We have decided that we will go around Easter time which fall on 28-21 April but we also want to see the cherry blossom which normally happens later of March until early-mid April. With this consideration we decide to go early April until Easter long weekend so we have time to rest before back to work.
First thing I did was finding the flight that suits our requirement, OK no we have 2 contingents: 1 is me, and my little family plus BIL from Melbourne and 2 is my MIL dan FIL from Surabaya. It will be much cheaper and faster flying Qantas or Jetstar from Australia but ideally we would like to go on the same flight to Tokyo right? So I have to fin an airline that will do a transit somewhere and catch the same flight to Japan.
My first initial reaction was jumping into webjet.com.au website and punched in Melbourne to Tokyo and I found some reasonable deals with JAL of course. But it was my friend's travel agent that informed me that MAS and SQ have promotions during that period. As a loyal SQ customers I jumped on the chance of scoring reasonable plane tickets from SQ and I managed to organize the contingent from Melbourne fly to Singapore to meet the contingent from Surabaya and take the same flight to Tokyo and back.
TIPS:
- Try to contact travel agent to find whether there's a promotion from your favourite airlines which you might miss if you book direct from the website.
- Even though budget airlines offering cheap fare you have to be careful to see about how long the flight will take and what time it will arrive at your destination. For example: Jetstar offers a cheap fare via Darwin but the flight from Melbourne departs at 6am (you have to be at the airport at least 5am meaning you have to leave home at 4am almost impossible if you travel with kids). AirAsia also offers attractive fare for flight via KL but the arrival time is close to midnight at Tokyo (you have to take taxi to your hotel because train is not running after midnight which cost a lot more). Some of the flight took more than 24 hours to arrive at the destination and you have to spend a lot of time in transit.
- Also, with the budget airline normally they don't include check in baggage, entertainment and meals you might end up paying close to the non-budget airline with the add-ons (they even charge you $7 if you want to pick your seat with Jetstar).
Now with planning, we have approx 14 days to spend and no idea what to do where to go except a vague preconception about Japan. Then I came across this magnificent website japanguide.com with more than enough information to plan the trip.
I gathered around information from everybody about what the want to see and what expectation they have in this trip. Basically everyone was like leave it up to me to plan everything and the only thing that my MIL requested is cherry blossom viewing and focus on make sure that Princess Alana enjoys the trip AKA spend more time in places that she will enjoy: Disneyland and Universal Studio.
After exploring the options and a little bit of brainstorming with friends that have been to Japan we decided to go with this itinerary: Tokyo, Hakone, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, back to Tokyo.
Since the brief was to focus on Princess Alan first I build my itinerary around her attractions. We have decided that we will spend 2 whole days in Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea and another day in Unversal Studio Osaka. To avoid the crowd I organized the theme park visits during weekdays when the opportunity being overcrowded is less likely.
So I build the itinerary around those 3 days, being arrived in Tokyo first I decided to spend 4 nights in Tokyo, and than 1 night in Hakone for the hot spring experience, 5 nights in Osaka (visiting Kyoto and Nara from Osaka) and 3 more night in Tokyo before we head back to Singapore.
After I decided how many nights I want to spend in which city than I can fill in the attractions I want to see while checking the proximity of the surrounding attractions. I pitched the itinerary to the whole group and we all agreed on it.
TIPS:
- Decide on your major attractions (things that you must and want to see) and build you're itinerary around it
- Avoid weekends for attractions that require you to wait in line (for tickets, rides etc) as much as you can
- Check on the website opening hours for your attraction to avoid dissapointment. For example: Imperial East Garden is close on Monday so I have to move the day from my itinerary
- Buy tickets in advance to avoid queuing
Next I will let you know what to buy before you go, things that will make you're life easier while you're travel. Watch this space.
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