EVA 500 JR Pass?

[Sascha]

I was wondering if I would be able to use my  JR Pass on the EVA. I want to take it from Osaka when I visit Hiroshima.And I would also like to know, how far in advance do you have to reserve a Shinkansen, since I'm  not planing on spending a night in Hiroshima.

[katoftw]

What type of JR pass?

[Themetropolitainline]

Are you talking about the JR rail pass that you obtain online before you travel to japan and then pick up at the station when you arrive and they last either 7 or 14 days?I had a green japan rail pass on my holiday and i think you can use them on anything train/rail related and i had no trouble boarding shinkansens for which i travelled on one almost everyday while i was in japan. Hope this helps

[Suica]

You can use either the Japan Rail Pass or the JR West Sanyo-San'in Area Pass.

 

Reserve your train tickets as early as possible though. I wanted to ride the EVA 500 from Hakata. But as it leaves early in the morning it seems to be popular with commuters, so I wasn't able to get any seat reservation whatsoever. I was able to reserve it from Tokuyama though.

I simply took the Hikari Rail Star from Hakata to Tokuyama. Riding two 'rare' Shinkansen isn't bad either.

 

Sure, I could've tried to get a non-reserved seat but I really don't like those. IMO they're especially bad on the 500 series.

 

Tokuyama Station is pretty good for taking photos too.

 

 

[Sascha]

Sorry. I wast talking about the 7 day pass. How far in advance can I make a reservation?

[Themetropolitainline]

buy yourself the green rail pass, its not that much more money wise but you get to ride in the green cars which means you will almost all of the times find a seat.its only the other cars that get packed, this way you wont need to book in advance. 

[Suica]

You should be able to reserve seats as soon as you've got your JR Pass, as you'll have to show it at the ticket office when reserving seats.

 

The EVA 500 does not have a green car. The former green car now serves as the reserved seat car.

Plus JR West doesn't offer a specific green class pass.

JR West Shinkansen have some of the best standard reserved seats anyway.

Just take a Sakura or Mizuho N700-7000/8000. These have  a great 2+2 seat arrangement.

[katoftw]

Sorry. I wast talking about the 7 day pass. How far in advance can I make a reservation?

Again there are a few 7 day JR passes.  Either way, if you have a pass that allows you to reserve a seat, then you can do it at 10am at one month before the day you wanna travel in advance.

[Suica]

 Either way, if you have a pass that allows you to reserve a seat, then you can do it at 10am at one month before the day you wanna travel in advance.

Given that you're already holding on to your pass at the moment of reservation of course.

[Sascha]

It's the 7 regular all Japan railpass. I will stay in Tokyo for 6 days and than go to Kyoto 6 days with a trip to Osaka/Hiroshima and Nara, than back to Narita.

[Sascha]

I'll get the pass as soon as it is available on the 8th this month, since I'll need it April 8th till 14th.

[katoftw]

So the day you arrive, you can swap your transfer order for your pass and select the validity date to begin at your liking, up to one month in advance.  So either select the day before traveling to Kyoto or the day of travelling to begin validity.  Sine you only need it for 6 days.

 

Once you have your pass, even though the validity period has not begun yet, you can still reserve seats on trains within the validity period of the pass.

Edited January 2, 2017 by katoftw

[katoftw]

You already have paid for and received your transfer order?

Edited January 2, 2017 by katoftw

[Yavianice]

I did the same thing, exchanged the JR pass at the airport without "starting" it, and then reserving all the joyful trains I planned to take at the exchange office. I never had the issue of not being able to reserve for a particular train. Note that you can also reserve some trains online nowadays such as on JR websites such as this https://www.eki-net.com/pc/jreast-shinkansen-reservation/English/wb/common/Menu/Menu.aspx but unfortunately only Shinkansen from Tokyo to the north can be reserved here.

 

 

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Edited January 2, 2017 by Yavianice

[Suica]

I did the same thing, exchanged the JR pass at the airport without "starting" it, and then reserving all the joyful trains I planned to take at the exchange office. I never had the issue of not being able to reserve for a particular train.

 

Same. But I only had problems with the EVA 500 and the Super Azusa (from Shinjuku).

[JR 500系]

Same. I swapped the pass and immediately booked my shinkansen trips for the day and tomorrow. I had problems with the Sakura.. especially the morning ones around 0800-1000... I was carrying the Green pass and couldn't even manage to book any reserved seats, much less the green car seats as the Green car is only half of car 6, something like 30 seats or so? I could only take the unreserved seats... 

 

Another thing that I did was to pre-planned all the trains, including the joyful trains... I then printed our the train schedules with date, time and service number I needed to reserve on small slips of paper in Japanese, and handed them over to the counter, which makes it easy and no problems with language issues...

 

They look somewhat like this:

 

新幹線さくら 544号, 博多駅から, 神戸駅へ, 09：43午前出発, 12:10に到着, 二つグリーン車の座席お願い致します (N700系)

 

 

This was easily interpreted by the counter staff and mostly I didn't have any issues with booking the train tickets, except for the Yufuin no mori. Allow me to share my little problem when i was in Japan in 2015...

 

I realized that due to different agencies, I was trying to book the Yufuin no mori from a JR East counter at Shinjuku station, which the staff had many problems... She searched from the computer system and even took out the JR Kyushu train time table (I saw the cover) and asked her staff (which I supposed is her senior) and they were finding it a hard time... eventually they told me the train was fully booked...

 

Saddened, I thought I would never be able to ride the Yufuin no mori, and I had give up on riding it. When we were back in Osaka, the Mrs said, why don't you try to book again? I tried booking again at the counter at Kyobashi station and guess what, I managed to book the Yufuin! I don't know if it was because the staff was not familiar in Shinjuku, or could it be that someone cancelled their booking on the Yufuin..

[Suica]

I usually work with printouts from Hyperdia or simply use the app and show it to the ticket office staff. I booked my Yufuin no Mori at Kyoto Station so I don't know if JR East got any problems with JR Kyushu trains.

However you gotta be careful when your desired train is fully booked and the ticket office staff books you on a later train. This got me booked on a regular Azusa instead of the Super Azusa I desired.

[Sascha]

You already have paid for and received your transfer order?

I haven't paid for it yet. I have to wait till the 8th to buy it, since you can only order 3 month in advance. Thanks for all the tips. This will be a fun vacation.

[Yavianice]

I always plan my trip with hyperdia on my phone and then show it to the person behind the counter of the JR tickets/reservations booth, telling them I want to reserve the exact connections/trains as displayed on the screen. I never had issues getting the wrong train or whatever, and I booked trips for Hokkaido or Kyushu while in Tokyo, or even smaller stations where I thought "not sure if they make reservations for this train here". As long as it's a JR station, and there is a person with a ticket machine, it works as far as I know.

 

 

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