Admittedly not the best tourist destination in Japan, the main problem with Narita airport is getting there in the first place - it's about an hour out from Central Tokyo and getting into the city centre can be expensive. I would advise not taking the JR line train but the Keisei line instead ... Read review
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Advantages: Main airport for Japan, helpful staff Disadvantages: Hard to reach, lack of facilities unless you know Japanese
...an hour out from Central Tokyo and getting into the city centre can be expensive. I would advise not taking the JR line train but the Keisei line instead as it's much cheaper (unless you are lucky enough to have a JR pass). Driving or taxi would also be possible I suppose, but there is a toll road and Japan is expensive enough without extravagances!
As for the airport itself, I found it pretty standard. Better facilities than most ... ...arcade of shops and restaurants in the Departure lounge before you check in, naturally they're overpriced and fairly limited in what they sell but what do you expect from an airport? The best one is probably the Convenience store (yep, they're everywhere in Japan!). I wouldn't count on the bookstores for reading material, the English language selection is not particularly wide, though they do stock some US newspapers and magazines (Time, Newsweek ... more
Admittedly not the best tourist destination in Japan, the main problem with Narita airport is getting there in the first place - it's about an hour out from Central Tokyo and getting into the city centre can be expensive. I would advise not taking the JR line train but the Keisei line instead as it's much cheaper (unless you are lucky enough to have a JR pass). Driving or taxi would also be possible I suppose, but there is a toll road and Japan is expensive enough without extravagances!
As for the airport itself, I found it pretty standard. Better facilities than most US airports, but less than Heathrow. There is a small arcade of shops and restaurants in the Departure lounge before you check in, naturally they're overpriced and fairly limited in what they sell but what do you expect from an airport? The best one is probably the Convenience store (yep, they're everywhere in Japan!). I wouldn't count on the bookstores for reading material, the English language selection is not particularly wide, though they do stock some US newspapers and magazines (Time, Newsweek etc).
There are your standard arcade machines, the toilets are typically Japanese clean and high tech and it's not difficult to find your way around even if you don't read Kanji.
The checkout staff have been very helpful to me at least and I've never had any problems - even when trying to go to Australia without a visa and about 50kgs of luggage! They all speak English (to varying degrees but someone is always on hand to interpret if necessary) and the queues to check in move fast and efficiently.
I think they have abolished the airport tax too, or at least included it in most ticket prices as I didn't have to pay anything the last time I was there (the first time it was pretty irritating as I hadn't kept any change to pay the 6000yen).
Advantages: Places to buy food & drink if needed Disadvantages: Untiday, All shops the same, uncomfortable seating... BORING!
I stayed at this aiport for about 6 and a half hours on my way to Australia last year... What a horrible place!
Travelling on my own, and having absolutely no knowledge of Japanese were definitely things against me. Getting from one end of the airport to another was horrible. All the signs are in Japanese, and the ones that do have English are very small and quite complicated. Once I figured out where I was going, I was looking forward to getting ... ...on some comfy seats. Not the case.
There are about 3 shops in the departure lounge I was in... all exactly the same. And one cafe, which had an interesting variety of nuts and other strange things... not what I was after!
There are a few comfortable seating areas... miles away from most of the departure gates. So if you want to wait by your gate, you have to suffer with hard seats. Lovely.
After finishing most of my book because there was nothing ...
marisapotter 19.04.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Tokyo - Narita, Japan (NRT)
Advantages: Bad facilities, ugly, slow....and they are the good things Disadvantages: Bad facilities, ugly, slow, smells.....awful food
I always thought of Japan as a clean, efficient place with great food, good service and attention to detail.... well the obviously forgot about all this when they opened Narita International airport, granted I have only once used this airport in going to Japan and all other times used it in transit to the USA but now a days when I'm asked how I'd like to fly to the USA I always ask, "which route avoids Narita". The stop over for flights to and from ... ...any person who enjoys the small things at airports, like half decent food then this is about 3 hours too long. First you have to get into the transit lounge which can take up to 30 minutes to clear the security gates, then you shuffle past the smoking room which leaks so badly that they might as well not bother having one and just say "smoke in the entry area", the food served in the transit area is foul, I LOVE Japanese food and what they serve ...
khunKwai 27.06.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Tokyo - Narita, Japan (NRT)
