The Abashiri drift ice cruise or the Garinko?
Two sightseeing icebreakers work the drift ice off Hokkaido's Okhotsk coast, and tour listings do not always say which one you will board. The Aurora sails from Abashiri, the Garinko from Monbetsu up the coast. They break the ice in different ways, and the towns around them shape the rest of your trip.
Two icebreakers on one coast
Every winter, drift ice from the northern Sea of Okhotsk reaches the north-east coast of Hokkaido. Two towns run sightseeing ships out into it. Abashiri has the Aurora, and Monbetsu, about 100 km (60 miles) up the coast to the northwest, has the Garinko boats. Both sail into the same sea and depend on the same wind, so neither can promise ice on a given day.
This site compares tours that include the Aurora. We mention the Garinko because many people searching for an icebreaker find both, and because some listings are vague about which ship they use.
The Aurora in Abashiri
The Aurora boards at Roadside Station Ryuhyo-kaido Abashiri, about 5 minutes by car from JR Abashiri Station. The company runs two ships of that name, and you cannot pick which one you get. A cruise lasts about an hour. These are big ships with heated cabins inside and open decks outside, so you can warm up between spells at the rail.
The Aurora is built to ride up onto the ice and break it under its own weight. You hear and feel this as a low grinding from the hull. When the ice is thin or scattered, you see open water with floes instead, and the cruise becomes a sightseeing trip along the coast. Our page on what you see from the deck describes both cases. Seals or eagles are a bonus, never a promise.
Neither GetYourGuide nor Viator sells a plain Aurora ticket, so on this site the ship always comes inside a package. Every one of the three Aurora tours includes the fare, which on its own runs to a few thousand yen at the terminal. If you would rather buy it there yourself, you need your own way to Abashiri and some luck with sailings on busy weekends.
The Garinko in Monbetsu
The Garinko boats work differently. Instead of riding over the ice, they use big screws on the bow to drill into it; the Garinko listing says its "powerful screws break through the frozen surface". Garinko III is also called IMERU. We have not compared the Garinko boats in the same detail as the Aurora, so we say no more about the ships than the listings do.
Getting to each port
Abashiri is the easier of the two to reach on your own. JR Abashiri Station is about 5 minutes by car from the Aurora terminal, and Memanbetsu Airport (flights from Sapporo and Tokyo) lies roughly 20 minutes by car from town. Monbetsu is roughly two hours by car from Abashiri in good conditions, so combining both ships in one winter trip takes a long drive across snowy roads. Most visitors pick one ship and plan the rest of the trip around it.
From Sapporo the picture flips a little. The Garinko is the one a single long day can reach, while every Aurora tour we found takes two days from the city or starts in Abashiri itself.
What sits around each port
The ship takes an hour; the town fills the rest of the trip. Around Abashiri you have the Prison Museum, the Okhotsk Ryuhyo Museum on Mt Tento with its room of real drift ice, the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples, and the Shiretoko Peninsula to the east. Our guide to Abashiri's sights goes through them.
Around Monbetsu the tour listings name Okhotsk Tower, the Okhotsk Tokkari Center for seals and the Giant Crab Claw sculpture by the harbor. It is a smaller cluster, which suits a short visit built around the boat.
The Aurora with a zoo and an onsen
H.I.S. drives from Sapporo via Asahiyama Zoo to a hot-spring hotel by Lake Abashiri, then boards the Aurora with a guaranteed booking on day 2, from ~$401 per person. Free cancellation up to 7 days ahead.
Which tours include which ship
Only three tours we found on GetYourGuide and Viator clearly include the Aurora. JUN Travel's private day in Abashiri, from ~$2,082 per group, starts at your hotel there. Both H.I.S. (from ~$401 per person) and Club Tourism (from ~$430 per person) run two days from Sapporo.
For the Garinko, TeruTeru's Garinko III private day from Sapporo, from ~$541 per person, covers the cruise ticket plus stops at the Tokkari Center and the crab claw. Its catch is eleven hours, most of them in the car, and no reviews yet. A two-day Garinko tour from Sapporo, from ~$427 per person, also has no reviews yet, and it goes to Monbetsu, not Abashiri.
Read the itinerary before you book any drift ice tour. Lion Travel's two-day listing from Sapporo promises an icebreaker cruise without naming the ship, and its other stops are in Monbetsu, so it is most likely the Garinko. If a listing names Okhotsk Tower or the Tokkari Center, expect Monbetsu.
How to choose
- Where you sleep. A hotel in Abashiri or at Shiretoko points to the Aurora; a night in Monbetsu points to the Garinko
- What else you want to see. Prison history and Shiretoko are on the Aurora side; the seal center and the crab claw on the Garinko side
- Which tours are on sale. Only three packages include the Aurora, so if none of their dates or formats work, the Garinko listings widen the choice
- Time from Sapporo. Monbetsu is the one a long day trip reaches; the Aurora needs at least two days, as our Sapporo guide explains
Ice timing is the same on both, since one sea feeds both ports. Our timing guide covers when the ice usually arrives, and the price guide puts all five tours in one table.