Highlights and Lowlights of Highlights Travel
I don't expect our Highlights Travel tour was typical. Unlike other reviews I've seen, our experience was decidedly mixed. We booked a 21 day trip in Japan with Highlights Travel. Cost was approximately $33,000 for 4 persons. Here is my assessment: 1) Hotel bookings: quite good. We stayed in hotels or ryokans in Tokyo, Hakone, Tamayaka, Nagoya, Kanazawa and Hiroshima. 2) Home Stay in Tokyo: TERRIFIC stay with local person. However, directions provided by Highlights were incomplete and we were unable to find the location for over 2 hours. 3) Guides: Decidedly mixed. Our initial guide, Kento, was fabulous. We had him in Tokyo. Pretty good English but more important quite knowledgeable. We had one other guide, Ethan, in Kyoto who was similiarly knowledgeable. Our other three guides (Takayama, Kanazawa and Hiroshima) either didn't speak very good English or had to resort to their phones/Google to answer our questions. One guide completely mixed up a Sake Tour we paid for, instead guiding us into a Sake Tourist trap that reminded us of Las Vegas. 4) Activities: In general, quite good. We had spent considerable time with our consultant to devise an itineary that worked for all 4 of us. 5) Communication with our lead consultant from Highlights: Throughout, we had trouble communicating with our lead guide, based in China. We worked with her over 2 months before our trip, trying to make sure our requests were understandable. In the end, we had numerous times where we were unsure about logistics. For the Home Stay, for example, our consultant informed our HomeStay person she should take off a day to be with us. She failed to tell us that fact and we had already arranged a number of activities on our own that day. Quite awkward. Or today, unclear how to get to our car to the airport. Driver didn't speak English and we had to use Google Maps repeatedly to find him at Shinjuku Station. I know our experience may be unusual, but we would not use Highlights Travel again.