Hi — I’m Tabiiku. I travel around Japan with my daughter on the principle that experience is the best thing you can give a child. This is a three-day trip to the Ise-Shima area of Mie: Shima Kanko Hotel The Bay Suites, Suzuka Circuit Park, Shima Spain Village and Shima Green Adventure, all in one go.
The itinerary
Going directly from Tokyo to Ise-Shima takes three and a half hours, so I built the trip around breaking the journey with somewhere to play. It suits families who like to keep moving.
Day one. Leave in the morning; ninety minutes by Shinkansen to Nagoya, change to the Kintetsu line and about thirty minutes to Shiroko. Taxi to Suzuka Circuit Park and play until early afternoon. Taxi back to Shiroko, then about ninety minutes on the Kintetsu line to Kashikojima. Ask the hotel to collect you from Kashikojima station and you are at Shima Kanko Hotel The Bay Suites in five minutes.
Day two. A full day at Shima Spain Village, fifteen minutes away by taxi. Back to the hotel for an hour of table tennis, then a long dinner.
Day three. Shima Green Adventure, ten minutes by taxi, for about an hour and a half on the climbing tower. Back to collect the bags, a rest in the hotel’s excellent lounge, then two hours on the Kintetsu line to Nagoya and ninety minutes home by Shinkansen.
One activity per day, essentially.
Shima Kanko Hotel The Bay Suites
This is a hotel with real history — it has hosted the imperial family and a G7 summit — and it lives up to the reputation. The service, the food and the facilities were faultless. I want to go back.
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The rooms first. The bedroom and living room can be separated, and there is a great deal of space. The fittings are new, the furniture is stylish, and every room has an ocean view — the sunsets in particular are extraordinary.
Breakfast is a choice of Japanese or Western. The Western breakfast at La Mer was so good on day one that we had it again on day two. Have the Western breakfast.
The egg dish is a choice — but on day one, have the gratinee. On day two you can pick another egg dish plus a meat (bacon, ham, sausage), or repeat day one. I had the seafood omelette. A basket of bread arrives, and the raisin bread in it was, I think, my favourite single thing I ate on the whole trip.
On the second night we had the French course at La Mer. There is a children’s plate plus a simplified course for younger diners. My daughter, who normally eats very little, cleared almost everything and said how good it was throughout, which astonished me. It is classical French built on local produce and it was unforgettable. We took the lightest course and it was still more than enough.
It was my daughter’s birthday and they prepared a beautiful plate for her, which was exactly the sort of thoughtful touch that ran through the whole stay. Go early — before about 6pm — so you are eating as the sun sets, because the view is remarkable.
On the first night we had room service, which was also very good.
The lounge deserves a mention too. It is never busy whenever you go, everything laid out there is delicious, and alcohol is included.
Good food, wonderful attentiveness, excellent facilities. I would go back again and again.
Suzuka Circuit Park
I had wanted to visit Suzuka Circuit Park for a long time. It is about thirty minutes from Nagoya — and conveniently, right on the way to Ise-Shima. Reviews warned that the rides get busy, but we went on a weekday and there was no wait at all on anything.
There is no great strategy needed — you can do everything in a day. Note that the pre-school area and the rides for primary-school children and above are quite separate, so three or four hours is enough to cover what applies to you.
A few I would single out:
GP Racers was my favourite. You straddle a motorbike-style seat on what is essentially a roller coaster: a floaty up-and-down section first, then a course built around centrifugal force. Over in a minute or two.
Dream R, a proper go-kart. The restrictions are strict — school year three and above, and at least 120cm. Unlike the almost-on-rails go-karts of old, you can build real speed, and your finish time is graded. Even adults find an S rank hard.
Kids Bike Training, where children ride alone. They need to be able to ride without stabilisers. My daughter tried hard but the instruction time is short and she did not earn her licence. She was very frustrated, but it is an experience you cannot get elsewhere and worth attempting.
Potagenne, a three-dimensional maze. Collecting every stamp is genuinely difficult and my daughter was absorbed for twenty minutes. Good for children who like mazes or stamp rallies.
We arrived at 10am and had done everything by about 1pm.
The one serious warning: taxis are almost impossible to get. We had a train to catch and rang several companies, all of whom said thirty minutes because there was nothing nearby. We were walking in despair when a passer-by stopped to help and started trying to arrange a friend’s car for us — the kindness of the place was lovely (a taxi did eventually arrive). If you are travelling by taxi, book well ahead, or arrange a pick-up time with the driver who brings you in the morning.
Shima Spain Village
The theme park famous for never being busy. I can confirm: it really was empty. We rode everything without waiting once. Some of the areas recreate Spanish streets and are genuinely pretty.
Like Suzuka, a day covers everything. Two recommendations:
The treasure hunt in Dragon Castle, which I guarantee is not on anyone’s Instagram. You hold the correct treasure bag at the entrance to learn its weight, then find a bag of exactly the same weight in another room — not a gram out — and win a prize. It is harder than it sounds and it reveals a great deal about people’s personalities. I am the sort to decide quickly and picked the second or third bag within about three seconds. My daughter is extremely careful and lifted almost every bag in the room, agonising. She found the right one and the staff were amazed. Do it as a group.
Manomano, a craft workshop. You choose a base and decorations and glue it together on the spot, then take it home. Deciding together was half the fun.
The standard coasters — Steam Coaster and Splash Monserrat — are best described as considerably lighter versions of Space Mountain and Splash Mountain.
Shima Green Adventure
A relatively new outdoor facility about ten minutes from the hotel. I had wanted to do the zipline but we only had time for the climbing tower. Booking in advance is essential, so do not turn up on spec.
We are an adventure-course family and have been to Forest Adventure sites all over Japan. Compared with those, the harness system here is fiddly, and I felt we spent almost as long wrestling with equipment as we did climbing. That said, there are plenty of high, difficult routes and adults enjoy it as much as children.
They are pushing hard on technology — self-driving carts to move around, an unstaffed FamilyMart — which gives it a mildly futuristic feel. For smaller children there are swings and grass sledging.
Getting around
Nagoya to Shiroko, Shiroko to Kashikojima, Kashikojima back to Nagoya — the same line runs several different types of train, which is unusual and rather fun. You can pick trains by speed, or build the itinerary around a train you want to ride.
I had wanted to take the Shimakaze, but it only runs once a day and the timing did not work. We took the Urban Liner from Nagoya to Shiroko and the lower deck of a Vista Car on the other two legs.
Two tips. The Urban Liner’s Deluxe seats cost only a few hundred yen more than standard and are considerably more comfortable — take Deluxe. And the Vista Car lower deck, which we chose because my daughter likes seats that feel like a little room, was frankly disappointing: the carriages are old and rattle, the cushioning is poor and the seats are narrower than expected, so there is less legroom than you would think.
I meant to keep this short and it has become very long. I hope it helps if you are considering Ise-Shima with children.
The conclusion: Shima Kanko Hotel is magnificent. I love international luxury hotels like Park Hyatt Niseko and InterContinental Appi — but a historic Japanese hotel doing Japanese hospitality properly is something else entirely, and I was genuinely moved by it. Go.
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