Traveling to and from Narita is not always fun. The airport is in Chiba outside of Tokyo and it takes just under ninety minutes to get there. If you are traveling directly to Tokyo you will either be landing at Narita Airport or Haneda Airport. When booking my flight to Tokyo I found that it was cheaper to fly to Narita and so I opted for that. There are various options for getting from the airport into Tokyo and vice versa. All of these options vary in price as well as availability as there are no twenty-four hour options apart from taxis which are very expensive. If your flight is scheduled at a decent time taking the train is a convenient and well-priced option. However things become a bit more difficult to plan around if you have an early morning departure. Luckily there is an excellent new option available called the Tokyo Shuttle Bus. This bus runs between Tokyo Station and Narita Airport.
On one occasion I had booked a discount flight with a low-cost airline to travel within Japan. The catch with these cheaper flights is they depart early in the morning. This means there are no trains that run early enough to get you to the airport in time. After stressing about how I was going to catch my flight I did a bit of research and found out about the Tokyo Shuttle Bus.
There are several late night buses: 01:30, 01:50 and 02:10 (see the latest timetable). I arrived at the station just before 01:30 and had to stand in a long queue of people all hoping to get a seat on the bus. We were separated into two queues: those with reservations and those without. Once all the people with tickets were seated they calculated how many leftover seats there were. Unfortunately due to my late arrival I did not make the cut. Luckily I only had to wait a short while for the next bus.
If you have not reserved you have to pay 1,000 yen to the bus driver – but an early booking discount can save you 100 yen. These buses are enormously helpful if you have missed the last train to Narita Airport which is what happened to me. Tickets can be booked online however that part of the website is in Japanese only. If you cannot read Japanese you will have to take a chance with Google Translate or take a chance at the bus station. Either way the Tokyo Shuttle Bus is a great option to have.
