Booking a hotel in advance

[puargs]

Heyhey, it's been a while since I've posted. Lurker extraordinaire for years ;D

I'll be bringing my (soon to be) wife over for our honeymoon to see the sights. JR Rail pass, tour all the major cities, the usual. About 10 days.

I used to roll around as a student by just finding somewhere at random, finding a hostel, capsule hotel, friend's house, etc. I have never reserved a room in advance. Obviously that's not going to fly for a honeymoon.

My question is - anyone have any recommendations for planning reservations in advance? There are a few good English services out there with Nihon participation (expedia, etc), but I haven't used them. I ask because I recently booked a cross-country trip in the U.S. and that was difficult enough with the cancellations/mistakes made by the online service.

Anyone had any good experiences with any booking on the cheap? Note I was completely fluent in Japanese 4 years ago, but haven't been using it since - I can certainly wade my way through a Japanese booking site if necessary, but I'd rather not if it's all the same.

[Typhoon]

Toyoko Inn has an English language website:

http://www.toyoko-inn.com/eng/index.html

They have inexpensive well-maintained hotels all over Japan typically a few minutes walk from a train station.

A similar hotel chain: WMT

http://www.wmt.co.jp/en/

Rakuten Travel is another English option:

http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/en/

as is

Asia Rooms: http://www.asianrooms.com

[puargs]

Awesome thanks

Also I'm not sure about bringing my wife to that last link ;D

[Typhoon]

[quote="puargs"]Awesome thanks

Also I'm not sure about bringing my wife to that last link ]

Serves me right for typing in the url by, uh, hand.

Asia Rooms:

http://www.asiarooms.com/

____

Inexpensive ryokan in Tokyo: http://www.kangetsu.com/sub7.htm

[CrankyBastard]

http://www.japanican.com/index.aspx

Japanican has some reasonable prices.

[Kuang_Grade]

http://www.tokyuhotelsjapan.com/en/index.html

Tokyu has gotten alot of my cash in the past and I've been happy with my stays at their various properties....And they have some really nice if somewhat expensive locations and some extremely reasonable, if a tad overly plain and functional locations here at

http://www.tokyustay.co.jp/e/

While some tokyu stay locations might be a not as super convenient as others (the shibuya one is a good 10-15 minute walk to the JR station) the prices are quite low and they do have a washer/dryer in the room, which is extremely handy if you are traveling for more than a week or so

[GomiGirl]

I would also suggest some honeymoon fun under the futons at an inaka ryokan/onsen.

Japanese Guest Houses - ryokan booking service - Japan wide

Try this site - search, select and book everything on-line for free and in English. Lots of photos of all the places plus the prices and maps etc. Then when you get there, just pay the inn bill as usual. Best advice though is to reserve or make inquiries well in advance as they are not that fast on their replies. But when it is a free service you can't really complain.

What I often do is find a nice looking ryokan using this site and then google for their home page and then call them directly and book myself. I don't like the on-line booking services in Japanese either. But mainly as I do everything last minute and can't wait the 7 days or so needed for the booking service to get back to me.

They have some interesting options such as staying in a buddhist temple with the monks and really old traditional onsen places as well as the modern ryokan hotels. Search the site - it is a great resource for planning your trip.

[puargs]

As usual, you guys rock! Thanks a bunch for the replies, guys!

[GomiGirl]

Oh - I think Expedia now works for Japan as well - in English.

[IkemenTommy]

This link has been discussed before
http://yoyaq.com/