Private and small-group Abashiri drift ice cruise days

What the private day includes

JUN Travel's Abashiri day, from ~$2,082 per group of up to six, is our pick on the home page. It lasts eight hours, and only your group travels. A driver-guide who speaks English (the tour also runs in Japanese and Chinese) collects you at your hotel in the Abashiri area and drops you back there. Hotels outside the area cost extra to reach.

The price covers the car with its parking and fuel, plus four tickets:

• The Okhotsk Ryuhyo Museum on Mt Tento, with real drift ice in a room kept at −15 °C (5 °F) and an observation deck over the coast
• The Abashiri Prison Museum, the open-air museum of the old prison buildings
• The Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples
• The Aurora icebreaker cruise, about an hour on the ice

Lunch is not included, but the guide can recommend somewhere. The listing asks you to bring your passport and some cash, and to wear warm, waterproof shoes.

The coach tours by comparison

H.I.S., from ~$401 per person, runs a standard group of up to 40 on a coach from Sapporo. Its listing also offers a small-group option for up to two people, with guides who speak English as well as Chinese and Japanese. Club Tourism, from ~$430 per person, sends a National Government Licensed Guide Interpreter on its coach, though the expert at the drift ice touch experience in Shari speaks Japanese.

Both coach tours are good value for one or two people because they bundle the trip from Sapporo with a hotel and meals. What they cannot do is slow down. The coach leaves when the schedule says. Stops last 30 or 90 minutes, and the day runs to the group's pace.

A coach also means sharing the deck rail with everyone who arrived on it. On the private day you board the same ship as everyone else, but you reach the terminal with your guide, and nobody waits for you at the end.

Why go private

• Your pace in the cold. Children and anyone who chills fast can warm up when they need to, not when the coach stops
• Museums at your speed. Spend an hour in the Prison Museum or skip ahead to the ice room, as you like
• The day bends around the ship. The Aurora's sailing time sets the order, and the guide arranges the museums around it
• No 7:30 am bus. Pickup is at your hotel door, and the day ends there too

On deck the guide can help you find a spot out of the wind and explain what you are seeing. Spotted seals and sea eagles are a matter of luck on private and group tours alike, and the drift ice itself is never guaranteed.

Who it suits, and who it does not

The private day works best for families and groups of four to six. It also fits anyone already touring eastern Hokkaido, since the pickup is local. Our page on the icebreaker with kids explains why a private car helps with small children in the cold.

The listing rules some people out. It is not suitable for anyone prone to seasickness or motion sickness. Frail travelers are also excluded, as are children under 1 and adults over 95. A couple on a tight budget will usually do better on a coach, and anyone without transport to Abashiri has to solve that first; our Sapporo guide covers trains and flights.

The cost per head

The private day is priced per car, so its value depends on how many of you share it. For two people it costs each of them far more than a coach seat. At four it comes close to the two-day coach prices per head, and at six it dips a little below them. Remember that the coach tours also include a hotel night and meals, while the private day leaves you to book your own room in Abashiri. Our price guide sets the numbers out in one table.

The private price also includes the Aurora fare and the entry to all three museums, which you would otherwise pay one by one at each door. Lunch for the group is the main extra to add, along with the pickup fee if you stay outside the Abashiri area.

A private day to the other icebreaker

If you are in Sapporo with only one day, TeruTeru's Garinko III private day, from ~$541 per person, also gives you a private car with a driver. Its catch is that it goes to Monbetsu and the Garinko, a different ship from the Aurora, and it lasts eleven hours from a Sapporo pickup before dawn, with no reviews yet. Our comparison of the two ships helps you decide whether that trade makes sense.

Booking and changes

JUN Travel's day has no reviews of its own yet, as a new listing, so you are trusting the itinerary rather than past guests. The terms are generous, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before. The Aurora usually sails from late January through March. Should the weather alter the cruise, the listing promises a full refund to anyone who turns the revised plan down. Our page on days without ice or sailings covers what each tour does when the sea does not cooperate.