Cruise brochures sell the itinerary. They do not say that the maples will still be green, that the crab opens on a Thursday, or that the festival never moves. Here is the year at the ports as it actually runs, from this month on, every line with its official source. Checked 4 Oct 2026.
October is the best walking month on this coast, and the one where the answer about autumn colour is "not yet" almost everywhere except Hokkaido. Watch the typhoon tracker until the end of the month.
Three fixed days every year at Suwa Shrine and on stages around town: the dragon dance, the spinning festival floats, and the whole city out in the street. A morning call sees it from the Suwa Shrine steps, about 20 minutes by tram from the Matsugae berth.
Plan it: Guided days in Nagasaki → · Build a Nagasaki day →
Photo: Masoud Akbari / CC BY-SA 3.0
The first colour reachable from a cruise port is Onuma Quasi-National Park, 30 minutes from Hakodate by limited express. tenki.jp forecasts the peak around 22 October; Hakodate city itself turns about 2 November (JMA normal).
Plan it: Guided days in Hakodate → · Build a Hakodate day →
Photo: くろふね / CC BY 4.0
Japan Meteorological Corporation puts Sapporo’s maples at 4 November this year, seven days behind normal. Otaru itself follows Sapporo by a few days. Kushiro, further east, is the exception that turns in mid-October (JMA normal Oct 16).
Plan it: Guided days in Otaru → · Build a Otaru day →
Photo: Wikimedia contributor / CC BY-SA 3.0
As of 4 October JMA lists the summit as snow-free. The first snowcap normally comes 2 October; 2025 was 23 October and 2024 was 7 November, the latest on record. From this year the call is made from analysed snow depth rather than the old visual observation from Kofu.
Plan it: Guided days in Shimizu → · Build a Shimizu day →
The Hokkaido salmon run is the season for fresh ikura on rice. Keep the scale in mind: the 2026 forecast is 3.65 million returning fish, about half of 2025, which was itself a record low. The bowls are still on the menus; the prices are not low.
Plan it: Guided days in Otaru → · Build a Otaru day →
Photo: KQuhen / CC0 1.0
Himeji’s "fighting festival": portable shrines rammed into each other at Matsubara Hachiman Shrine. 15 October is the main day. Himeji is about 20 minutes from Shin-Kobe by Shinkansen, or about an hour from Osaka by rail.
Plan it: Guided days in Kobe → · Build a Kobe day →
Photo: Corpse Reviver / CC BY-SA 3.0
Aomori grows most of Japan’s apples. The early varieties are already in; the Fuji, the one worth carrying home, is picked from the last week of October. The A-Factory by the pier sells them by the piece and as cider.
Plan it: Guided days in Aomori → · Build a Aomori day →
Photo: あおもりくま,Aomorikuma / CC BY-SA 4.0
October still averages about one typhoon approach to Japan. The live tracker on our typhoon page reads the JMA feed; check it the night before a Kyushu or Okinawa call.
Hakodate’s famous live squid had a record-low season start in June 2026. The morning market still serves it, at a price. Do not build the day around it; the uni and crab are the safer plates.
Plan it: Guided days in Hakodate → · Build a Hakodate day →
November is the sleeper month: the colour reaches Tokyo, Kanazawa and Hiroshima in the last ten days, snow-crab season opens on the Sea of Japan coast, and the cold air starts clearing the view of Mt Fuji.
By regulation the Sea of Japan snow-crab season runs 6 November to 20 March for males, and only to 31 December for the small, roe-filled females. Kanazawa’s Omicho market and Sakaiminato’s fish market reorganise around it from the first morning.
Plan it: Guided days in Kanazawa → · Build a Kanazawa day →
Photo: さかおり / CC BY-SA
Momijidani Park behind Itsukushima Shrine is the best maple walk on any port day in Japan. tenki.jp forecasts the 2026 peak for 18 November, Weathernews 19 November. Hiroshima city itself turns around 28 November.
