Cherry Blossom Sakura Japan Tour & Travel Companies

At this price point, I expect a professional guide. What was provided was someone who admitted she usually guides school groups. When our group representative spoke with her about lifting her game as we were dissatisfied with the level of guiding and may notify On the go tours and complain, her response was that she didn’t care. I saved hard to buy a quality tour as I knew I probably would only get to see Japan once. I was very unhappy with On the go Tours for providing this guide.

Overall I have to say that I was disappointed with this tour. Many changes were made to the tour. A visit to a samurai house was cancelled prior to the tour. Instead visiting a garden only. Promised a Ryokan homestay, instead provided 13 floor Japanese girl without any explanation. No tea ceremony at all. Asked for advice regarding sake distillery only to be told "don't know, sorry". We became aware that the other half of the tour on a separate your were being shown a somewhat better time so I took it upon myself to discuss this with our tour guide. I told her that the other group were being guided around sites more rather than just being dropped off and told a time to regroup. I told her that the other guide was taking her group out for dinner. I suggested that maybe if she wasn't prepared to do this she might give us some ideas about what to do. I said if she didn't try and and improve things done people may complain. Her initial response, and this is word for word, was "I don't care". I was surprised by this as she was generally a friendly person. She did however go on to explain that she wasn't going to go the extra mile as her contact did not include overtime. So overall her guiding involved a five minute presentation on the bus, then being dropped off at the site with a time for returning to the bus. So, in general we were left to our own devices which was fine for me but I know some of the group felt completely let down. Then there's the journey times between places. Sometimes most of the day was spent on the bus when the distance covered was relatively small. To top this off the time spent for lunch at a service station would often be longer than the time spent at main site being seen that day. On a more specific note there really was no need to stay in Matsumoto. The castle is a great site but could be visited on the way to the next town, especially if a two hour lunch break was reduced. On a personal note there was no effort made to mix individuals with people around their own age. Everyone in my group was around thirty years older than me. They were all lovely people but would have been better to take age into consideration when allocating group. There were a number of younger people in the other half of the tour group and so I just joined their group on occasion. Very poorly organised with no consideration for solo travelers. All in all this was an incredibly disappointing tour that has all but put me off guided tours. The cost of this tour even with the discount was ridiculously high given the quality of the guidance provided and in many cases the accommodation provided. If I thought it would have gotten me anywhere I would have asked for a refund. Avoid at all costs and trust that you can organise this trip yourself. The transport in Japan is amazing and easy to negotiate. The days where I took myself off were the best of the tour. Avoid this tour and look elsewhere.

Could be more informative with a better tour guide.

Tour guide- lovely person, but someone with better English would have made the trip better. Too much crammed into each day, no free time to experience the cities we visited such as Kyoto and Osaka.