Logistics for Worldcon 2007

[fivemack]

I've got a membership for the Yokohama Worldcon, and am starting to wonder what else I need.

The flights seem to be either £600 on the hopefully-not-bankrupt-by-then Alitalia changing in Milan, or £500 on Aeroflot changing in Moscow (bringing with that all the delights of Russian transit visas); I suppose that's unavoidable since Japan is relatively distant and aviation fuel relatively costly. I've tried being flexible about mid-week departures and returns but it doesn't seem to reduce the cost; I presume NRT is the right airport.

There's obviously no point going to Japan for a five-day con; I'd plan to take a fortnight or so, so would be interested to know if people going are tending to take their extra time pre-con or post-con ... I'm sure there are likely to be fannish trips to places like the Tokyo Science Museum. I'm completely decision-paralysed by the long list of hotels on the con website, and so would like to appeal to people I know who are going to tell me which hotel they're in and I'll aim to use that one.

I get the impression Yokohama may not be the right place to stay for touristing in the Tokyo region: would it make more sense to book the central nights of the con in the con hotel (anyone prepared to share a room? five nights at the £120/night single-room rate is a lot more than I'm comfortable with, I can provide references that I'm not an axe-murderer) and get a travel-agent in England to book me a cheap hotel somewhere in the metro area for the rest of the fortnight?

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

If you have the time, have you considered the Trans-Siberian Railway?

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

A number of my friends are thinking of that, but it does add another week to the trip even if you go straight through, there's a rather fiddly bit of scheduling to get the weekly Vladivostok-to-Niigata ferry at the end, and it would seem silly to take the trans-Siberian and not spend a few days in Moscow at the beginning, a few days in Irkutsk and by Lake Baikal in the middle, and maybe even a few days in Vladivostok at the end (see rezendi's log of a trip on the Trans-Siberian recently).

Also, I'd feel distinctly hypocritical spending much time in Putin's Russia, even in transit, after vowing for regime-related reasons not to visit Bush's America, even in transit.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Some of us put some effort into this concept. It takes two weeks and that's if you make the ferry connection at Vladivostok. Also it costs twice as much as the plane to get from London to Tokyo by train. Also you actually have to stay a night in Moscow (more money for Putin) to get a transit visa.

Also there is only so much bridge that you can play.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

NRT (Tokyo Narita) is indeed the correct airport. From there, you can catch the Narita Express train (hourly or half-hourly, depending on time of day) from the airport to Yokohama via Tokyo. (It appears that the train goes to Tokyo, then divides, with one section continuing on to Yokohama; however, the signage is said to be obvious and written in both Japanese and English.) From the station, it's either a taxi ride or two stops on a local metro to the Pacifico Yokohama (convention centre) area.

I just booked my travel from the US west coast by spending 180,000 frequent-flyer miles for two business class seats for myself and my wife; unfortunately, as the airline only allocated one business class seat per day on the direct flights, we get the joys of flying Portland-Seattle-Honolulu-Tokyo Narita in order to be on flights that had the available seats.

We're planning on staying three weeks total -- the first and last days of our stay will be the first and last days of the 21-day Japan Rail pass we plan to get -- but planning our own trip rather than joining some package tour. We also are only staying in the con hotel for the days around the con, and will stay elsewhere (arrangements pending) for the rest of the trip.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

There's an airline supposedly starting cheap flights to Hong Kong next month (see here, and presumably you could then book a separate flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo -- possibly cheaper?