Plan it: Guided days in Hiroshima → · Build a Hiroshima day →
Photo: Steven Perez / CC BY-SA 2.0
Japan Meteorological Corporation forecasts Tokyo’s ginkgo at 26 November and maples at 28 November, both on normal. The ginkgo avenue at Meiji Jingu Gaien is about half an hour by train from either Tokyo terminal; Yokohama’s Sankeien garden peaks a week or so later.
Plan it: Guided days in Tokyo → · Build a Tokyo day →
Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan / CC BY 2.0
Gardeners start rigging yukitsuri, the conical rope arrays that hold the pines against wet snow, on about 1 November, starting with the Karasaki pine, and finish in mid-December. Kanazawa’s maples themselves are forecast for 30 November this year, six days late.
Plan it: Guided days in Kanazawa → · Build a Kanazawa day →
Photo: Ltd.super Express bound for E235 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Fourteen lacquered floats, some three centuries old, hauled through Karatsu on fixed dates every year; 3 November is the big day on the beach. Karatsu is about 1 h 15 from Hakata by train, so it fits a full-day Fukuoka call and nothing shorter.
Plan it: Guided days in Fukuoka → · Build a Fukuoka day →
Photo: MC MasterChef / CC BY-SA 2.5
Kagoshima’s biggest festival: some 20,000 dancers along Tenmonkan on 3 November, the night parade on the 2nd. The ship shuttle from Marine Port runs to Tenmonkan, about 30 minutes.
Plan it: Guided days in Kagoshima → · Build a Kagoshima day →
Photo: Karl Baron / CC BY 2.0
Sapporo 4 November, Aomori 13 November by this year’s forecast; Akita and Niigata fall in between by the JMA normals (Nov 12 and Nov 15). Hirosaki Castle, an hour from Aomori, holds its autumn-leaves festival through mid-November.
Plan it: Guided days in Aomori → · Build a Aomori day →
Photo: Raita Futo from Tokyo, Japan / CC BY 2.0
Sapporo White Illumination starts 20 November along Odori Park (to 25 December) and Ekimae-dori (to 11 February). Sapporo is 35 minutes from Otaru by rapid train; the lights come on at dusk.
Plan it: Guided days in Otaru → · Build a Otaru day →
Photo: t-konno / CC BY-SA 3.0
The first cold mornings make the steam from Beppu’s hundreds of hot-spring vents visible over the whole town from the ship. It is the best month of the year to look at it from the Yukemuri observatory.
Plan it: Guided days in Beppu → · Build a Beppu day →
Photo: Han Sen / Pexels
Most ships have left by December, which is a shame: Kyoto and Kyushu are still in colour in the first half, the female snow crab is only sold until the 31st, and the odds of a clear Mt Fuji climb every week.
This year’s forecast: Osaka 4 December, Kagoshima 10 December, Kyoto 11 December (six days late). Nagasaki turns around 7 December by the JMA normal. A first-week December call at Osaka or Kobe is the last realistic foliage day of the season.
Plan it: Guided days in Osaka → · Build a Osaka day →
Photo: ＋－ / CC BY-SA 3.0
The small female crab, kobako or seiko, with its two kinds of roe, can only be landed until 31 December. Males continue to 20 March. If someone offers you one for lunch in Kanazawa in December, say yes.
Plan it: Guided days in Kanazawa → · Build a Kanazawa day →
Photo: Totti / CC BY-SA 4.0
A giant fir from Halifax, Hakodate’s sister city, lit on the water in front of the red-brick warehouses, with a short firework display at the nightly lighting. About 15 minutes on foot from the Wakamatsu berth.
Plan it: Guided days in Hakodate → · Build a Hakodate day →
Photo: 掬茶 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Cold, dry air and a snow-capped summit: December starts the three months when a Shimizu call has the best odds of a clear Mt Fuji. Our 35-year visibility odds by month are on the Fuji page.
Plan it: Guided days in Shimizu → · Build a Shimizu day →
Photo: Alpsdake / CC BY-SA 4.0
Odori Park’s White Illumination runs to 25 December; the Ekimae-dori and station-front sections continue into February and March.
