[3/21, 18:59] Carrie VJK132367: It was great. Yoshi is so nice and accommodating
[3/21, 19:03] doris: Sounds nice!
[3/23, 16:19] doris: Hi Carrie, how about today‘s trip? I just emailed you the booking info about Korea E-sim Card, please check.
[3/23, 17:23] Carrie VJK132367: Hi Doris today was great. Fugi is very knowledgeable and I’d highly recommend him.
[3/26, 19:21] doris: Hello, how was the Gyeongju tour? Are you on the way to Seoul Hotel now?
[3/26, 19:22] Carrie VJK132367: Yes we just got in the van. Thank you for always checking on us every step of the way.
[3/26, 19:22] Carrie VJK132367: Tour was amazing. The guide was the best yet. He knew so much and explained so much.
[3/26, 19:23] doris: Ok, it is my responsibility to check everything goes well
[3/26, 19:23] Carrie VJK132367: You are doing a great job!!!
[3/26, 19:25] doris: Thank you
The best guide we had was on the Tokyo bus tour. I think her name was Mina or something like that. Her English was very good, she provided a lot of info and kept us all organized. Private tour guides were all nice but they were more like accompanies than guides. Maybe because of the language barrier maybe just the culture. Taka’s English was better than others. The choice for lunch wasn’t that exiting either (especially in Koyasan) and I felt we would be more satisfied with a street food, maybe should be given as an option. But the worst food we had in Japan was the one included in those two bus tours! I thought it’s impossible to find bad food in Japan but they managed to do it. We would really prefer to pay for our own lunch if time allowed.
No complains about hotels. They were all clean and provided all the necessities and the locations were very convenient. The best one was in Osaka. We also enjoyed authentic experience in Koyasan temple and ryokan in Hakone.
The itinerary was perfect since it was exactly what I asked for and no complains in that area also. We liked everything in this order: Kyoto, Koyasan, Hakone and Mt Fuji, Osaka and Tokyo. We were disappointed that Sakura just started blooming at the end of our trip and we never saw the full bloom. I understand you can’t predict it but was thinking we should have gone in autumn instead and we would see leaves changing color for sure. To catch Sakura blooming the trip should probably be for at least 3 weeks. I am going to recommend fall for people that go to Japan for less than 3 weeks.
Public transportation in Japan is amazing and pleasant to use. The most difficult part is to actually find your train in all these shops and restaurants area but after that it is easy. I would highly recommend giving suica card to travelers. I was glad I found the info that it can be bought at the airport. It saved us a lot of time! Having portable Wi-Fi was also very helpful, I don’t know what we would do without it.
Overall we absolutely loved Japan. The people, the food, the nature, culture and history, perfect public transportation system, cleanliness…All amazing! And thank you very much for organizing this toor for us. I would sure recommend Novaland tours to other people. Thank you Cindy for organizing this very memorable trip for us!
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We would rate 5 for all categories! We were so happy with the trip and all the extra care your team took especially for Raj’s health. We really appreciate. If I can write a review or anything, please let me know and we will be using your company for the future and will tell our friends also.
Thank you,
Piyanka Patel
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Hey Nancy, every thing has been great! Thank you for checking in
Hey Nancy! The trip to Kamakura was pleasant, the train ride was enjoyable and eye opening! We really enjoyed the time with Fei.
1=poor, 2=fair, 3=good, 4=very good, 5=excellent
Aspect | Mark(1-5) | Advice or Remark | |
Travel Consultant | 5 | Very responsive to needs. Accommodated all requests and provided excellent suggestions. Very approachable and easy to work with.- | |
Tour Guides | Command of English | 5 |
|
Knowledge of Subjects | 5 |
| |
Ability of Explain | 5 |
| |
Attitude | 5 | Yumi and Yoshi were exceptional! We plan to keep in touch with them :) | |
Flexibility | 5 |
| |
Drivers and Cars | 3 | Pickup driver (Narita): very confused about where to retrieve us. He was not at the greeting area.
Hakone driver: didn’t know we were his party despite giving last name and our guide asking if he was there for us.
