Shore tours in Japan??

[bazzaw]

There are many ports in Japan - and I know that in other places in the World it is often necessary to get away from the port to see anything worth experiencing. I was disappointed in Hawaii - obviously had the wrong idea about the islands and found that it was indeed necessary to take shore tours in most of the ports there. So - how about Japan?? Are we going to have to take a tour at all ports? We don't know a great deal about Japan and really only want to see people, culture and food,  nature and gardens also high on the list. Any advice please?

[monkey@cruise]

9 hours ago, bazzaw said:

There are many ports in Japan - and I know that in other places in the World it is often necessary to get away from the port to see anything worth experiencing. I was disappointed in Hawaii - obviously had the wrong idea about the islands and found that it was indeed necessary to take shore tours in most of the ports there. So - how about Japan?? Are we going to have to take a tour at all ports? We don't know a great deal about Japan and really only want to see people, culture and food,  nature and gardens also high on the list. Any advice please?

if you willing to use public transportation, most Japan ports can DIY. There are lots of Japan travel  information on Web and Youtube. 

[Halehuaka_i]

We went on the Diamond Princess Spring Flowers sailing in late April.
 

We booked two tours through the ship. One was a one hour bus ride to the the samurai village that we wanted to visit. Unfortunately we had to wait for one person (who was a no show!), which forced us to rush at a couple of stops. The other was at the port of Busan, which we had no idea where to go and what to see. The port at Busan was under construction, so walking away wasn’t feasible. The tour was pretty boring, a stop at a museum, then at the Lotte Mall! We separated from the tour at this point and walked around the fish market area, then found several buses for cruise passengers to return to the ship.

For the rest of the ports, we walked wherever possible, and took cabs where available.

Do your research and you will find lots of info on your ports. Most street signs and train station signs are western lettered. Most cab drivers we met did not speak English, but we told them our destination and it worked out fine.

[lucymorgan]

We cruise with my elderly mother and it was very easy to catch cabs everywhere.  The cab drivers are very courteous, but most do not speak English.  The solution to this is to make sure you get a map for each port as soon as you get off the ship (they all have them) and/or that you know how to use google maps.  With google maps if you search for the places you want to go, and zoom in the names of the places will show up in Japanese which can be shown to the driver.  The cabs are old style but very very clean and very reasonably priced.  The driver will wait for you too at your destination for a reasonable price if you are at all concerned about getting back.  It is is well worth researching the ports as many can be done using public transport too.  Google translate or similar might also be useful.