Plan it: Guided days in Otaru → · Build a Otaru day →
January is Naha’s month. Japan’s first cherry blossom opens on Okinawa while the mainland is at its coldest and clearest, which is exactly what you want for a Fuji call.
The deep-pink kanhizakura opens on Okinawa in mid-January by the JMA normal; in 2026 Naha recorded first bloom on 18 January. The mainland is two months behind.
Plan it: Guided days in Naha → · Build a Naha day →
Photo: Kugel~commonswiki / CC BY-SA 4.0
Humpbacks winter in the Kerama Islands, 40 km west of Naha. Half-day whale-watching boats run from Naha and Zamami from early January to the end of March; a full-day call fits one.
Plan it: Guided days in Naha → · Build a Naha day →
Photo: Giles Laurent / CC BY-SA 4.0
The 32nd Luminarie, the city’s memorial to the 1995 earthquake, runs 29 January to 7 February 2027 in the Higashi-Yuenchi park area, about 20 minutes on foot from Naka-Tottei.
Plan it: Guided days in Kobe → · Build a Kobe day →
Photo: Takeshi Kuboki from Amagasaki, Japan / CC BY 2.0
January and February have the clearest air of the year on the Pacific coast. If you ever get a winter Shimizu call, this is the one.
Plan it: Guided days in Shimizu → · Build a Shimizu day →
Photo: Suicasmo / CC BY-SA 4.0
The January Grand Tournament runs fifteen days at Ryogoku Kokugikan. Same-day tickets exist but go early; the cheap unreserved seats at the top are the move for a port day.
Plan it: Guided days in Tokyo → · Build a Tokyo day →
Photo: Gregg Tavares / CC BY 2.0
The month Japan does best in the cold: Sapporo’s snow sculptures, Otaru’s candle-lit canal, Nagasaki’s 15,000 lanterns. Few ships come. The ones that do get the country to themselves.
The 77th festival, Odori Park, 35 minutes by train from Otaru. Sculptures are lit until 22:00.
Plan it: Guided days in Otaru → · Build a Otaru day →
Photo: t-konno / CC BY-SA 3.0
Candles in snow along the canal and the old railway line, 17:00 to 21:00, ten minutes on foot from the pier. The one winter event in Japan you can walk to from the gangway.
Plan it: Guided days in Otaru → · Build a Otaru day →
Photo: t-konno / CC BY-SA 3.0
Seventeen days of Chinese lanterns through Shinchi Chinatown and Minato Park, right beside the Matsugae cruise berth. From 2026 the festival is fixed to the first Friday of February rather than the lunar calendar.
Plan it: Guided days in Nagasaki → · Build a Nagasaki day →
Photo: Marufish from Alor Setar, Malaysia / CC BY-SA 2.0
Runs to 7 February 2027.
Plan it: Guided days in Kobe → · Build a Kobe day →
Okinawa’s kanhizakura reaches full bloom around 4 February in Naha; the humpbacks are off the Keramas all month.
Plan it: Guided days in Naha → · Build a Naha day →
Photo: Kugel~commonswiki / CC BY-SA 4.0
The front starts in the south-west in the last ten days of March: Kochi and Fukuoka first, then Nagasaki, Tokyo and Hiroshima within days of each other.
JMA 30-year normals for first bloom: Kochi and Fukuoka 22 March, Nagasaki 23, Tokyo 24, Hiroshima and Yokohama 25, Kagoshima 26, Osaka, Kobe and Takamatsu 27. Kochi is first to full bloom, on 30 March. A call in the last week of March lands in the opening days; full bloom follows about a week later.
Plan it: Guided days in Kochi → · Build a Kochi day →
Photo: そらみみ (Soramimi) / CC BY-SA 4.0
Last landings of male snow crab on the Sea of Japan coast. After this the markets switch to firefly squid and spring bream.
