Hello there, dear Olivia
We are back from our trip to Japan, which was absolutely fantastic. I just want to again tell you what a tremendous job you did and how very much we appreciated your help and that of your people in Tokyo. We were incredibly lucky with the weather! It had been pouring with rain in Japan till the day before we arrived, but for the whole three weeks we were there, we had great weather apart from half a day in Hakone.
Some feedback so that you can make such trips even better for future clients – –
Hotels were good except for Palace Hotel in Hakone. You only have to read the blogs on tripadvisor which sum it up nicely, to send your customers elsewhere.
The hotel is indeed right out of the way, and while the rooms are quite nice, the service at dinner was absolutely appalling. Waiters were un-attentive, spent most of their time talking among themselves and ignoring the customers, brought the wrong dishes after a long, long wait, by which time the food was cold. The waiters had no idea about English and the prices were crazy in the main dining room. Please read the blogs on trip advisor. There are lots and lots of good hotels in Hakone, and this hotel was not one of them.
The cars provided were bigger than the ones stipulated in your proposal, and were probably more suitable for the job, but they were not very comfortable as the seats were tiny and space was very tight. On the Nissan and Toyota models you quoted on there are many versions, and only the eight seater with armchair seats would have been perfect, but these were not available on the tour. However this is not a big deal and I doubt if any of the rental companies have the models that Nissan and Toyota advertise on the Web.
Re the guides, the three that looked after us for the longest time were absolutely marvelous. You would not get better, more caring, more efficient, and more competent guides anywhere in the world and we absolutely loved being with them. By contrast, the older men and some of the transfer people were very ordinary, and quoted their guide-info like a gramophone record without any feeling or friendliness. At the first Japan airlines hotel, the transfer people did not even know where the main check-in was, resulting in our having to march round and round the hotel till we found it.
But your Tokyo JTB staff were marvelous and if you ever want to use me as a referral for the excellence of everything you arranged, I will be most delighted to confirm that I truly believe that JTB is the best of the best.
Again, with many thanks and best wishes
Walter and Cherie
July 2014
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