Aspect | Mark(1-5) | Advice or Remark | |
Travel Consultant | 5 | Put together a great tour and listened to our requests. | |
Tour Guides | Command of English | 5 |
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Knowledge of Subjects | 5 | All of the other tour guides were wonderful. | |
Ability of Explain | 5 |
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Attitude | 5 |
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Flexibility | 5 | Takehiko O-izumi helped me get my husband to a clinic with an English-speaking doctor when he came down with Bronchitis. He called and made the appointment and after dropping the kids off at the noodle making class, went with me to the clinic. This caused him to miss lunch so he and I had a late lunch while the kids toured a shrine. | |
Drivers and Cars | 5 | The drivers were always courteous and willing to change directions when requested. | |
Hotels | Location | 5 | Our Tokyo hotel was a block from the subway. We were able to spend our free day riding around Tokyo on the subway and easily get back to our hotel. |
Comfort | 4 | We are used to softer beds and larger rooms in the US. Some of the hotels had small rooms. However, overall the accommodations were good. | |
Sights or Activities | Worthiness of Visit | 5 | We learned a lot about the Japanese culture, especially from the tour guides who shared their time and interests with us. |
Meet Your Interests? | 5 |
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Too Tight or Too Loose? | 5 | The Tour Guides were willing to adjust the schedule as needed to ensure we had time in the schedule for the things we were most interested in. | |
Meals | 5 | It was nice to have breakfast every morning as part of our hotel stay. The kids loved the noodle making class. My daughter is gluten intolerant, so we went to a grocery store the night before and bought rice noodles. The chef was willing to make them for her. | |
Public Transportation (train, flight, cruise, etc.) | 5 | We had some difficulty figuring out where to get on trains, but by the last train ride we had figured out the system. | |
Any Other Aspect |
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Overall Score of the Whole Package | 5 |
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Hi Cindy,
Tomorrow is our last day. We had a very good journey. We would like to thank you, driver Carl and Belikto. All of you work hard to provide us with a comfortable and enjoyable journey. It will be the most memorable journey, which includes cultural nature and technological advances of Japan. We will plan for our next tour with the Novaland tour. It gives us freedom of stress of all arrangements and planning.
Aspect | Mark(1-5) | Advice or Remark | |
Travel Consultant | 5 | Cindy miss calculated time require to reach destination from parking to the site. Also, time needed to calculate for queuing at certain sites in spite of the reservation. She was prompt in replying email during tour planning and communicated promptly during tour for any queries. Even she accommodated my request to pay in AUD, so I will not waste money in exchange rates. Also, she agreed to give payment in 3 installments. | |
Tour Guides | Command of English |
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Knowledge of Subjects |
| No guide during our tour | |
Ability of Explain |
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Attitude |
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Flexibility |
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Drivers and Cars | 5 | Both drivers Carl and Belikto were excellent drivers. Car was in excellent condition with lots of automatic features. Drivers are punctual, helpful, flexible and communicating well on whatsapp. Their English command was good for simple language. Difficulty in understanding difficult words. They showed us few places out of itinerary as per our interest and due to availability of time. | |
Hotels | Location | 4 | We selected hotels. I should have selected hotel in Shibuya area rather than Shinjuku in Tokyo. |
Comfort | 4 | We love the resorts at Hakone; hotel was the best in terms of all facilities. Some hotel has centralized AC, rooms were not cold enough, they provided fan on request. | |
Sights or Activities | Worthiness of Visit | 4.5 | We have selected places of interest. Osaka castle, Nijo castle, no need to visit from inside. Only outside view and garden was good. We wasted our time in few markets as it was for meat eater not for shopping |
Meet Your Interests? | 5 | Love visiting Dontonbori, Akihabara & Shibuya market. Enjoy activities like Kimono wearing, cup noodle museum with noodle making experience, Hakone glass museum and glass making, gain knowledge of Sake @ Gekkeikan Okura sake tour. | |
Too Tight or Too Loose? | 4 | Few days were too tight and due to booking we have to do site seeing in rush. Day 5 in Osaka was too tight. Universal studio was very busy, not worth to visit. Kyoto could have been split to add one more day to reduce tightness. Hakone and Fuji need 1 more day to do without rush. There need to be complete relaxing day after every 4 day to have some time for recovery and laundry. Overall, if we added 2-3 days extra, then it will not be too tight for certain days. | |
Public Transportation (train, flight, cruise, etc.) | 5 | Train journey was excellent | |
Any Other Aspect |
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Overall Score of the Whole Package | 4.5 | Definitely will come back to Cindy @ Novaland tours for future planning as Novaland offers worldwide tours as per our need. Our Japan tour experience was the best based on our past experience. I feel so relaxing after planning itinerary with Cindy. No worries for booking hotels, sites, train or car. Plan the tour, pay money, book flight and go for the wonderful adventure. | |
Hi Whitney,
Thank you for all your assistance, advice and hard work! Thanks to you, we had a wonderful time in Japan!!!
I filled in the chart below.
Best,
Carol and crew
1=poor, 2=fair,3=good, 4=very good5=excellent
Aspect | Mark(1-5) | Advice or Remark | |
Travel Consultant | 5 | Great communication, fast to respond | |
Tour Guides | Command of English | 4 | Our last guide Yuta had the best English skills (5) the other two were 4's |
Knowledge of Subjects | 5 |
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Ability of Explain | 5 |
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Attitude | 5 | Yuki and Yuta had wonderful attitudes (5++) | |
Flexibility | 5 | Again, Yuki and Yuta were 5's | |
Drivers and Cars | 5 | Cars were great, no problems with drivers other than the really didn't speak English | |
Hotels | Location | 5 |
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Comfort | 5 |
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Sights or Activities | Worthiness of Visit | 4.5 | Maybe a few less shrines would be better |
Meet Your Interests? | 4.5 |
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Too Tight or Too Loose? | 5 |
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Meals | 5 |
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Public Transportation (train, flight, cruise, etc.) | 5 |
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Any Other Aspect |
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Overall Score of the Whole Package | 5 | Wish weather had been better in Tokyo (disappointed we didn't see Mt. Fuji), but that can't be controlled | |
[3/21, 07:43] Thom VWW129722 Thomas: Yes!! Cody is great!!! Thank you!!!!
[3/21, 07:47] doris: Sounds nice. The staff let you check in?
[3/21, 07:48] doris: Usually, the check in time is in the afternoon
[3/21, 07:48] Thom VWW129722 Thomas: No…. We are waiting in the lobby. We totally understand how it works!
[3/21, 07:54] doris: Ok, you can store luggage at the reception and stroll around
[3/21, 07:55] Thom VWW129722 Thomas: Yes! It’s totally fine! And you are the best!!!!
[3/21, 08:02] doris: Thank you
[3/22, 15:49] doris: Hi Thom, how about today‘s trip?
[3/22, 15:53] doris: By the way, Mr. Darcy will be your guide in Perth, his contact number is ... There is another staff will pick up Pam at airport, I will tell her asap.
[3/22, 15:53] Thom VWW129722 Thomas: Thank you so much for checking! Cody is great! The visit to the Opera House was outstanding! The bridge walk is amazing! Hank is diabetic and got low blood sugar about halfway up the bridge, so we needed to turn around, everyone was wonderfully helpful. It was no problem! Oh and the hotel and the hotel room are amazing!!!!! Again, Cody is terrific! Thank you Doris!!!!
[3/24, 05:05] Thom VWW129722 Thomas: We are at airport to go to Perth. Everything about the Sydney trip was outstanding, and Cody was fantastic! Thank you, Doris!!!!
[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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