TL;DR: Tourist trap, you'll be stuck in lines all day or even stranded. Many of the routes on the free pass map are infrequent or so full you won't get on. Definitely visit Hakone but do not rely on the free pass to get around! If I return I will rent a car.
So, we had a terrible experience exploring Hakone using the Hakone free pass and I would like to share it with people as it looks like Klook misrepresents the general experience by rejecting low-rated reviews and not allowing edits. My review was written respectfully so I don't know what other reason they'd have rejected it. Also was deleted by the other subreddit so if it's not allowed here I'm not sure where to get the word out!
Essentially it's a giant tourist trap. On paper (literally on the free pass map), the pass seems like an excellent idea. Explore the Hakone area via "all-inclusive" access to transit and some unique experiences like the ropeway. The map helpfully identifies included routes to bypass the touristy options like the ropeway or pirate ship or you just want to avoid the lines and get on with your day. There are multiple bus lines travelling in the same direction, offering express routes or routes with stops at points of interests like the old hakaido road or a centuries old tea shop. Sounds great!
That is, until you realize many of the bus routes advertised on the pass either come a handful of times per day (W line) or are so extremely over-encumbered by tourists that you'll end up stranded.
At the top of the ropeway, there is a transfer station where you must get off and be made to wait in line for 40-60 min to get down the mountain. Or you can leave the line and try to find a spot on a Hakone Tozan bus which is not included in the free pass, is expensive, and likely to be full! Not to mention the insane traffic jams on the road down. Might as well wait stranded in the ropeway line.
At the end of the ropeway, you can take the boat across the lake or the map suggests you can take the W route to bypass the boat lines. Unfortunately the W route comes very infrequently and will likely be full or fill up before you get on anyways. That's actually a theme with the busses. Let me go on. So, you relent and wait for the boat. On the boat there is an option right at the end of the line to leave the line and pay for a first class ticket, about 800 Yen. This would allow you to skip the line you just waited in and get into a special area of the boat. Nobody knows about this so nobody seems to purchase it. The entire forward section of the boat is blocked off to general ticket holders and is mostly empty, meaning the boat moves lower volumes of people trying to get out of there. More people stuck waiting for the next boat.
After the boat ride is when you get really stranded.The K line which follows the R route with stops at points of interests doesn't seem to actually exist per the tourist map, or at least we could not find the stops in person or on the travel Japan app. You can take H or R lines. There's a schedule, but they don't seem to follow it even closely. The lines for these buses are HUGE. Way more people than they could possibly accept before ending service. Twice the R bus arrived full from the other port and would not let anybody board. The H bus which goes up and around the mountain in the other direction finally arrives less-full and took a handful of the people who ran and got to its stop first. The trip was supposed to take 36 minutes back to the Hakone-Yumoto station but traffic on the mountain road was terrible so it was an hour and 20 minutes before I decided to leave my travel partner with our backpacks and sprint off the bus 3 stops early to retrieve our luggage mere minutes before the storage facility closed. I have never felt more free, sprinting down that Hakone mountain road. I can't imagine what the locals thought, but the situation was dire. I informed them of the delayed bus where they confirmed this is a frequent problem and said they'd stay open 10 more minutes for the others. Hopefully that helped somebody. One elderly lady on our bus being made to stand had resigned to her fate and realized she'd be missing her train out of town and hoped she'd not miss her flight.
I am certain that people got actually stranded at the two boat ports. We were lucky to catch one of the H buses and the lines were still huge when we departed. Taxis exist and I was quoted 5000-7700 Yen. I would have paid that if I'd known the bus would be so delayed by traffic.
All this to say, the free pass seems very-well thought out and I'm sure a lot of effort went into setting it up. Unfortunately the local transit infrastructure cannot support the extremely high volumes of tourists. I'm not sure how they can fix this other than running more busses or limiting free pass sales. Hakone was truly beautiful and I wish I'd have had more time to experience it instead of waiting in lines and feeling stranded.
by jerbearman10101