Hokuriku One Way Ticket

We bought two tickets: Tokyo - Kanazawa and Kanazawa - Kyoto. The service in front was very supportive, but the tickets turned out to contain errors. The arrival time in Kanazawa was earlier than announced and we missed the train stop. The ticket to Kioto was for a train that did not leave at the time on the ticket. We solved both problems, but it did not feel good.

Good and clean trains but ... 30 minutes ofcl delay ...

Taking the physical tickets from the green vending machines could have been a hard task but there was a kind worker for helping us. Thank you!

The train ride from Kyoto to Kanazawa? Absolutely lovely. Smooth, clean, and everything you’d expect from Japan Rail. But the booking process? A masterclass in confusion. We booked online for three people and received a QR code with a specific departure time. Great, we thought seats secured, all set. We did know we had to print the ticket at the station. That part was explained. What wasn’t explained or at least not clearly enough was that seat reservations weren’t just optional extras. They were mandatory. As in: no reservation, no ride. Apparently, all cars on that train were reserved seating only. But nowhere did it say, hey, by the way, you must reserve a seat to actually board this train. So when we showed up at the station about 15 minutes before departure, our train had already disappeared from the machine’s options. Poof. Gone. No seats, no access, no chance. We ended up missing our original train and had to take a later one with available seats. Not ideal when traveling on a schedule or when you thought you’d already booked everything properly. JR West, your trains are five-star. Your booking system? A riddle wrapped in a QR code. A simple line like seat reservation required to board would’ve saved us a lot of stress. Just saying.

Bad information on the web. The direct train from Kanazawa to Kyoto we bought was not existing. We need to make a transfer to Tsuruga. Easy to recuperate but long waiting time at JR desk at Kanazawa station but good price.

The instructions to obtain our tickets at Kyoto Station was confusing. We went to the green machines and got our ticket and then went to board the train but we were told we needed to have seat reservations for two trains! We then went to queue in the ticket office and it took a very long time to obtain our seat reservations. The instructions from 12GO were not clear, we were not even aware that we would have two train journeys! Let alone the requirement to get seat reservations. 12Go has been very good except for this journey.

Excellent hotel

The information which I received from 12go Asia didn’t indicate at all that I had to change the train in Tsuruga. This was a bad surprise. The ride itself was okay what you expect with JR.

driver took us to all the right places.