Plan it: Guided days in Kanazawa → · Build a Kanazawa day →
Photo: Kindel Media / Pexels
The March tournament is at Edion Arena Osaka, in Namba. Osaka’s Tempozan berth is 30 minutes away by metro.
Plan it: Guided days in Osaka → · Build a Osaka day →
Photo: Simon Q / CC BY 2.0
Whale-watching boats from Naha run to the end of March.
Plan it: Guided days in Naha → · Build a Naha day →
Tokyo is in full bloom at the turn of the month, Kanazawa a week later, Niigata mid-month, Akita and Aomori in the last week, Hakodate on about 2 May. Pick the sailing by the date, not the brochure.
JMA 30-year normals for full bloom: Tokyo 31 March, Yokohama 1 April, Shimizu and Nagasaki 2, Hiroshima 3, Kobe, Osaka, Takamatsu and Beppu 4, Kagoshima and Sakaiminato 5. Full bloom lasts about a week, so the first ten days of April are the window for the whole main circuit. Chidorigafuchi, by the Imperial Palace moat, is 30 minutes from either Tokyo terminal.
Plan it: Guided days in Yokohama → · Build a Yokohama day →
Photo: Raita Futo from Tokyo, Japan / CC BY 2.0
A week behind the Pacific side: Tsuruga 7 April, Kanazawa 8, Niigata 13 (JMA normals, full bloom). Kenroku-en opens free of charge for the days of full bloom, with the garden lit after dark; it is about 15 minutes by bus from Kanazawa Station.
Plan it: Guided days in Tsuruga → · Build a Tsuruga day →
Photo: KimonBerlin / CC BY-SA 2.0
Full bloom by the JMA normals: Sakata 18 April, Akita 22, Miyako 24, Aomori 26. Akita’s Senshu Park, the old Kubota Castle grounds, is ten minutes on foot from Akita Station; Aomori’s own trees peak just as Hirosaki’s festival opens.
Plan it: Guided days in Sakata → · Build a Sakata day →
Photo: Wikimedia contributor / CC BY-SA 4.0
2,600 cherry trees in the castle moat, an hour from Aomori by train. Aomori’s own full bloom is 26 April by the JMA normal, so a late-April Aomori call lands in it.
Plan it: Guided days in Aomori → · Build a Aomori day →
Photo: yisris / CC BY
Japan’s longest holiday cluster: trains, temples and gardens are at their most crowded, and everything is open. Book the Shinkansen seat, not the standing ticket.
Photo: David Monniaux / CC BY-SA 3.0
The cherry front ends in Hokkaido: Hakodate full bloom about 2 May, Otaru 6 May, Kushiro 19 May. Everywhere else is green and mild, and the Golden Week crowds are gone after the 5th.
The cherry front ends in Hokkaido: Hakodate full bloom 2 May, Sapporo and Otaru 6 May, Kushiro 19 May by the JMA normals. Goryokaku’s star-shaped moat is lined with cherry trees and is 15 minutes by tram from the Hakodate berths; the tower beside it looks straight down on the pattern.
Plan it: Guided days in Hakodate → · Build a Hakodate day →
Photo: Goryokaku-Tower / CC BY 4.0
The May tournament at Ryogoku Kokugikan.
Plan it: Guided days in Tokyo → · Build a Tokyo day →
Photo: Utagawa Kuniyoshi / Public domain
Okinawa enters tsuyu about 10 May and leaves it about 21 June by the JMA normals, a month ahead of the mainland.
Plan it: Guided days in Naha → · Build a Naha day →
Tsuyu reaches Kyushu and Tokyo in the first week of June and stays until about 19 July. It rains on about half the days, rarely all day. Hokkaido has no rainy season at all, which is why the northern itineraries are the June ones.
Northern Kyushu enters about 4 June and Kanto about 7 June; both leave about 19 July (JMA normals). Hydrangeas are the consolation, and the temples are empty.
Photo: Raita Futo from Tokyo, Japan / CC BY 2.0
Surume-ika season opens 1 June; the morning market’s squid-fishing tanks fill up. 2026 opened with record-low catches, so treat it as a treat rather than a given.
