Overall not sure it's worth the money
Overall, I'm not sure it was worth the money. The only reason it would be is the small group size and driver. Pros: -- It was great to have a small tour group. -- It was great to have a driver--including to/from the airport and train station. -- The tour guides were flexible to our needs/wants. For example, we don't like high fashion so we changed one of our stops to do something we'd like better and when one location was overcrowded the tour guide accepted our request to do something different. --The Kyoto/Osaka tour guide was very enthusiastic and tried really hard to make our trip great. -- The Kyoto hotel was great and had a very helpful concierge. -- Alisa was great helping us set up the tour and being available when we had questions or concerns. Cons: -- Communication was not good. 3 of the 4 drivers could not contact me. I had to get their numbers from the company and reach out to them to confirm pick up times, etc. The number I was given for the second tour guide was wrong. The tour guides did not reach out until late the night before the tour started. --When we booked the tour we were told we had to get info to them quickly so tickets could be bought. When we got there no tickets had been purchased. This caused us to not get the train time we wanted and meant we missed 1/2 a day in Kyoto. It also meant we had to wait around 30 minutes at different attractions while the guide went to get the tickets. -- The Tokyo tour guide, wasn't really a tour guide. She did not give us any history, etc. When asked a question, she googled it. She was more of an interpreter than tour guide. Most of the time we didn't even know where we were. She also didn't have any sense of time management. -- When we noticed that we had missed stops onthe tour, the Tokyo tour guide told us it was not possible to do all of the items in our confirmation or they'd have to pay overtime. In my eyes, this is wrong. I paid for a tour and should be able to go to all the places the tour included. --When the weather was bad and items on our agenda were closed, no replacement options were given to us. It would have been nice to have been told this before we left and given an option of whether we wanted to spend 4 hours in a car and hours and hours in the rain to not be able to see or experiene any but one attraction. We were told the weather this time of year is often like this. It would be great if the company had a backup agenda for the day so you could choose whether you wanted to risk the weather or not. -- Neither of the tour guides were very knowledgable. -- The Tokyo and Osaka hotels were not great. --- The last day of our tour was supposed to include a food tour. The guide didn't have any idea that this was supposed to happen. When I mentioned it, the company just told him to do the tour and it ended up just walking around a market not getting any information and the tour guide asking us what we wanted to eat. Full disclosure, the company reimbursed us because of this. (I hope the guide didn't get in trouble. They really put him in a bad position)