Return driver (Osaka): Car smelled like strong cigarette smoke. | |
Hotels | Location | 4 | Could not get Taxi from Aura Tachibana (Hakone) because reservation was not placed way in advance. Taxis are limited due to shortage of drivers and isolation of the area. Wish we had known sooner and reservation was arranged prior to arrival. |
Comfort | 5 |
| |
Sights or Activities | Worthiness of Visit | 4 | Bamboo grove is beautiful, but the large chaotic crowds made it difficult to enjoy as much. Visitors should be made aware of the crowd volume prior to confirming visit.
Boat ride with lunch was a great opportunity to escape the crowds. The food was delicious and it was such a unique experience! We would do it again! Interested parties should be made aware that they will need to walk on gravel and climb into the boat. |
Meet Your Interests? | 5 | the variation in activities kept everything interesting. | |
Too Tight or Too Loose? | 4 | Schedule was tight. We adjusted as deemed necessary. | |
Meals | 5 |
| |
Public Transportation (train, flight, cruise, etc.) | 3 | Given knee and back problems within our party, walking to, from, and between stations became a strain and a taxi was opted for instead on many occasions.
| |
Any Other Aspect | 3 | Complications with massage reservations at Aura Tachibana. Kate is aware.
Novaland’s hotel list needs to be updated and current (incorrectly categorized hotel quality eg. 5 star) | |
Overall Score of the Whole Package | 4.4 | We would love to work with Novaland on our next itinerary! | |
Hi Amina,
Yes, back last Sunday. Had a wonderful time and thank you so much for your help. You were truly outstanding in the process. See notes below.
Paul
1=poor, 2=fair, 3=good, 4=very good, 5=excellent
Aspect
Mark(1-5)
Advice or Remark
Travel Consultant
5
Amina's attention detail is remarkable. Despite the 30+ emails she never missed a thing.
Tour Guides
Command of English
4
Amina's written english is very good.
Knowledge of Subjects
5
Ability of Explain
5
Attitude
5
Flexibility
5
Yes. Amina was able to accommadate a travel request within two weeks of the trip.
Drivers and Cars
4
Hotels
Location
5
Comfort
5
Sights or Activities
Worthiness of Visit
5
Meet Your Interests?
5
Too Tight or Too Loose?
5
Meals
On our own. But the breakfasts were good.
Public Transportation (train, flight, cruise, etc.)
5
What can I say. Japanese trains are on another level.
Any Other Aspect
Overall Score of the Whole Package
5
Will recommend you group again as we have a couple of friends wanting to go to Japan.
I know that this review is pretty late in coming but we have had lots going on and somehow the review has managed to get passed over. Anyway, we all enjoyed our Japan adventure and are looking forward to Scotland/Ireland. Overall, our guides were great. We all rated Noriko Oyagi superb in all of the above categories and additionally she was very personable. Michio Hameda was very good but a little more difficult to understand, but excelled in knowledge. Kagimi Masako was adequate but was very soft spoken and at times difficult to hear or understand and did not seem to have the personality or depth of knowledge that our other guides had. The hotels were all great and drivers were punctual, safe, and vehicles were in good repair. We appreciate how much we were able to see in the limited time that we were in Japan. The thing we like best about using Novaland is the ability to customize our itinerary so that we are not wasting time waiting for others and dealing with big busses.
Regarding our Scotland/Ireland itinerary, I managed to leave the last iteration of the itinerary on my desktop computer in Florida. We are at our home in Tennessee for the summer. Could you send me a copy. We have some friends who went to Scotland & Ireland last year and wanted to compare and make suggestions.
thank you, Whitney.
We mailed the wifi and are in the airport lounge in plenty of time.
We’ve had a wonderful trip, thanks to you. You set up everything we asked for with absolutely minimal glitches.
thank you for making our dream trip come true. More than one guide told us: “I’ve never been here before or,I’ve never had a client ask to go to this place”. We were so pleased that we had made all the right choices throughout the trip…Perhaps the result of years of traveling to new places too.
Please know we’ll reach out to Novaland Tours if we do another big trip and recommend it to others.
good luck to you.
Martha and Melissa
I share with you the comments of the passengers about the services, we appreciate all your support with the files that we have had together and please continue like this since as you see we have many requests and we want to close new trips.
The client told me that it was a very nice trip and service from everyone, they took care of them at all times, and
On the first day in Tokyo the guide took her to a fabric store, but on the second day she showed her which store she wanted to go to for her yarns and if they took her since it was 10 minutes from her hotel, and the driver's delay on the 21st but the rest was excellent, I really enjoyed your trip to Japan.