Japan’s Three Cruise Trains Compared: Seven Stars, Shiki-shima and Mizukaze
Three railway companies run sleeper trains that are closer to travelling ryokan than to transport. How they differ in route, design and mood, and how to get a place.
Japan has three trains of a kind found nowhere else. They are called cruise trains: they leave from a city, travel in a loop for one to three nights, and return. Passengers sleep on board or in ryokan along the way, eat menus designed by well-known chefs and stop for visits arranged for them alone. Each belongs to a different railway company and covers a different part of the country.
Seven Stars in Kyushu
The first, launched by JR Kyushu in 2013, set the model. The Seven Stars is a deep maroon train designed by Eiji Mitooka, with interiors of rosewood, maple and walnut, latticed screens and washbasins of Arita porcelain. It carries only about twenty passengers after a rebuilding in 2022 that enlarged the suites and added a tea room and a bar. Routes circle Kyushu from Hakata, past volcanoes, hot-spring towns and the coast, in trips of one or three nights.
Its mood is nostalgic and warm, with live piano in the lounge car. Of the three it is the most romantic and the most concerned with craft.
Train Suite Shiki-shima
JR East’s train, in service since May 2017, is the modern one. Ken Okuyama, who designed for Ferrari, gave it a champagne-gold body and observation cars with walls and ceilings of angular glass. It carries 34 passengers in 17 suites, the best of which are on two levels with a cypress bath. Trips leave from a private platform at Ueno Station in Tokyo and run north through Tohoku, in some seasons as far as Hokkaido.
It is the most architectural of the three and the most convenient for travellers already in Tokyo.
Twilight Express Mizukaze
JR West’s train followed in June 2017. The Mizukaze is dark green, in memory of the old Twilight Express sleeper, with Art Deco interiors and open observation decks at both ends. It also carries 34 passengers. One carriage is a single suite. Routes run from Kyoto and Osaka along either the Seto Inland Sea coast or the wilder Sea of Japan coast to Shimonoseki.
It offers the best scenery from the train itself and reaches a part of Japan, the San’in coast, that few foreign visitors see.
How to choose
Choose by region first. Kyushu suits a first cruise-train journey and combines with Fukuoka and Nagasaki. Shiki-shima is for those who want the north and the most contemporary design. Mizukaze fits a trip built around Kyoto, Hiroshima and the Inland Sea, and can be paired with a cruise aboard guntû.
How to book
None of the three can be booked like a hotel. Places are sold by application for each season, months in advance, and allocated by lottery when demand exceeds supply, as it usually does. Fares run from several hundred thousand yen per person for one night to well over a million for the top suites on longer routes. Travellers from abroad generally go through a specialist agent with an allocation, and should plan a year ahead. Solo travellers pay a substantial supplement.
For a shorter and simpler rail experience elsewhere in Asia, see The Vietage in Vietnam or the Eastern & Oriental Express.