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I'm now living in Nagano City, and my coworkers and I are considering getting the Premium Nozawa/Shiga/Happo pass for 80,000, but I noticed on the flyer that they're limiting it to 1000 people. Is there a chance that even if we all apply early that we might not all get it? I've heard of how some places have drawings for passes and I'd hate it if some of us got it and others didn't. We're about 50 minutes from each resort and we need a sure thing, any suggestions?

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To be honest, I doubt they'll sell all 1000 at that price and the wording is just to put some pressure on buyers.

I definitely wouldn't worry about missing out if you apply in October. I think the possibility of that is very low.

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I reckon so too.

 

80,000 yen. So you would need to go out and have 20 days out in the season or so to cover that cost. I would be interested to know what % of the people who buy that actually go more than that.

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i always thought season passes were a great idea. Then i bought the all myoko one. I think i just about made it out there enough, but the real kick in the teeth was that it cut me off from exploring nagano. I never once hit up anywhere but myoko and by the end of the season i was really glad that i bust my knee on suginohara just so i wouldnt have to head there again in the crappy sticky melting snow (the bottom half of suginohara when it gets slushy, is just horrible).

 

Although you cover a fair bit of the decent stuff in and around the area, its still no myoko, no any other hakuba resort (cortina iwatake and goryu/47 - screw tsugaike!), no kita shiga, no other hidden gems that ive yet to discover (apparently sugadaira is alright - and that was ust down the road from me). If its your first year in nagano, dont go the scrimping route unless youre seriously broke. You want to explore a bit. I regret nothing more than failing to realise that yudanaka was the gateway to shiga kogen and i lived in suzaka on the line. I also regret not making it to nozawa even once. Hell, i wouldnt have even seen hakuba were it not for the fact i was there every weekend in december before i bought the pass.

 

Think wisely on passes, it can be a bit of an albatross around your neck. And at 80,000yen a pretty expensive one.

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Yeah I agree, 80,000 is alot of money even though it covers 3 resorts.

 

There are so many slopes to go and investigate that I wouldnt go restricting yourself to just the main ones on that pass.

 

Just think of all the different resorts you can go and check out during the course of the long season and Im sure you wont spend

80,00yen.

 

If you are though planning on hitting the slopes 2/3 times a week, get a cheaper pass for a local resort and pick and choose the others.

Thats my advice anyhow. Good luck

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80,000 yen is a bit steep, even if it does cover 3 resorts. For the same money you could actually go to 20 different resorts, and if you visit your local ski shops, they all have discount coupons for the lifts, a lot offer a booklet full of discount coupons, just show them when you go to the resort and you can get 500- 1000 yen off, if you use these coupons throughout the course of the season you would have saved enough to go to another two resorts for free.

By that I mean you would actually get another two maybe three resorts extra for your 8 man.

I have bought a season ticket for my local resort, but that is only because they offered a special discount of only 10,000 yen which covered the out of peak times, but for 10,000 yen for a resort on my doorstep it was a bargain. I wouldn't pay 80,000 though.

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I do plan on going a ton, 2~3 times a week and most of my end of the year holiday. Last time I was out in Saitama, I still managed around 25 days before I ended up breaking my collarbone at the end of January. I've done a lot of Hakuba and really enjoyed Happo, and after Hakuba 47/Goryuu last year I'm not so keen on buying a season ticket there. I'll still be getting around, but in the end I still think the 80k will end up saving me a bit.

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A season pass would not be worth it to me unless I lived on the resort's doorstep.

 

I have been to almost all the majors and the only resort that keeps me coming back every year is Niseko. But maybe that is the type of skier/snowboarder that I am. I can cover huge amounts of ground in a day, and can do every run on a mountain in a day, even at a larger resort like Happo-One. Doing early morning laps at the top of Niseko in the pow, well, that is what I consider fun. When I get bored I switch to snowboard.

 

IMNSHO, the only resort that would consider getting a pass to would be Shiga Kogen...you would need several days to hit all of the different resorts, since some of them are not even connected.

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Strange that while one-day, multi-day passes are considerably cheaper in Japan than in most North American resorts, season passes tend to be far more expensive.

In September I believe you could buy the Epic season pass for less than $500, covering Vail/Beaver Creek/Keystone/Breckinridge/A-Basin in Colorado and Heavenly Valley & Northstar in Lake Tahoe. Even now post-sale it's only $670 -- helluva bargain compared to 80,000 yen for Shiga Kogen/Nozawa/Happo.

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