Review

David Gray

Best of Japan

Itinerary

One of the reasons we took this tour was to pack as much as we could into two weeks. That said, just a little more breathing room/free time would have been optimal. Maybe making it more obvious when it would be possible for individuals to cut a day a little bit short (which my wife did one day in Kyoto) would be helpful.

Lodging

Loved the variety of accomodations. Was asbsolutely thrilled but he stay in the temple and very much liked the Ryokans, especially the one on Miyushima Island. And the Dori Inns were a great choice for in the city stays.

Food

I would generally give the food a 5+. It was wonderful to try new things and just about every place was very accommodating to my wife\'s dairy intolerance. There were a couple of exceptions to this and they almost made me put the food lower than 4. The biggest one is that on the first day, we had a group lunch at a place that served fried food that contained dairy. On the way to the restaurant we misheard the guide - we thought he said she could scrape off the butter. Which seemed odd. When we were served, my wife had her food allergen card by her, and she was served the fried food. We know that fried food can be an issue, but she was served, so she was at the first skewer. The guide then came over and clarified that she should scrape off the batter. This made a little more sense, but this is not an acceptable solution for someone with the level of dairy intolerance that she has. She was not able to eat the rest of the meal (she had pickles and rice for lunch) and had a reaction that was likely due to the one skewer she consumed. We would have been perfectly fine with peeling off and grabbing sushi or ramen if you were unable to arrange a group meal that met our needs. Fortunately, that\'s the only time that anything that extreme happened on the trip, but it was the first shared meal and set the tone. Clarifying ahead of time what level of intolerance/allergy is at issue and sticking by that would be helpful

Guides

All of the guides were great. We thought Charlie was a bit too regimented at the beginning, but once we settled into the tour we realized that he did a great job of training us to handle the Japanese transportation systems and the general logistics of the tour in a way that made the rest of the tour run more smoothly. ShinkanKen also did a stand out job of guiding.

Pre-Tour Handbook

Tour Organization

Tour Transportation

Would you go on another tour operating by Samurai Tours: Yes!

Would you recommend Samurai Tours to friends or family: Yes!