Recently did this flying from Tokyo, took shinkansen to toyama and go in from the tateyama station. hope this helps someone.
One month before actual date when online tickets were on sale, everything (6am to 1.20pm) tickets for the tateyama cable car were sold out. Only 1.40pm tickets were available. Most tourists come from Nagano side, so no such limitation.
When we reached Toyama station at 10am, only the 1.40pm tickets were available for walk in purchase so we got the one way through tickets. Going up from tateyama station, theres hardly any views. The scenic part was the bus ride to murodo. Sit on the left side.
Since were staying at Midagahara hotel the correct way was to stop at midagahara, stay overnight, before heading to murodo peak. But we decided to go straight to murodo from Bijodaira bus stop.
As expected crowds were crazy. I cant imagine those who chose to stay at Murodo hotel, doesnt seem peaceful with all the crowds.
To get backtrack to midagahara, we purchased the $20 round ticket from murodo to midagahara and used it to go midagahara hotel.
Midagahara hotel was great. During check in you need to decide which bus timing to take from 8am to murodo, and they will reserve for you.
It organises a few hiking activities throughout the day which you can join in. Snow boots provided. At the back of the hotel you can enjoy snow activities without the crowd. Theres also public bath in the hotel. Dinner and breakfast provided. You can also chill at the hotel lobby staring at the mountains while sipping free delicious chocolate or coffee.
At night theres star gazing activity after a short lesson. The teacher was quite knowledgeable he can immediately recognize planets and stars, and use a green laser pointer to point at the stars.
The following day we chose to take the 8.50am bus. There were hardly any crowds at murodo so you can enjoy the whole area to yourself.
Since most tourists come from Nagano side where theres no reserved timing bottleneck, it was not crowded going down. We could have chosen to backtrack and go down via tateyama station which is faster, but I was glad we didnt because the views going down tateyama ropeway was the highlight of the trip. Theres no crowd to fight with to take photos of the best view while in the ropeway, I pity the morning crowds packed like sardines going up, they're missing a lot.
Nothing eventful after that, if you stick to the timing of transferring vehicles you should be able to catch the bus to nagano stationn on time. If you stopped to enjoy the view, then you have to wait 1h15min before the next bus.
To summarize, imo the best way to experience the mount kurobe alpine route is to go in from tateyama, stay at midagahara to avoid the crowds, and exit via the longer scenic route to nagano. Doing it as a day trip will not be as fun due to the crowds.
If you still want to do it as a day trip, then secure early morning tickets to go up from tateyama station, and exit the scenic route to nagano. If you cant secure the morning tickets, dont do it because the 1.40pm ropeway timing means you have less than one hour to enjoy murodo and go down in time without getting stranded
by yusoffb01