Visiting Muroran - What to Do?

[donaldsc]

We are going to be in Muroran Japan in late April.  Azamara misleadingly lists the port as Sapporo (Muroran) so I assume that they expect us to travel from Muroran to Sapporo to visit Sapporo.  Since it takes about 2 hours each way to get from Muroran to Sapporo and we are in port for only 9 hours, it doesn't seem to make any sense to spend 4 of the 9 hours getting to and from Sapporo.  Is there any high speed train service from Muroran to Sapporo that would make visiting Sapporo more practical?

 

I have been trying to figure out what to do in or around Muroran and there seems to be little or nothing to do.  I can't find any interesting sites in Muroran.  The sites close to the city don't sound much more exciting.  The tour offered by the ship also doesn't sound great.

 

We usually do private guide tours and I have set up a bunch of private guide tours on this trip but again I am drawing a blank on Muroran private guides.

 

Any suggestions for places to visit or private guides to contact would be appreciated.  I am getting discouraged on this city.

 

DON

[tsutt35]

The quickest train trip involves two trains and arround 110 minutes one way. I love Sapporo but it’s a long way to go and not much time there. We cruised to Muroran with Princess last April and I too found very little info. I write a blog on out travels so I’ll put the link to that port below. The title gives away my thoughts on the port. 

 

https://tanyastravelblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/perhaps-a-little-underwhelmed/

 

 

[donaldsc]

2 hours ago, tsutt35 said:

The quickest train trip involves two trains and arround 110 minutes one way. I love Sapporo but it’s a long way to go and not much time there. We cruised to Muroran with Princess last April and I too found very little info. I write a blog on out travels so I’ll put the link to that port below. The title gives away my thoughts on the port. 

 

https://tanyastravelblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/08/perhaps-a-little-underwhelmed/

 

 

 

Sounds like you loved the place (sarcastic!!!).  Maybe I can get a tour of one of their steel mills or cement plants.  Doesn't seem to be much else to do.

 

BTW - I like your style and this is not being sarcastic.

 

DON

Edited January 6, 2019 by donaldsc

[tsutt35]

It really was the least impressive of any of our stops in Japan and I love the country. We are cruising over Xmas this year and have a few ports we haven't been to yet and I am hoping they aren't like this one. Thanks for reading my blog. I have been motivated this afternoon to make it a little more user friendly and am slowing putting the posts into destination categories. 

[loerie]

Interesting how opinions differ-4 of usin Murroran we’re walking down a street looking to buy a teapot and stopped a young lady with a baby who assisted us-we passed a quaint little house and I wanted a photo -it was her Grandama -we were invited inside for tea and had one of the most memorable afternoons of my life -grandparents were really old -spoke no English and still wore traditional clothes.Grandaughter translated and we were fortunate to see Grans collection of the family history written on ancient  scrolls -written in Japaneese characters by brush.We were also shown into a special room where photos of the ancestors were hung up and it as a Holy Shrine with prayers said.The old lady asked our names  and she drew lovely drawings on blank cards and wrote our names in Japanese-the tea ceremony was wonderful and thank good ness my feet were clean as we sat barefoot.When we left there was much bowing etc .

Back on board people were saying it was a boring port -the 4 of us just looked st each other and smiled!You never know what is around the next corner and we have traveled a lot!

[tsutt35]

2 hours ago, loerie said:

Interesting how opinions differ-4 of usin Murroran we’re walking down a street looking to buy a teapot and stopped a young lady with a baby who assisted us-we passed a quaint little house and I wanted a photo -it was her Grandama -we were invited inside for tea and had one of the most memorable afternoons of my life -grandparents were really old -spoke no English and still wore traditional clothes.Grandaughter translated and we were fortunate to see Grans collection of the family history written on ancient  scrolls -written in Japaneese characters by brush.We were also shown into a special room where photos of the ancestors were hung up and it as a Holy Shrine with prayers said.The old lady asked our names  and she drew lovely drawings on blank cards and wrote our names in Japanese-the tea ceremony was wonderful and thank good ness my feet were clean as we sat barefoot.When we left there was much bowing etc .

Back on board people were saying it was a boring port -the 4 of us just looked st each other and smiled!You never know what is around the next corner and we have traveled a lot!

 

That sounds like an amazing experience and definitely makes traveling memorable. Unfortunately Muroran didn’t hold anything like that for us.