Odakyu Bus Shinjuku Station West Exit – Yomiuri Land (service to be terminated on March 15, 2026)
Only one round-trip service will be available on Sundays in June. The bus to “Yomiuriland,” which barely survived and went directly to Shinjuku, officially disappeared without waiting for the June service date.
Although it provides direct access to Yomiuri Land, which attracts 30,000 visitors a day during the season and more than 2 million visitors a year, it only makes four to five round trips a year. It was not even assigned a system number, and was treated as a so-called “license maintenance route” (a bus route that continues to operate at a minimum for approval).
Perhaps because of the unusually high difficulty of the ride, the only people on board are always bus fans. It took 70 minutes from Shinjuku, crossing four wards and three cities (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Suginami, and Setagaya wards, and Chofu, Inagi, and Kawasaki cities in Tokyo). There was a huge line at the bus stop in front of Odakyu Harc at the west exit of the station every day, and there must have been many people who were unable to board the bus.
Although it may seem regrettable to write this, buses to Yomiuriland are frequently available from both Keio and Odakyu Yomiuriland Stations, and there is also a gondola “Sky Shuttle” from the Keio side. There is no reason to go to the trouble of taking a long bus ride from Shinjuku, and you can see why the bus route was quickly converted to a license maintenance route.
Last year, the departure point was changed from Odakyu Haruku-mae, Bus Stop No. 35 to the arrival and departure point on the corner side, and many people must have foreseen the discontinuation of the service. Many people may have foreseen the demise of this bus, which will no longer run.
The “Inagi City i-bus” also underwent a timetable revision, and the D course via Yomiuri Land is no longer in service. This means that the number of “buses to amusement parks” has decreased somewhat, although it remains almost the same.
© Source travel watch