There was a few issues with hotels and room which could have been better. However had brilliant time. I have booked another holiday with them

re Japan Uncovered #16 27 March - 11 April 24

Having toured Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia with Wendy Wu a few years ago we were confident in booking this tour with Wendy Wu and we were not disappointed.
The tour is a busy one and a lot of walking is involved. In some of the castles we visited stairways were steep and slippery due to having to take our shoes off. We would say that the physical rating of 1 is misleading. During the 14 days that we toured we walked 141 kms (87.5 miles) about 10 kms (6 miles) per day which is tough on someone who is not very mobile and indeed some of our party missed out seeing some places as they could not manage the distance.
Hotels were all very good. some with lovely views over the coast and Mount Fuji. Only the 2 European chain hotels had bars (Sheraton & Mercure) but there were vending machines everywhere to purchase drinks when required.
The food was Japanese apart from a few buffets which included more European dishes. I will say that we found the meals very samey. On occasions we had the same for lunch and evening meal but there was always plenty of it and a selection of different items so you could pick out what you liked.
We enjoyed the Castles, Temples, Gardens, Bullet Train, Snow Monkeys and of course the cherry blossoms.
Our guides English was a little slow and he had the habit of repeating instructions over and over making it longer to get anywhere ie into our hotel rooms but was flexible when he needed to be.
Not a lot of free time on the tour. We were lucky to arrive at lunchtime in Osaka and so had free time until the evening meal so we took the train to Osaka Castle where we wandered the gardens. We were glad that we did as we saw more than when we returned the following day. At the end of the tour we had 2 free afternoons which again enabled us to take the train back into Tokyo Centre to wander around.
All in all a great time seeing everything that you should when visiting Japan.

Fantastic trip. Great national guide. Highly recommend.

An excellent tour but very ‘full on’!
A good overview of Japan with very good guides, very knowledgeable and helpful ladies. However the last day was too much as after a long day, arriving at a hotel at 6.45 pm, out at 7pm to catch a train to a restaurant and up at 4am for a 5am airport pickup left us needing another holiday! We saw all the sites we wanted to see, met the people, who were lovely and ate the food! Would recommend!

My first call with Hannah have me all the information I needed, unfortunately the date I wanted was sold out. I reassessed the situation and rang back, Hannah was busy but my number was passed on to her and she rang me back within a few minutes. I was then able to book the new date. Helpful, pleasant and patient..thanks Hannah.😊

We had a great time and the concept of group tours was new. In hindsight we should have spent some time at the welcome meal for people to introduce themselves.
For our taste there were too many “western style dinners”, particularly as they were of low quality. We loved the Japanese food and realized that it must have been a challenge to serve 27 people quickly.
The schedule was kept to, despite some folks returning late to meeting points, there was no contingency for this,
Our tour leader did an amazing job juggling the schedule and some special requests.

Thoroughly professional and welcoming

Enjoyed this holiday very much. But I've been quite unwell since I got home.

overall lovely holiday and tour of Japan and I would use company again.
three main issues -
the tour size group was 28 in my view far too many for one tour guide despite the guide's best efforts.
she was outstanding
most of the hotels were outstanding but a couple were cramped and and some it was just impossible to get breakfast as the dining areas were just far too small compared to the number of people needing to come to breakfast
thirdly some of the restaurants chosen for the evening meal were not good while others outstanding.

this was not a cheap trip and my expectations were for a much more consistent standards in hotels restaurants and meals.
it did not seem the company was skimping more rather some poor choices