Uraga Ferry

"For English speakers, this is a ferry port that will take you from Yokosuka to Shinmoji, which is North Eastern part of Kyushu near Kitakyushu. The ferry takes about 21 hours to get from one port to another. It is an kvernight trip and it'll be your day of travel. It is very convenient and I highly recommend it.

In Yokosuka, you'll need to get your car there 90 mins before, you can wait in the terminal which is pretty big and nice.

On the ship not a lot of English translations are available so be aware. All the announcements are in Japanese and no English translation, but they are mostly notifying you of when the kitchen for the restaurant is open or close. The most important thing is when you are offloading. About 10 mins before docking, you can go down to your car to start loading and get ready to disembark the ferry.

If you are taking a car on the ferry, only the driver can drive in. The rest of your party will need to go through the passenger entrance with others without the vehicle. However, when leaving, everyone can go to the vehicle. Very easy and quick to get off the boat.

The restaurant on the ship is nice. They serve Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. All can be ordered through the tablet at the table but it is in Japanese, no English option. Also only open at hour during the meal times. If not at the restaurant they do have snacks at their shops or cup noodle vending machines are available as well. For one of the meals, we brought our own cup of noodles and just needed the hot water, which is readily available next to the vending machines.

During lunch time only, they do have a Japanese BBQ option where you can sit out on a separate deck to grill your food and enjoy the outside.

They also have a movie theater where they show movies in Japanese but if it is a Hollywood film, it'll be a Japanese sub.

One of the unique things about the ferry is they have public baths and saunas. There are three different ones and one is outside where you can enjoy the view while relaxing in the bath.

Worth the cost to get the state room it comes with two beds and pull out couches for two additional beds on the ground. Remember this is a Japanese couch and bed so it's a lot harder. Despite the comfort, it is still a lot more comfortable travelling this way. The state room also comes with its own bathroom with shower.

There is also a small kids playroom. Not the biggest or greatest but at least an area where kids can run around a little bit.

Your ticket serves as your key to your room. Very convenient and clever use of QR code as room key.

Overall, one relaxing way to travel from the Tokyo area to Kyushu especially if you want to take your own vehicle to travel around. Highly recommend even if you can be a little lost in translation."

Jonathan Kim

"Overall a pretty good experience. The rooms were nice and included two beds two folding beds, TV, refrigerator, private shower and toilet. One thing I disliked about the rooms was the mattresses were extremely hard. Had a hard time sleeping. Additionally, I wish they had a little bit more Western style menu for breakfast and lunch like omelette or scrambled eggs for breakfast and sandwich or hamburgers for lunch. Dinner and lunch seemed too similar. I would recommend this as an alternative way to travel and I do plan to use this ferry in the future."

Japan Experience

"Very clean and well maintained terminal / ferry. When you bring your car, the passenger(s) gets a separate ticket to enter via 3rd floor of the ferry terminal. Only the driver can bring the car to the inside of the ferry."

J P