Cruisin’ Together on Tokyo’s Sumida River

I made the biggest boo-boo on this one!

My boys, especially my hubby, have requested to do a cruise on Sumida River particularly to ride this futuristic-looking boat called Hotaluna.  I did my research (that’s what I thought) and decided that we would take Hotaluna from Hinode Pier to Asakusa where we plan to visit the Sensoji Temple as well.

From our hotel at Shinjuku, we boarded the train to Daimon Station and walked about 1km to the pier.  We reached the pier at around 10:30am. To our surprise, and my utter embarrassment (for apparently failing in my research), the Hotaluna wasn’t there and was only scheduled to arrive 2 hours later at 12:30pm.  We planned to go to a few places that day and would not be able to wait that long.  And so that meant we had to take whatever boat was scheduled to leave that hour.

This boo-boo of mine didn’t dampen our mood, luckily.  I think nothing on that day could, because it was a lovely day, sun shining and all, perfect weather for exploring Tokyo city.

The boat that we took was normal, regular-looking, certainly not futuristic in design but clean and spacious.  The cruise, which lasted about 45 minutes, was relaxing and smooth, perhaps because there weren’t many other boats running on the river that time.  There were more than 10 bridges (my count was 13 but I’m not 100% sure) from Hinode to Asakusa, and they were mostly pretty and colourful even.

This was not like our cruise on the romantic Seine in Paris or the other time on scenic Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, but we think cruising on Sumida River was a time well spent in Tokyo.  It is something we would recommend especially for families.  Imagine an exciting game of I-spy for the kids and a time to just chill and relax for the parents.

There are a number routes to choose from and you can visit the official website of Suijo Bus, the main operator of the Sumida River cruises, for more information.

Hope you’ll enjoy the pictures below!

Asakusa on the left and the Tokyo Skytree on the right. We had reached our next stops for the day…

You may check out our Tokyo and Niseko itinerary here. xoxo