Japan Journeys Reviews 30

JJ put together a five week itinerary for us for a self-guided holiday including Hokkaido and Kyushu and what with their supportive app and their efficient hotel choosing and organising we had a wonderful holiday, thank you.

We completed the 13-night Essential Japan self-guided tour in June 2024 as our first experience of visiting Japan, and it was a healthy balance of busy city and quieter rural towns. The meet-and-greet at the airport for bus & train tickets was a useful start, and all the other instructions, hotel vouchers, city guides (which are all stored in an app as well) were spot-on. Hotels were all decent or great (particularly the Sotetsu Fresa Inn Kyoto Shijo and the Tabino Hotel Lit Matsumoto) and be warned the Traditional Ryokan stay at Gora comes with a 7 or 8 course traditional tasting menu for dinner both nights - which is a massive amount of food each! Also be aware that city-centre hotel room in Japan are likely to be smaller than we might be used to in the UK.
We are very pleased to have chosen Japan Journeys for our Honeymoon - thank you all involved!

We have just returned from a wonderful three-week long trip that Japan Journeys put together for us. We found them very helpful and responsive, and the actual travel arrangements - hotels, guides, transport and advice - were exemplary. The background information they supplied was also very helpful.

We just spent an incredible two weeks in Japan, and it was spectacular. Japan Journey's put together a wonderful itinerary, everything was perfect, from the hotels, train trips and of course their wonderful guides.
We highly recommend Japan Journeys if you are considering a trip to Japan.

I have to say this trip was exceptional. Vanessa was such a brilliant guide throughout.
Her enthusiasm was infectious, we all had a holiday to remember.
Vanessa was very organised always appearing every morning with a bright smile after messaging us the evening before with details for the day ahead.
Her approach was very flexible, whatever we asked for she did her best to accommodate it.
She altered the schedule several times to include more bonsai related visits. Her navigation skill are second to none negotiating the trains buses and taxis was brilliant.
I'm sure she went above and beyond what was expected of her as she accompanied us almost every evening pointing out great places to eat.
The extension to the standard tour was also very well organised and went without a hitch.
This being my second trip with you I felt fully vindicated recommending Japan journeys to my friends.
Thanks to you and Vanessa for a great holiday.
Pete Bullen

Hi All, I know reviews are very much one sided and this one is no except. I have found that Japan Journeys (James) organised everything very well indeed. The whole experience was excellent, life changing and would recommend that if you are considering going to Japan look no further that JJ to arrange the trip. Our Guide (Vanessa) was both knowledgeable, professional and spoke the language and I can honestly say that she is a now a friend and a credit to the company. There were 8 people in our group and all of us had a fantastic time away, Japan Journeys certainly made things ease and I look forward to going back in a few years time. Regards

A short review, as I have provided a longer Google review. We are self-guided visitors generally, but having decided on Japan for a special holiday, we chose Japan Journeys to help us get the most from our trip. The choice was based on a very helpful first telephone conversation and a very competitive price. Our confidence in them never waned. Their knowledge, thoughtfulness, responsiveness, and attention to detail played a huge part in enabling us to have an unforgettable trip, with not a single hitch. We would love to visit Japan again, and if and when we do we will contact Japan Journeys.

We have just returned from our third holiday booked through Japan Journeys. First of all, I should say that we had already been to Japan on business a few times so we weren’t concerned about travelling on our own, but we felt we needed some experts to point us in the direction of where to go and what to see. It was also invaluable to have our hotels booked for us in advance, and JJ are meticulous about explaining how to get to each hotel AND they always include the address in Japanese to give to taxi drivers etc.
Hotel rooms in Japan are often in business hotels where the lobbies are large and fancy but the rooms are tiny ( often the bed has to be pushed up against the wall ). They have EVERYTHING you need, though, from toothbrush and razor to pyjamas, and you’ll only be in them to sleep so why worry?! It’s just a difference in culture. Having said that, JJ gets it just right by mixing it up - the Japanese ryokans are charming, the resort hotels are big and spacious, the city hotels are in great locations. I’ve never had a problem with any of the vouchers on any of our holidays and two of them have been three weeks long.
However, more than that, Japan Journeys have always made excellent suggestions on what we should see and what we might do. We’ve often given broad-brush suggestions and then they have narrowed it down for us. The Vamoos app that they recommend has more information than we can take in, and they have always been very helpful about amending or altering anything as we have gone along.
This latest holiday, three weeks focussing on Kyushu and Shikoku, had been postponed four times because of Covid. I have been so pleased to be able to take this holiday, finally, not least because it must have been very difficult for Mario and the ream during the pandemic. If you want to go to Japan, I really would recommend you go and talk to Japan Journeys. We have been very impressed.

The itinerary for our fortnight in Japan was excellent and we had a fabulous holiday seeing the highlights of Japan. Mario arranged this and also intervened to have us moved to a different room at the Karasuma Hotel in Kyoto when we were offered a dirty, small one.

There are downsides with this company. The ‘superior’ accommodation is akin to a Travelodge in the cities- very small, limited hotel facilities, poor breakfast in Kyoto too. We could have done better using Booking.com for hotels. We were also provided a voucher for hotel and dinner in Hakone only for us to find out from the company owner after arrival that this was a ‘typo!’ While JJ paid for our first night’s dinner, the owner refused to pay for the second night even though it was clear that dinner was part of the service we had purchased and we remain over £70 out of pocket. We won’t therefore use them or recommend them as trustworthy given the above and will book directly with JR trains and hotels on our next visit.

The response from Japan Journeys is not correct. My response to their offer of paying for only one night’s dinner when the company had provided a document stating dinner included for both nights ( I have a copy of this) was to say ‘ yes understood…..but clearly this is not ideal.’ It is simply not possible to interpret this as being acceptance of the offer.

It is also not the case that I have conflated the two issues of the company’s refusal to provide the full services listed in the sale on the one hand and the poor standards of accommodation in the cities which we visited. The latter is a point of review while the former is both a review point and an ongoing determination to receive the outstanding payment due to us. Even if this payment is made, my comment on accommodation would still stand. The hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto and Matsumoto were similar to a Premier Inn or Travelodge albeit the upgraded room in Kyoto following our complaint was better than this. It might be that this is a company which sees these standards as ‘superior’ as advertised and in view of that, I thought important to say to others to beware of this.