Tokyo is a fantastic city. So much to see and do and can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t have a good idea of what you want to do. Not planning can lead to a day in Tokyo which is not really how you want to end your holiday.
Coming to the end of our 3 weeks in Japan, we had enjoyed an amazing trip with so many new experiences. Three huge days at Disneyland and Disney Sea, during the middle of one of the biggest Golden Weeks in Japanese history, meant we were tired and not at our best.
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Mistake number one: Luggage
We wanted to send our bags to the Airport from the hotel just as we had sent them from the Airport to the hotel when we arrived. This was one of the best things we did on the trip and can’t recommend it highly enough.
From the Airport it was so simple. Walk out of the airport, go to luggage forwarding. Fill in the form. Pay money. Bag goes to the hotel. You are free!!!!!
We understood that our hotel would help you send it the other way. During Golden week our hotel was too busy to do this and we were told that we would have to ship the bag 2 days before we were to fly out. Not really practical when we still had activities to do requiring clothes.
This resulted in parents carrying all the bags to the station as the children were suddenly incapable. Then, spending hours investigating any possible locker option at train stations/ bus stations which were all full because we hadn’t jumped up at the crack of dawn to check out early.
Mistake number two: Not staying at the airport
Realising there were no lockers available between the city and the airport we decided to cut our losses and head straight to Haneda airport. We hoped to find a locker there.
After the busyness of Tokyo station and the frustration of nowhere to put our bags, Haneda Airport was a sanctuary of calm. It was quiet, peaceful and had hardly anyone there.
We didn’t see any lockers but what we did see was the ANA check-in which allowed us to drop our bags and check-in for our flight about 10 hours early. We celebrated with a trip to the 7 eleven, one of our favourite places for snacks including a refreshing alcoholic pineapple juice for me.
At 12pm we were finally able to start our last day exploring Tokyo. We found the JR Line and headed straight to Shibuya to get photos and videos of the busiest crossing in the world.
Mistake number 3: Not having Lunch at the airport
You would think by now that we would know that as a family we get a bit “HANGRY” when we don’t have lunch at a reasonable hour. It is not like we haven’t just spent 3 weeks together 24/7 and known our children for 8 and 6 years at this stage.
Instead of finding lunch straight away at a nice Japanese style noodle house or somewhere sensible we thought,”I know let’s go to Starbucks next to Shibuya crossing to get a snack”. Not only was the crossing busy, but the Starbucks was also busy with no place to sit and a queue heading down 2 floors to get food.
So after squeezing in to take a few photos “because we are here now” we didn’t get lunch somewhere else. We instead decided to take the girls back to the five-story, super narrow, Disney store around the corner to have a “look”. Because we promised and “we are so close now”. Not a good combination when the Hangries are setting in.
At 2 pm, when everyone is starving, Mcdonalds seemed like a good idea. “But let’s not go to the one nearby. Let’s use google maps again to find one away from all the people”
The crowds were not thinning, but we persevered. We finally found the Mcdonalds, on one of the most crowded streets we had seen in our entire trip. Despite its 4 floors, it had not one free table
one of the busiest streets we found in Japan 
the crowds around Mcdonalds
Eating very bad fast food, outside, almost sitting in the gutter we thought “we are the most ridiculous tourists ever”.
Now we were completely over the crowds and wanted the quiet sanctuary of the airport again. We fought our way around the mayhem and found the alternate route to the train station. This had an amazing view of the Shibuya Crossing without all the masses. We were able to watch the almost hypnotic surging of people from a safe distance
Mistake number 4: not making a plan at the airport
There are a lot of things to do at Haneda airport. Once we went through security there were lots of Photo ops with the Japanese speciality ( pictures with space for your head) and beautiful seats with Wisteria draped around.
Then upstairs there was a Cool zone that had some shops, a fun photo booth and the planetarium Café. On the other side was the Hot zone. It included slot cars, more shops and its biggest selling point a big Hello Kitty Store. In between both these zones is an outdoor flight viewing balcony which was fascinating.
All of these activities take up time and when you haven’t made a plan you can easily run out of time for important things like dinner. We were hoping to have our dinner in a restaurant in the recreated EDO era streetscape but when we decided to look it was late and it was very busy and we weren’t able to make a decision so basically ended up getting Yoshinoya ( a fast-food noodle place we had missed during the trip).
Racing to the gate after gulping down our food we discovered, early boarding for children was restricted to under 2 years of age at Haneda.
The flight back was uneventful with more super cute food for the kids but we couldn’t appreciate it we were just looking forward to getting home.
One of our better decisions was planning on 2 full days at home before returning to school and work.
How we could have improved our last day
-Not travelled during golden week
We planned our trip around the Cherry Blossoms and Australian School holidays. We initially planned to travel with friends so the organisation was a lot more impulsive than for previous trips. When they were not able to attend we still wanted to go and so booked it in without double and triple-checking when Golden week was.
-Organised to transport our luggage from the start
Luggage transport was a good idea and we thought we had researched and knew of a few companies. It was so easy at the airport we thought it would be easy the opposite direction too. Apparently, we could have gone directly to the office of the transport company or there was a phone line ( English) to call. The main company is Yamato and there are a few options available listed on the airport website
-Planned our meals out a bit better
With preplanning or a different part of town it would have been easier to find a local restaurant for lunch.
-Not choose one of the busiest places to go on the last day
Tokyo has so many options it would have been better to go to a relaxing garden or playground. We could have let the kids run around and burn off energy and not had to negotiate the crowds.
Overall we had a wonderful trip to Japan. Although the last day felt terrible it hasn’t reduced how much we enjoyed the rest of our time in Japan.
Have any of you had a day at the end of the trip where everything felt like it was the wrong thing to do? I would love to hear from you please comment below or send me an email. Do you have any other tips to improve the last day of a trip to Japan or anywhere else for that matter?
Great post, and I can relate to not planning the best last day in Japan. I travelled for most of my last day, from Hiroshima to Tokyo airport (sitting on trains) and then got on the long flight home (sitting on a plane). It was a very long travel day and night. But it sounds like your last day didn’t ruin your overall enjoyment of Japan. Such a fantastic destination!