Seishun Juhachi Kippu (Seishun 18 Kippu)
Me and two friends from work are going to Japan for 10 days at the end of March and are staying in the Shinagawa area (Shinagawa Prince Hotel). We'll be flying into Narita and plan on taking trips to both Kyoto and Mt. Fuji. We were originally thinking about getting a 7 day JR pass but found that this Seishun 18 Kippu pass might be a better deal since the three of us could buy 3 of them for 11,500 yen each. So that would be 34,500 yen, or about $325 using today's exchange rate. I think each of us buying a JR rail pass would be more like $800 so that would save us about $475 up front. Is that enough of a savings to just pay out of pocket for our trips around tokyo via subway for the other days? The majority of our trip is going to be in Tokyo and it seems like a two day subway pass is pretty cheap. Additionally, maybe 3 Seishun 18 Kippu passes are too many since each one is good for 5 days of unlimited usage? I mean if that's true, and assuming our trips to Kyoto and Mt. Fuji are only one day, does that mean we could go there and back using only one "day" on our pass for each of us? I don't know the logistics of getting to Kyoto and back in one day but I think it seems pretty doable for Mt. Fuji at least. If anyone has any experience or opinions on this pass please let me know. Also, is it possible to get them in advance, while we're still in the States or is this something that we could just do once we get to Tokyo?
TIA,
Tony