Bye-Bye Shinkansen?

[Nagoyankee]

After having enjoyed the convenience and comfort of riding the Shinkansen on a few hundred occasions in my long life, I now may seriously have to look into a new method of domestic travel.

Willer Express, a highway bus company that also seems to serve as a travel agency, has been airing intensive TV commercials lately. It caught my eye so I looked at their website, and I sorta half-fainted.

As a Nagoyan residing in Tokyo, I always pay a little over 10,000 yen one-way to go home by Shinkansen. Willer Express will now take me home for as little as 3,200 yen one-way. If that isn't a saving, nothing is!

I also occasionally go to Kobe on a 2-or-3-day trip. I pay about 30,000 yen round-trip for the Shnkansen and about 10,000-12,000 yen a night at a decent hotel. So that's a total of at least 40,000 yen. What about Willer Express? Get this. 11,200 yen. Yes! Round trip and hotel! It means you get to save even more if you reserve a hotel room through this company. I picked a random July 30 for departure date when searching, and that is high season.

If you're interested, here's its website:

高速バス・夜行バスのご予約ならウィラートラベルへ / WILLER TRAVEL

[Nyororin]

I agree that the hotel package is very nice price-wise...
But it`s a 6 hour ride from Nagoya to Tokyo. Ouch. I`ll stick to paying the 10,000 for an hour on the Shinkansen.

If you have a lot of time to spare, and aren`t traveling during any times when the roads will be crowded, it doesn`t sound too bad.

[Ronin4hire]

I agree with Nyororin.

There is a tradeoff when using these budget bus companies.

[Hatredcopter]

I used to bus between Nagoya<>Tokyo quite often when I was a student in Japan. 6 hours seems like a long time, but you can take night buses than depart at around 11:00PM and arrive at 5 or 6 AM... so you sleep through the whole thing

Definitely saved me a lot of money... although nothing beats a nice quiet ride on the shinkansen

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Hatredcopter

I used to bus between Nagoya<>Tokyo quite often when I was a student in Japan. 6 hours seems like a long time, but you can take night buses than depart at around 11:00PM and arrive at 5 or 6 AM... so you sleep through the whole thing

Definitely saved me a lot of money... although nothing beats a nice quiet ride on the shinkansen

Ah, the joys of being able to sleep in a vehicle. I cannot do so. If sleeping through the trip were an option, yes, it probably wouldn`t seem bad at all - except for figuring out what to do at 6 am.

I have taken a bus to Tokyo a couple times, and while it wasn`t all that bad it was a long trip. It ended up feeling like quite a lot of wasted time.