the duration of you journey won't make a trip any better.

Pick better trains if you want once-in-a-lifetine rail experience. Plenty go through mountains or down coastlines, and these have big viewing windows.

I�fm not sure what you mean by booking all your reservations �gwhen you land,�h but be aware that you are not allowed to make a whole bunch of reservations at the airport, if that�fs when you get your passes. I think that at some of the busier JR service centers in Tokyo they don�ft allow it, either. There are limits to how many reservations you can make or how many days in advance you can make the reservations, if it ties up an agent at a service center where many people will be waiting to simply redeem a rail pass voucher and make a single reservation. You can make as many reservations as you want at a ticket machine, or possibly at one of the less-crowded service centers. (Not sure where the limits are imposed, but definitely at Haneda and Narita airports. Fortunately�c)

As for turning the seats, I think there might be some restrictions on that these days, related to covid. If you are occuplying all 4 seats of two rows, then you wouldn�ft be forcing any passengers to face you (thus increasing their exposure to any germs you might be exhaling). But I can see why JR wouldn�ft want people to turn the seats, and then get off the train and leave them facing each other. Maybe you should ask the conductor. Many people in Japan still wear masks, especially on public transit, and it could be considered a sigificant breach of etiquette to turn the seats now.

I would already have paid for the 28-day passes

There is no 28-day Japan Rail Pass.

- Japan Guide: Drastic price increase announced for the Japan Rail Pass
https://www.japan-guide.com/news/japan-rail-pass-cost-increase.html

Seeking advice in terms of whether to purchase passes for my kids:
I'll be travelling with my two children, 2 & 4 years old.

I suggest you do not purchase Japan Rail Passes for the kids.

According to your main plan,
you travel for specific JR sections (#)
where all the trains require seat reservation.

Even when your kid solely uses one reserved seat,
the JR regular cost for the kid to travel for those specific sections
should be about 23000 yen,
much less lower than the price
(before the October price rise) of child-rate 21-day JRP.

For the other JR sections,
you (almost) always can choose non-reserved seats,
in which case your 2 and 4 year-old kids can travel free of fees,
as long as you accompany them.

Travel period is 2-30 Dec 2023

From the evening of December the 28th,
Shinkansen trains may get crowded with New Year travelers;
I recommend you get close to the airport by December the 27th.

it's just very useful to have a pass where you can simply hop on and off without thinking too hard about payment, destination etc...

I don't want the additional hassle of negotiating the ticket machines or queues at ticket offices and fussing over payments...

You cannot "simply hop on" a train requiring seat reservation,
just with your Japan Rail Pass;
you have to get your JR reserved-seat ticket(s),
regardless of whether you use a pass or not.

All my hotels are near the main stations...

How long do you stay at these places?
(E.g. Hiroshima for 2 nights)

Depending on your timeline,
JR area passes and regular tickets may be better cost-wise.

Hakodate to Fukuoka straight

that will be a 12-hour train ride including stops at Tokyo & Okayama...

I second comments by other posters
which suggest you never travel so long by railway with such little kids.

JapanCustomTours:
Consider flying.

You travel during December,
so it may happen,
that snowfall makes flights from Hokkaido be canceled
while Hokkaido and Tohoku Shinkansen trains are still available.

Even Shinkansen trains may be delayed;
Tokaido and San'yo Shinkansen trains are not designed well snow-proof,
compared to Hokkaido, Tohoku and Hokuriku Shinkansen trains.

It sounds better to fly out from Tokyo than from Fukuoka.
Have you thought about so-called "open-jaw" flight tickets?

Anyway, listen to friendly remarks,
unless you are ready to waste your time and money.

(#)
Specific JR sections where seat reservation is necessary
: After Yamagata: Sendai -- Shin-Aomori
: Shin-Aomori -- Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto
: Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto -- Tokyo.

If you're set on traveling from Hakodate to Fukuoka by train, there's nothing we can do. I really love traveling by train, but 12+ hours would be boring even on the most scenic of trains (and the shinkansen lines are not). Not all trains are equipped with power outlets.

In addition to typhoons and snow, any announcement of missiles being launched by North Korea can lead to trains being temporarily halted. I had a train delayed by 15 minutes between Tokyo and Ichinoseki, and the train before was delayed by 30 minutes. Not much, but enough to miss a tight connection, which can be a big issue if you're trying to get from Hakodate to Fukuoka in a single day.
In any case, ship your big luggage beforehand.

I agree with omotenashi that just paying for the mandatory seats for your kids in the Tohoku region will be cheaper than buying 2 additional passes. On the Tokaido line, your chances of being seated together in an unreserved car are pretty good IMO.

I suppose you were planning on buying a 7 days pass + 21 days?
Depending on when you are going to Hiroshima/Osaka, a "Sanyo-San'in Northern Kyushu Pass" might be more better than a 7 days national pass. Add another regional pass for when you're in Osaka, and you might only need a 14-days national pass for the rest of your trip.

Thank you LikeBike for the reply about turning the seats around... we intend to book the 2+2 but was hoping that if on a deserted train, we may have the opportunity to occupy a 3+3 combo... but yeah 2+2 it will be... I've been looking at the seating configurations for the rides... on the Tohoku Shinkansen, and some other lines, the trains are all configured 2+2 only... so no choice there...

Thank you Kim! Very sensible considerations... most helpful... will ask at the ticket office when I exchange my voucher for the pass... I'll definitely put the seats back before we arrive... I presume it's not an issue even when the train is moving?

Hello H, yes I know it will be really boring... but it's not continuous... we'll have to change trains twice cos the train go from Hakodate to Fukuoka straight... we'll break at Tokyo then Okayama... I think it's about an hour's break each time... so that's great for us to stretch and get something to eat...

Which by the way leads me to ask... would you be able to get off a normal train when it stops say for 10-20 min to pick up passengers at an in-between station and nip back in? Some of my train rides (some are limited express) run past lunch time... would be nice if I could just nip in and out to buy a bunch of Benton boxes... otherwise I was thinking I might have buy something to eat before boarding at the start and hold it until it's time to eat...

In a non reserved car, don't rotate the chairs. You don't "own" them, especially if you only have 2 paid tickets.

I don't know any "normal" trains that stop for 20 minutes or even 10. Limited expresses will only stop for one minute. Some sightseeing trains might have stops specifically made for passengers to exit briefly and take pictures. Buy your lunch (and drinks!) before boarding the train.