Will land at Kansai, Osaka and travel from April 30 to May 10, 2015. Will spend two days Osaka, 1 day Kiyoto, 2 days Okayama, 1 day Nagoya, and 4 days Tokyo, arriving May 6. I purchased three first class JR rail passes due to Golden Week. Plan to activate on May 1. My questions are as follows:
How do I go about reserving a seat in first class? I assume I must do that after activation in Japan.
How do we deal with luggage? If we have rollers on suit case (1 each) is there an area we can store it in luggage area in the first class cabins?
Should I wait to activate later than May 1, which will cause pass to expire May 7, when we are in tokyo. Do I need the rail pass while in Tokyo, or will individual tickets per travel suffice? I do need to get to Haneda on May 10, but I am assuming this is a regular route, and the need for a rail pass will not be needed as we are traveling distances in Japan earlier in the trip.
we are traveling from Okayama toward tokyo on May 5, presumably to Nagoya, (not booked hotel yet), should we anticipate even greater crowds due to end of Golden Week. Should we go to a smaller city to spend the night?
thank you.