Icebreaker Ship Ride in Mombetsu The Garinko Day Tour from Sapporo

An experience you must try when visiting Hokkaido in winter! Eye-opening!

Amazing experience. Fully recommend to anyone unsure if it is worth it, for us it absolutely was. A small downside, since the tour is geared towards local tourists, most of the explanations come in Japanese, with just a brief translation to English. It is completely understandable, but just something to keep in mind.

The experience was fun. Nakayama-san is a great guide who can speaks English. Both the lunch and the tempura scallops are delicious. This experience, I think is a must-see before ice drifts are gone, hopefully they’re here to stay.

The tour guide is very nice and thoughtful. He Always check in we go for toilet break first before the long journey. I enjoyed the ice breaking so much. Budget list checked! Must come during the winter time! You will love it.

Overall it was OK, and I also saw a lot of drift ice. The reserved 50 minutes meant that if you wanted to have lunch and go to the Seal Park or Hotke Tower, you could only choose one. After arriving at the Marine Exchange Center, the tour guide did not guide how to get to these two places.

The overall experience of the activity was very poor. Don't think that you have any special experience for paying $11xx/person. The icebreaker ship that we specifically wanted to see had no ice at sea. The ship circled the inner sea pier and returned to the pier. This main itinerary has already disappointed us. Very disappointed; the only happy moment was seeing the dock worker wearing cute crab claw gloves and waving at us; the lunch arrangement was very poor, the three of us sat in other people's two-person seats and had to carry backpacks and coats to eat There was not enough space, the sashimi was not fresh and the salmon had bones. I couldn't tell whether the fish was sashimi or smoked fish. The lunch was not worth $200 at all. I only had crab meat miso soup and sushi. White rice to fill hunger; it is not recommended that you add this lunch to the itinerary. It is more comfortable to go to the pier restaurant to eat ramen and ice cream; 3/2 of the trip is spent in the car, and your feet are sore from sitting. We were in a rush to get to each attraction. The last trip to see the ice sculptures was only 40 minutes (but getting off the bus and walking back and forth to the bus and attractions took 15 minutes. The elderly and children took longer because the snow was slippery and people were seen sliding. There are two main itineraries: the icebreaker and the not-so-beautiful ice sculptures. It's a quick tour. It's recommended to get off the bus during each restroom break to look at the handmade products in the small shops, buy some snacks, or visit the vending machines. There were two tour guides, one Japanese and one Mandarin-speaking. We could only speak Mandarin and English. However, the Mandarin-speaking tour guide seemed to be inexperienced and told the passengers that there was a communication problem on the lunch arrangement. He said that he would change cars after lunch and asked the passengers to put all their luggage away. We had to bring lunch, but the lunch area was crowded and not big enough, with no extra space for our coats and backpacks, so we had to carry our backpacks and thick coats and eat our unpalatable lunch... But in the end, we changed buses and took Only needed after completing the icebreaker. In conclusion, not having the drift ice to watch and having a bad lunch is worse than buying something with money.

The guide was friendly and the bus driver drove safely. Since there are frequent rest stops along the way, it would be good to come with your parents. Since many Japanese people also use the bus, I didn't feel empty. The weather was good, so I was able to see a lot of drift ice.

It was a rare experience, but I didn't feel the shock of breaking the ice. It was more like watching the drifting ice. The return journey took more than 4 hours. I didn't like the group-purchased lunch box.

It's a pity that we didn't leave as scheduled, but we did notify you in advance, so I hope we can make it next time.

The icebreaker was cancelled due to weather conditions, and only 3,000 yen was refunded. Although this was not something we could control, I believe that every group member joined this tour just for the icebreaker. If we could be notified before departure and decide whether to get on the bus or not, we wouldn't have to waste a whole day's journey. There was no icebreaker, so we finally arrived in Sapporo at 7pm. But the staff on the bus were very polite.