I cannot say enough great things about Uradome Coast Island Cruise. This should be on everyones "Must Do" list! The scenery was stunning!
My one piece of advise would be to offer one or two cruises a day in English. The captain was apparently funny and pointed out fascinating things but we missed all of it as we do not speak Japanese. However, this did not damper our trip one bit. The captain was an expert sailor. He was able to maneuver the small boat into caves that I never thought we would fit into.
I am traveling with a 77 yr old, a 44 yr old, and an 18 yr old. Finding things that all of us enjoy at the same time is hard but not this time. Smiles were plastered of everyone's face until the salt sea water sprayed us. We all loved the sea spray.
During our cruise we were given the opportunity to use devices to view underwater sea life. We did not see fish however we saw different rock formations and different types of sea weed.
After the cruise, we went shopping in their store. We were trying to use a translating app to figure out what everything was. A very polite young employee came over and offered to help us. She, I believe, came from an English speaking country. She advised us on ever product and ended up selling us more items than we had intended to buy. She was a new employee but you could not tell. She was delightful.
We were booked on a 14-passenger boat at the Tottori Tourist Center and we're so impressed by the tour. The 45 min ride took us all over the coastline and the boat captain gave lots of interesting facts about the formations, vegetation, and animals. I used my Google translate live translation to text on my smartphone during the cruise and it worked well.
We went into narrow passages and ducked into caves, which was very cool!
The captain was obviously very skilled. The ride was refreshing and a great way to see the beauty of this area up close. Passengers were of all ages and everyone seemed to enjoy the trip.
Highly recommend! If you are staying in Tottori, check out the tourist center. We opted for this boat ride as part of a tour itinerary. Three of us got a taxi for 3 hours for a rate of 6,000 JPY total and the taxi driver drove us to the boat launch area and made sure we were all set. The cost of the boat ride was separate, but worth it!!
The Uradome Coast boat tour was a pleasant experience, though I arrived just in time to miss one departure and had to wait for the 3:30 PM boat. The tour offers three options: a standard boat ride from March to November for 1,800 yen, an adventure boat starting in late April for 2,500 yen, and a glass-bottom boat available from late May.
I took the standard boat, which lasted about 40 minutes. The captain provided continuous commentary, but it was only in Japanese—having multilingual audio guides would make the explanations more accessible. The staff were polite and happy to help take photos for tourists. If you’re visiting Tottori and haven’t tried it, the boat tour is definitely worth a go.
I missed this last year because of the weather but I visited again in June. I had a good time. The water was a bit choppy but it was nice to get out and sail around the coast line. A nice view of the sand dunes in the distance.
Great view with 40 min rides. We took a cab from tottori station, around ¥5000.
More about Uradome Coast Island Cruise Pleasure Boat, Iwami from our blog