Luggage Delivery Services h1>

If you have a few days in the big city or elsewhere in Japan before commencing the ski portion of your vacation, then we highly recommend shipping your ski gear on ahead of you to your lodging.

All major airports in Japan had luggage courier services in or near the arrival lobby. They are well signposted and easy to find.

Staff are friendly and go out of their way to may your interaction with them as easy as possible.

You are going to need your accommodations address and phone number to ship, and it is even better if you have it in Japanese.

Almost all accommodation properties in Japan will be able to handle your luggage transfer, and the vast majority already have an existing relationship with one of the major courier outfits.

Using this option, you ship your luggage to the airport, and pick up just before you check in for your flight out.

Be aware that you’ll need to give your flight details on the packing slip as the storage areas at the airport only bring the luggage into the airport on the day of your flight.

You need a minimum of 2 nights between the time you ship, and the date of your departure.

There are several large courier companies in Japan with vast networks. Large, International Couriers outfits like DHL, and Fedex do not have much of a presence in Japan, and generally sub-contract to the Japanese companies for service in more remote regions.

The major playing the Japanese market is a company called “Kuro-neko-yamato”, known in English as “Black Cat”. Nittsu and Sagawa also have operations to pretty much every place in Japan. And he Post Office is also able to deliver luggage as well.

It is surprisingly cheap to send even the heaviest luggage in Japan.

A standard Ski or Snowboard back with cost about 2,500yen to send from any of the ski resorts in the greater Nagano Area through to the airports at Narita and Haneda.

By far the easiest way to send luggage is to get your accommodation to send it for you.

All decent accommodation providers will have the pricing and packaging slips on hand to set it up for you. Some may charge a small commission to do this, but it is still an excellent deal.

If your accommodation property cannot provide this service then let us know, and we can arrange it for you.

It is very important that however you use to send your luggage that you get the top most cover of the packing slip. This is especially true when you are sending luggage to the airport. The will request the slip when you go to claim your luggage. In Japanese the packing slip is called a “Denpyo”

If shipping from airport to accommodation then you use the transfers services in the arrival lobby.

If you are picking up at the airport, after having sent from your accommodation, then you pick it up in the departure lobby in the terminal of your flight (hence the need for flight information on the packing slip)