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From posts I can see that people are taking the night buses to various resorts, but how about the morning tours?

 

I am planning to post a mini review of my experience(s) with taking the morning bus from Shinjuku. The tour prices are much less expensive than taking the shinkansen. For example, some tours midweek are 3-4,000 yen. That is less than the price of the lift ticket.

 

There are also other companies departing from Ikebukuro or Tokyo station, with shuttle bus pickups from various other stations around Tokyo, Yokohama, and Saitama. They normally depart about 7 or 7:20 am and return about 8-10 pm depending on traffic.

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I don't like the day buses because they are, in effect, half days. They usually get you there anytime from 10-11.30am depending on traffic and while cheap, I personally want a full day riding and a decent chance at riding untouched snow

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Morning tours, well, if you got more money than sense, they are ok, but as TB said, you probably only get about 4/5 hours out on the slopes due to the time they arrive at the resort.

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Man In Japan, you mean more time than sense, right? Cause if I had the money, I would be on the first shink out of Tokyo station.

 

In a half day at Marunuma Kogen, well, make that about 3 hours, I got over 2,000 meters of vert. or about 14 km. That was on a snowboard, no less. If I were on skis, I probably would have covered 50% more. And if I were going for the freshies, that would require the overnight bus, but ain't that young anymore, although am still considering it for one trip...

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There are some cheap deals on the Shink as well. I went to Gala yesterday, train + lift ticket 6,900, locker 1,000. As I didn't stop for lunch and took some choc bars from home that was the total cost for 8 and half hours on the snow.

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Spent most of the day in the Southern area, the central area was full of novice snowboarders, Southern area was relatively empty.

 

Yes locker does seem a bit expensive when compared to the train and lift ticket combo

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was the whole south area open?

 

The lockers are expensive....but you can't complain when the shink + lift deal is only 6900 :)

 

The top half of the $2,600,000 was closed, from the top of the Coach lift you could only come down Grenoble, other wise everything open.

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At Gala, that 1,000 yen lets you open and close the locker as many times as you wish during the day...not like those coin ones where if you forget something you gotta pay again. Of course, those are usually 300 or 500 yen for the larger size ones.

 

Am going on another bus tour tomorrow morning, hopefully the Tohoku highway to Hunter Mountain will be better than that darn Kanetsu...plus I am hoping that we can jump on right out of Shinjuku since they made that underground tunnel (fingers crossed).

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Am going on another bus tour tomorrow morning, hopefully the Tohoku highway to Hunter Mountain will be better than that darn Kanetsu...plus I am hoping that we can jump on right out of Shinjuku since they made that underground tunnel (fingers crossed).

 

That tunnel is awesome when there is no traffic.

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