Kyoto Rail Tour by Bullet Train from Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan

If your time in Japan is limited and you don't want to miss the sights of Kyoto, zoom there and back by Bullet train on this comprehensive one-day rail tour from Tokyo. Weather permitting, you'll have splendid views of Mt Fuji from the Shinkansen Bullet train en route. Escorted by a professional guide, you'll embark on an afternoon city tour of Kyoto and enjoy local lunch before returning to Tokyo.

After lunch at the New Miyako Hotel, you'll enjoy an afternoon of sightseeing in the beautiful traditional city of Kyoto. You'll visit the Buddhist Sanjusangendo Hall with its 1,001 impressive images of Buddha, the vermilion-hued Heian Shinto shrine and the Kiyomizu Buddhist temple, with its wooden veranda.

In the early evening you'll board a Shinkansen Bullet train back to Tokyo to spend the evening in the capital.

USD $500.93

Review by: Jo-anne Q	May 2012
Service was outstanding, excellent, knowledgeable staff, excellent food. I cannot think of anything that could have been improved

Review by: Lisa J	April 2012
Excellent day out. The three of us were well looked after at every stage of the tour, could not praise the tour guides enough and would like to arrange further tours in this region in the future.

Review by: Willard L	April 2012
A great introduction to Kyoto and the high speed rail system. It was a long day, but well worth it!

Review by: Myra S	January 2012
The tour was the best I have ever been on. Everything and everyone involved made this a most memorable experience. If you are in Japan DO NOT miss this tour.

Review by: Paul S	December 2011
Very enjoyable day. Bullet train to and from Kyoto was a great experience. Guide in Kyoto was excellent and the three sites on our tour agenda were interesting and beautiful.

Review by: rich	October 2011
The tour was excellent. Everything went as planned and exactly on time. The guides were friendly and very helpful. The lunch was superb. Kyoto was very nice. The unexpected view of Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen (Bullet) train was an added treat.

Review by: Susan B	October 2011
This was a very good tour. The staff were incredibly thoughtful and helpful.

Review by: Pamela D	October 2011
Fantastic! We were met at each leg of the trip by a friendly guide who spoke English (as advertised), and helped us understand what we were seeing, and what we needed to do next. The bus guide to the temples was excellent! (would give it 5 stars if we could have had a few more minutes at each stop, and if there was a choice for lunch other than the hotel buffet...)

Review by: tatsuzakius	June 2011
the experience for the ride in bullet train was great!!! our guide in Kyoto was great too, he was very funny and gave us a lot of information about all those gorgeous temples. the only thing was the lunch .....we prefer Japanese traditional food, instead of western style lunch. it was disappointing that we couldn't try the famous Kyoto tempura.

Review by: Alexander	March 2011
Train ride was perfect, time in Kyoto too short, should skip lunch and do more touring.

Review by: Sridhar	February 2011
Well , This is the first time we have used Viator.com services. I must say , It was very good exp . The guide were friendly and helpful , the visit to Kyoto was well oragnised and the overall exp was great. I will recommend Viator

Review by: Beh d	November 2010
Very well organized and very efficient. If you need to do a day-trip from Tokyo to Kyoto, I'm pretty sure this is the best way. Though I will need to visit Kyoto again and spend more time, since 1 day is only a tasting for this city. Lunch was excellent, better than I had expected though, I would have preferred Japanese cuisine rather than western cuisine to complete the experience. Our tour guides in Tokyo (who dropped us off at Shinkansen/train station) and at Kyoto, were both superb. I visited during November-end, and the fall colors were emerging in Kyoto as well. So basically the tour exceeded my expectations. If you need to do a 1-day trip from Tokyo to Kyoto, I can't imagine a better option.

Review by: Jenny B	October 2010
I was thrilled to be able to visit Kyoto and see such a beautiful city. The temples and shrine that were selected were stunning. However, I had believed that we would be doing more than seeing three locations in nearly a full day tour. An hour and a half was wasted allocated for eating a lunch buffet. There was a great deal of time also shuffling about in the morning between the multiple hotel pick ups and coordinating at the central bus station, and then going to the rail station. It was after 1:30 by the time the tour even began. I found out that the same tour company offered a different one-day kyoto tour - that not only was cheaper but began earlier and returned later, visiting a LOT more locations. This was done by delivering the bullet train tickets directly to the hotel and leaving it up to the visitor to take the bullet train instead of wasting three hours of the morning being shuttled about. I wish I could have gone on that tour instead and spent more time in Kyoto, but that one was not advertised online.

Review by: Paul K	October 2010
Trip efficiently organised and everything ran on time. Bullet train great. Tour of Kyoto disappointing. Not long enough at the different stops.

Review by: MYSHEL G	October 2010
We met awfully nice people on this trip. The tour guide was extremely funny with lots of information. We had a great time. After a long day trip like this, it was nice to have a private taxi to us back to the hotel.

Review by: Hatem Z	October 2010
Tour was compact, timely; tour guide was excellent with clear English. We loved the international lunch buffet. If you can afford to pay for bullet train 1st class tickets (green cars) it will be a very good choice. Down turn very little time to spend in a nice area like this, if you can spend more than 2 days (do it). Still it was very good for me and my wife because we did not have time. Good value for money in expensive country like Japan

Review by: Guenter K	October 2010
If you do not have more time than one day then it is perfect. I would just only skip lunch and add one or two more places to see.

