The history, sights, food, and the shopping- OMG the shopping.
Guides were always on time and filled with knowledge and recommendations.
What I would say is because Japan is so huge and there is so much to see, try not to pack too many things per day as that can be exhausting. When they recommended comfortable shoes, they meant it.
If there were any hiccups-Helen was always quickly responsive and with helpful solutions. She IS the BEST!
Can’t say enough good things about Novaland tours and Helen in particular! From fine tuning the bookings and tailoring it to needs of 35 people, booking fine hotels in all the places in Kyushu , reservation for lunches and dinners, transporting luggage’s , reservations on Shinkansen for all 35 to booking taxi shuttles from the bus stop in TAKACHIHO. .. EXEMPLARY SERVICE!
The guide Michiko San and driver Murata San were fabulous too! Michiko was there to help 24/7 with every need and trying to smoothen out everything! She had a great sense of humor and a lovely singing voice too!
Murata Yoshinara, our driver went beyond his job , loading and unloading our luggage, driving us to places with ease in the small winding roads and stopping for photo shots !
All in all I recommend Novaland tours, Helen and Michiko highly ! They can do tours for a couple, 4 or 35! And they can do it in any part of Japan !
Kyushu was and is too awesome!
Adriana said the group had a great time and really liked Jino, he walked slowly with the clients and had empathy for them.
The whole day has exceeded the guests’ expectations. Jino is an asset to the tour.
Thanks again for organising a day trip for our group.
Kind regards,
Pam Norseeda
How are you?
Just wanted to take a moment to say . Thank u , thank u , thank u !
The service provided by you and Novaland tours was simply superb !
The easy communication, set up and adjustments were all praiseworthy!
The Shinkansen tics, the guide Michiko San, the driver Murata San were all so good
Michiko San was very friendly, efficient and helpful and so was the driver !
All in all a fantastic experience and will certainly recommend you to all!
We plan on visiting as a couple again in the near future and will definitely be using Novaland !
Thx again !
all good...but it rained about 3pm, thus having to cut short the visit at the final village area
appreciate all the help and we had a good time too regardless
Dear Whitney,
Home at last, and recalling the wonderlands through which we passed. Each day was an enchantment and a discovery. A small country like Japan, virtually demolished during the war, is now a beacon of peace, progress, propriety, industry and beauty.The honesty and integrity we encountered everywhere was such an uplifting and humbling experience. A taxi driver shut off the metre of his cab because he had accidentally overhot, a worker retrieved our lost wallet which was subsequently presented to us from the counter.... where will you see such examples? And every corner in buildings and roads flaunted a created beauty. And of course the miles and miles of cherry blossoms thrilled the senses and filled the heart with ecstacy.We thank you, Whitney, for making the panorama accessible. Each trip you planned with minute attention to detail and so comprehensively omitting nothing both in Japan and Korea. All our guides were wonderful. Aki in Hiroshima was most helpful and caring, especially when my sister had a fall. She managed everything so well to ensure that my sister would participate in all the sightseeing in spite of being in pain. Naoko in Tokyo was very knowledgeable and spoke English fluently. Naoko, Kazu, were all very pleasing. The three guides in Korea were also wonderful. Paul in Jeju was very knowledgeable, Jade in Bhusan was very witty and we enjoyed his company. Daniel in Seoul, though not very fluent in English could make himself understood perfectly and he was so caring to our comforts that he was a pleasure to be with. I cannot forget the drivers, we could not communicate much with them due to language constraints but all took good care of us. Our driver in Seoul was particularly caring.
Thank you for the accommodation arranged. The breakfasts were sumptuous and the staff extraordinarily pleasant and rooms comfortable. The only exception was the hotel in Seoul (Ninetree) where the rooms left much to be desired. No place to dress, or arrange our belongings. The air conditioning was also not working but the breakfast and staff were wonderful.
Thank you once. As we bid farewell to Japan and Korea, our abiding memory will be not just of sights and sounds but of its people and the overall gift of human kindness.
With fondest regards
Silloo
Thank you for a wonderful experience from start to finish! You were absolutely amazing, responsive , and so organized. My friends and I had a blast and we learned a lot. Only thing is we wish we had a longer trip. Thanks again! And I hope to work with you again in the future.
DeAndra
We are on the way home after a very enjoyable time in Japan.
It’s easier for me to put my thoughts in text rather than the form below (it would be better as an excel worksheet or similar.
Guides.
All the guides were knowledgable, had a great attitude, spoke English well enough and responded to our requests for change when necessary (my wife could not walk the distances planned). They all contacted us the day before their tours to introduce themselves. We enjoyed meeting them all.
We enjoyed all the hotels. The IBIS in Tokyo was the least enjoyable; it was okay but our room was small and breakfast was not great. It also was not in a great location for restaurants. The Ryokan in Takayama was wonderful. All the other hotels were very well located and we would go back to all of them if we had the opportunity. Staff in hotels were uniformly very helpful with suggestions of restaurants, etc. (I would say in your itinerary notes to clients that the hotels have coin laundries).
The tours themselves met or exceeded our expectations. As I said above, Linda’s leg problems meant that we asked for a couple of days to be cut short but that’s specific to us. I guess if I had my time over I would have wanted to spend more time in the gardens in Kanazawa. There wasn’t much to see in Kanazawa apart from the gardens and it would have been nice to sit and absorb the atmosphere; the castle and rest were not very interesting and we had plenty of time before our train to Kyoto.
In general, we were pleased with the content of tours and all guides gave us a lot of information about the things we were seeing.
The guides gave us travel passes to use in the subways and buses and that all worked very well.
The intercity train transfers you arranged all worked very well and it was very helpful when you were able to change our train journey from Kyoto to Hiroshima.
Our overall score is 9/10.
Regards,
Nicholas Sanders
Doris we have had a great tour thanks to your planning and assistance. Novaland has provided a good itinerary and wonderful staff. The trip has exceeded our expectations…
Aloha
Ralph Goto