Testimonials

Mr. & Mrs. Phillips

95% perfect!

Mr. Ricardo Guyitngco

Great Guides

Mr. Christian Lopez

It is hard for me to say what particular aspect of the tour I enjoyed the most because each experience played its part in developing my appreciation for Japan and its history, culture, architecture, society, and the effort & dedication put in to get Japan to where it is today. The guides are fun & friendly and each event is interesting. The time spent at each event is reasonable--balancing the number of places we can see vs. how long we see them. Overall, the tour was a wonderful experience.

Mrs. Sonia, Mr. Manuel, & Mr. Alejandro

We enjoyed very much the tour. The activities, the guide, the bus ride/transportation, eveything. People in the group was also very nice. Accomodation was very comfortable for the three of us. Despite the fact that we love Japanese food, there were meals that we did not like at all. For example: the meal in Lake Kawagushi or the dinner in Kyoto after the ceremony with Maiko. On the other hand, breakfasts were fantastic and the meals in Riokan.

Ms. Meinstein & Miss Kazdan

The tour is an exceptional value: everything listed in the description was included, no "extras" requiring an extra charge. There was a perfect balance of guided tour with activities and free time to explore. The tour guide was knowledgeable and accommodating. Featured meals were delicious, authentic and plentiful. Hotels were lovely and well located.

Lynn N

Absolutely loved the tour. Tour guide Billy was fantastic. He gave us all the best information about Japan and continued to help us, with every detail and question. Billy was so kind, informational, thoughtful, and overall made our first Japan trip unforgettable. Because Billy made it fantastic I plan on taking more tours with All Japan Tours for this year and next.

Mr. & Mrs. Crow

My husband and I just got back from our tour of Japan and would like to give you some feedback. We had an incredible time! It was a trip of a lifetime. I liked it even better than Paris and that is saying something!

Ms. Yvonne Johnson

This trip was absolutely wonderful and far exceeded my expectations and considerable anticipation. It was so well organized, our guide Trend was so knowledgeable, sharp, kind and had terrific managerial and people/communication skills. The bus driver too, did a fantastic job taking us to all the breathtaking sites on our trip. Great hotels and breakfasts too! We had a fun delightful group of people I enjoyed getting to know. I would be remiss not to praise the AJT staff and all their thoughtful valuable pre-trip help. The one thing I would recommend people do for a tour like this, so packed with activity, is to arrive a couple days ahead of the tour to rest up and adjust to the time difference. I didn’t think to do this but next time I will, given the 17 hour time difference between my homestate California and Japan. My highlights were Kenrokuen in Kanazawa and the famous gold leaf ice cream, Gion, and Nara was a #1 dream come true that was amazing.

Mr. and Ms. Knief

This was a outstanding tour with a lot of of sights packed into a short timeframe. Be prepared to walk, but the effort you put in pays off. Our guide and driver were fabulous getting us to places before huge crowds descended and our guide was tremendously knowledgable with both historical and current information regarding culture and lifestyles. The people everywhere we went were friendly and helpful and the food was fantastic. Accommodations were great and provided easy access to other local sights and resources. Couldn't be happier with our choice to use AJT.

Ms. Palmer & Mr. Maroney

The tour was very good. Phillip was a good guide and his English was good. All of the accommodations were nice. The Ryokan stay was especially fun. All of the provided meals were delicious, and there was a good variety of (too much?) food. There were too many delicious meals to comment on them specifically, but the kaiseki meals at the ryokan and the special sushi dinner on Miyajima Island stand out as being very special. (Wrt the latter, however, please note that the meal took two hours, and that was with Phillip pushing them to try to move along faster bc of our agenda. Also it will not work for a larger group bc the establishment is very small. We were only three.) We were a little surprised to miss the peak colors. However, we also enjoyed lovely, warm weather. We were lucky to catch sight of Mt Fuji from Lake Kawaguchi, although clouds obscured it by the time we walked up to Chureito Pagoda after lunch. The tour time in Tokyo seemed short, but were suited to an Autumn Leaves tour. Overall I would have preferred less shopping and more sightseeing, but that’s us personally and others do enjoy shopping. The garden was beautiful. The snow monkeys at Yudanaka Onsen were a high point! The Hokusai Museum was disappointing, bc it was half- closed (I think they said they were rearranging the exhibits). It was still worth a stop. The hike along a short portion of the Nakasendo trail from Magome was disappointing. We were an older tour group with some people who had some mobility issues. After the stairs and uneven terrain at Yudanaka, which we all managed, our tour guide told us that while the subsequent hike was long, it wasn’t steep or uneven and didn’t have stairs, and actually most of that was untrue. Consequently, everyone elected to embark on the full hike and not all of us could manage it. It took too long for us all to do the first part of the hike and thus we all had to quit after the falls. It was a lovely hike, and of course we were not guaranteed to be able to do the hike at all bc the weather may not have been suitable. But it was a part of the tour that I was really looking forward to and I was very disappointed at having to quit halfway through. Had we been given the correct information, maybe not everyone would have gone, and the rest of us could have done the complete walk. It’s a small issue - no one got hurt and we all managed to participate - but it was a disappointment bc I was so looking forward to it. Phillip rearranged the timing of our stay in Kyoto and Nara in order to maximize what we could see in two days, which we appreciated. And when Sayako-San stepped in for a day, that was all fine and seamlessly handled. I loved the Bamboo Forest, another high point for me. In Osaka we were picked up at noon, but then we only had an hour to spend at the Castle (not even). That was far too little time. I didn’t really need over two hours to shop after, either. I would have much preferrred a 10:30 - 11:00 start or less time shopping. The TeamLab event wasn’t great in my opinion. I think that was just me, or maybe just us bc we happened to be older. Hiroshima was explored in a balanced and sensitive manner. However, our tour guide thought one hour was sufficient for the museum, and really we could have spent 2-1/2 hrs there (we stayed 1/2 hour longer than the allotted hour). But I understand that some would only be able to stand an hour there bc it’s very difficult. And we are people who like to spend time at museums. Finishing the Hiroshima leg off at Miyajima Island was perfect. The lunch took so long that we were later than planned and had zero time to look for souvenirs and we had only a short stay off the cable car. But we had a great day. A note about the hotel in Hiroshima - it was amazing and our view couldn’t be beat. But it was pretty far from everything and there were few restaurant options. Phillip told us we needed reservations for dinner, but we couldn’t get one for our second night so we had to get a cab to go somewhere. The originally proposed hotel near the train station could have been a better choice, tho it wouldn’t have been as nice. Ok, so I’m half-Japanese and somewhat familiar with Japanese culture. So my response to some of the cultural “experiences” might have been colored by this. I thought the sushi-making was overly tourist-y. It was ok but seemed rather silly. The Geisha/Maiko experience was not only tourist-y but was also disappointing in the classroom style setup. We all had expected it to be for our tour group, somehow. The kimono session was not new to me and it seemed like cultural appropriation. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it. The Sumo experience was horrible and should definitely not be included in the tour. It was just a joke and we’d been expecting some actual, if not truly competitive, sumo wrestling and education. That was the worst part of the tour. I already know how to make okonomiyaki and thought that part in Hiroshima unnecessary. But Hiroshima style okonimiyaki is different so it was fun, despite the touristy flavor. The driver was excellent and very patient/helpful.