Review by: Carol L D	October 2010
Disappointing--didn't see the most well-known sites in Kyoto and felt like it wasn't worth the cost. The last stop--hike up the mountain was too arduous for several of us on the tour and there was no indication of that in the description.

Review by: Karin R	August 2010
If you only have one day to get to Kyoto from Tokyo, this is a great way to go. Unfortunately, Kyoto really needs more than the half day you get there.

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	July 2010
great tour if you have limited time to visit kyoto. very well organized from tokyo to kyoto.

Review by: Claudia B	July 2010
Well organized however, I think that we can take the train earlier and have more time to visit on more temple in Kyoto.

Review by: Anonymous, United Kingdom	June 2010
If you have limited time and don't want to miss Kyoto, this is a great day out.

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	May 2010
Good compact trip. Excellent lunch at the New Myako hotel. Very nice and dedicated tour staff.

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	May 2010
The place they chose for lunch in Kyoto was terrible.

Review by: Vladimir S, United States of America	May 2010
Riding on Na bullet train was a wonderful experience. As for the tour in Kyoto, it was far below my expectations. Hospitality was perfect but it was too overcrowded, they combined people from different tours into one bus and the guide was very nice but with poor English.

Review by: Alison L, United States of America	May 2010
Very well organized. If you only have one day to see Kyoto from Tokyo, I highly recommend this trip.

Review by: VLADIMIR S	May 2010
Riding on Na bullet train was a wonderful experience. As for the tour in Kyoto, it was far below my expectations. Hospitality was perfect but it was too overcrowded, they combined people from different tours into one bus and the guide was very nice but with poor English.

Review by: Leslie Z, United States of America	March 2010
This was our first day in Japan and we could not have been more pleased with the tour we took with viator. It was extremely well organized, the tour guide was lovely and the selected sites were most impressive. My only less than positive comment would be about the buffet lunch served at the hotel before the tour started. It was fine, but it wasn't exactly a highlight of our trip.

Review by: Tara S	February 2010
Overall, it was great to see Kyoto and the various temples and shrines. There was just not enough time to see the sites thoroughly. Train ride was very smooth. Lunch was wonderful. Drop-off was a diaster as we were taken to the wrong hotel and made to walk across the city at night to get to our correct hotel.

Review by: Donald H, United States of America	January 2010
A very interesting city! A great tour guide, and we consider the time and money spent for this tour well worth it!

Review by: DONALD H	January 2010
A very interesting city! A great tour guide, and we consider the time and money spent for this tour well worth it!

Review by: ELENA S	November 2009
Time should be optimized. Lost many hours. Tour was too short.

Review by: Anonymous	November 2009
The tour was very good and well organized. However, the tour guide in Kyoto was not good at all. She was not an energetic person, did not have a good microphone and her English was barely understandable. We missed about 90% of her explanations! For such an expensive tour, the tour guide was a real dissapointment.

Review by: Jose Mari A, Philippines	September 2009
It's a good tour, specially if you're on a limited time and your base is in Tokyo. Kyoto had a special character as compared to Tokyo, so it was very good experience seeing the best of both worlds! The price is quite exorbitant considering the little time, they can improve on the lunch part should have been Japanese. overall, if you want to see a glimpse of Kyoto just as an added spice to your Japanese experience, take this! The Kiyumizu temple is worth looking at even just for a brief time.

Review by: Rolando R, Thailand	June 2009
Great experience if you don't have more time to stay in Kyoto.

Review by: Gila R, Israel	April 2009
Superb guide excellent English, lots of information, the train was amazing, lunch could have been shorter, was very good but we could have seen another sight. Cherry blossoms were amazing!! So much to see in Kyoto!

Review by: Sharon M, Israel	April 2009
We chose this tour as we had just one day to see Kyoto and we were delighted with our choice. The pick-up and transfer to the train were on time and so well organized, the views of Mt Fuji from the train were spectacular. On arriving in Kyoto we were met by a guide and taken for a fantastic lunch at the hotel right across the road from the station. The tour itself was wonderful, although a bit rushed due to the short time available, but we saw the highlights and loved it all. The guide was excellent. All in all we highly recommend this tour for anyone short on time - definitely worth doing despite the high price.

Review by: Stephen C, Australia	October 2008
We really loved the trip...What a blast!

Review by: Ruth C, United States of America	April 2008
Worth doing if you have very little time in Kyoto, like me. Otherwise, it's a long day and a lot of money to get a tiny sampling of a wonderful city.

Review by: Bernard C, United Kingdom	November 2007
Long day for a holiday trip.

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	August 2007
I thought every aspect of the day was excellent! I just wish I had planned for more time in Kyoto, like several days!

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	August 2007
We loved the train ride in first class. Very relaxing and a treat. Lunch buffet was wonderful. Only advice - don't book the trip for the hottest and most humid week of the year in August which made it hard to concentrate on the beautiful sights. Guide was very nice and informative as we drove around the city.

Review by: Kathleen R, United States of America	July 2007
I enjoyed the bullet train, but an afternoon tour is just not enough time to truly enjoy Kyoto. The places we went were lovely. I just wish I had more time there.