Plan it: Guided days in Hakodate → · Build a Hakodate day →
Photo: pelican / CC BY-SA
Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri fills the whole month, Hakata’s Yamakasa ends at dawn on the 15th, Osaka’s Tenjin Matsuri closes it on the 24th and 25th. Hot, humid, and worth it.
The Yamaboko float processions are on 17 and 24 July every year, starting at 09:00 in central Kyoto. Kyoto is 50 minutes from Kobe or 30 from Osaka by rail.
Plan it: Guided days in Kobe → · Build a Kobe day →
Photo: Julien / Pexels
Decorated floats stand around the city from 1 July; the climax, the Oiyama race, starts at 04:59 on 15 July. A ship in overnight can see it.
Plan it: Guided days in Fukuoka → · Build a Fukuoka day →
Photo: lienyuan lee / CC BY 3.0
Osaka’s river festival: a hundred boats on the Okawa and fireworks on the evening of the 25th.
Plan it: Guided days in Osaka → · Build a Osaka day →
Photo: Mr.ちゅらさん / CC BY 4.0
The Shizuoka-side trails open 10 July and close 10 September. Not a port-day activity, but the mountain is busy, and the summer haze means you will probably not see it from the ship.
Plan it: Guided days in Shimizu → · Build a Shimizu day →
Photo: Alpsdake / CC BY-SA 4.0
The two festivals we would build a cruise around both fall in the first week of August and never move. The typhoon risk is real from the middle of the month.
Giant illuminated floats paraded nightly from 19:10, 2 to 7 August every year; the night of the 7th moves onto the bay with fireworks. The route is ten minutes on foot from the pier, and cruise lines schedule late sailings for it.
Plan it: Guided days in Aomori → · Build a Aomori day →
Photo: Willian Justen de Vasconcellos / Pexels
Twelve-metre bamboo poles hung with 46 lanterns, balanced on palms, foreheads and hips, nightly from 18:50 on Kanto Odori avenue.
Plan it: Guided days in Akita → · Build a Akita day →
Photo: 掬茶 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Kochi’s own festival, 18,000 dancers through the arcades, on the same four days every year.
Plan it: Guided days in Kochi → · Build a Kochi day →
Photo: Gu Ko / Pexels
Japan’s largest dance festival, about 1 h 10 from Takamatsu by rail. Evening performances start at 18:00, so it needs a late sailing.
Plan it: Guided days in Takamatsu → · Build a Takamatsu day →
Photo: Ann Lee / CC BY-SA 2.0
August and September are the two peak months for typhoon approaches. The live tracker on our typhoon page reads the JMA feed.
September is the month ships genuinely reroute, particularly around Kyushu, Okinawa and Taiwan. Treat a September Naha or Keelung call as provisional and read the tracker the night before.
September has the highest rate of typhoon landfalls on Japan. Our typhoon page has the live JMA track and the 30-year odds by port.
Photo: JMA / CC BY 4.0
The September tournament at Ryogoku Kokugikan.
Plan it: Guided days in Tokyo → · Build a Tokyo day →
Pacific saury landed at Kushiro and Nemuro, grilled whole with grated daikon. 2026 is a small run but a fatty one by the reports from the quay.
Plan it: Guided days in Kushiro → · Build a Kushiro day →
Photo: Paul Hsu from Tokyo / CC BY 2.0
The early Tsugaru variety is in from mid-September; the Fuji follows in late October.
Plan it: Guided days in Aomori → · Build a Aomori day →
Photo: Wikimedia contributor / CC BY 4.0
Three kinds of date on this page. Fixed: the same calendar dates every year, from the organiser. 2026 forecast: this season’s published forecast, named in the text. JMA normal: the Japan Meteorological Agency’s 1991–2020 average for that city’s specimen tree, which recent autumns have run a week or more behind. The longer reads: autumn colour by port, cherry blossom by port, typhoon season with the live tracker, festivals worth planning around, and every port, month by month.
