Matsushima Bay Boat Trip

Matsushima Bay is a stunning area of natural beauty and the boat trip around the bay is highly recommended. The bad news is that the official information online in English is a bit of a mess, which is very strange for such a popular tourist spot. There is online booking available however no translation away from Japanese to any language. There goes the 10% discount on the tickets if you book online…

The easy option

You can buy tickets at two locations. The one closest to the main pier sells all kinds of tickets so you have to pick the correct counter. For the round trip that most people take, you want “Counter ①” on the right. It says “松島湾一周” at the top. The name of the boats are “仁王丸” or Nioumaru and there are two that do the circuit course, which takes 50 minutes and departs every hour on the hour from 10am to 3pm (4pm during April to October – the English site doesn’t say about the 4pm one but the Japanese site does).

Buy your ticket for the time you want (you may not get the earliest time but you can always come back later) and you are all sorted. Prices are listed here. Just to confuse you there is a “regular” cruise and a “round bay” cruise, which are both exactly the same price. “When Japan” has no idea what the difference is. The English and Japanese information does not match.

Other cruises on offer

There are other cruises that take different routes and are purchased at separate counters. The numbered list below references the photo above.

1. The “round trip” cruise explained before (50 minutes).
2. Oku-Matsushima cruises (the trip to Oku-Matsushima is supposed to be 50 minutes however the sign in the photo says allow 1 hour 50 minutes, so we guess you buy at the same time the additional cruise from Oku-Matsushima – see here for details). Only runs from and of April to end of October. It could be a round-trip.
3. The Matsushima -> Shiogama one way trip via a few islands
4. Shorter “round trip” cruise just in the harbor (30 minutes) – why bother? No price information available.

There is also a Shiogama <-> Shiogama cruise available from that station.

Matching the ticket counter with the English map

Private and group cruises

One thing that isn’t mentioned on any of the English information is the available of private tours on smaller boats. The official leaflet is here; but of course just in Japanese. You have to phone up to book in advance for the special tours and there are conditions (minimum cost per trip) that have to be met. Below is a translation of the pamphlet.

Considering the regular cruise price is ¥1500 for an adult, a similar cruise on a private small boat for ¥2000 each is a no-brainier (assuming 5 people paying the ¥10,000 minimum cost – every extra person is ¥2000). The phamplet says no booking is required however where you go to purchase a ticket on the day is not clear. Best to ask at one of the ticket offices.

Nearby Oku-Matsushima Peninsula

Finally there is a charter cruise from Matsushima that goes to Oku-Matsushima, which is another name for the large island of Miyato to the east of Matsushima. This island has a cruise pier of its own offering two course cruises sailing in areas not covered by the main cruise from Matsushima. The boats are not charter but they only run when there are customers and there is a minimum fee (¥6000 or ¥10,000 depending on the short or long course) to cover costs of each run. There is a bit of English information on this area here, however it is probably a very difficult area to navigate without Japanese ability.