Japan Uncovered – Review : Departure 29 March 2025

This was my third group tour with Wendy Wu. I’ve previously travelled to Vietnam and India and had an excellent experience in all respects both times which is why I came back for a group tour to Japan. I have dipped into various Japanese cities briefly a few times as ports on cruises. I liked what I saw and wanted to come back for a more in depth experience which is why I booked the trip for its comprehensive and varied looking itinerary.

1) I used Wendy Wu to book my international flights and upgraded to Premium Economy. The airline used was ANA which I found to be prompt and punctual on all flights. I flew to Tokyo Haneda then an internal flight to Osaka. My only niggle is that the timing of the flights meant I got to the hotel at 11.30pm well after every other member of the group so missed all the usual introductions and hellos. The flight home from Tokyo was excellent as I had a free seat next to me and effectively had the space and leg room that the business class seats had to myself. Pick up and drop off at airport was very good by luxury minivan ... as I was last to arrive and one of first to depart. Generally the rest of the group were just given tickets to the general airport bus ...not good and smacks of penny pinching.

2) Overall I found the tour to be good in terms of content and the itinerary – a balance mix of big cities and smaller areas. Id give it 1 3.5/5 overall - it would have be 4/5 but the Tokyo experience brought it down for me. There were however a few niggles which did impact my overall experience which I’ll come to shortly.

3) Group size of 26 – mixture of UK and Aussies/NZ. The UK numbers bigger than Aussies this time. A very pleasant group to travel with, however I think I would have preferred a smaller group of 15-20 as many of the areas visited were very crowded which can make it difficult at times. We had earphone/receivers but the sound was often very crackly.

4) I don’t think Level 1 is at all accurate for this tour – there are very many steps and inclines at a lot of the sites visited and also there are times where you're walking 10 mins from car parks to the entrance of a site and then walking even more. The pace felt quite relentless in the first 5 days and the bottoms of my feet felt very sore for a few days – sticking them in an ice bucket every night helped! Level 2 is probably more accurate. The pace slacked off a little as the tour progressed which was a relief! It is after all a holiday not a Boot Camp march. I walked around 85 km in total over the whole tour and didnt do some areas so the total walking if you did everything was in excess of that.

5) Guide Chiyomi (Chi) Nakata was excellent throughout – enthusiastic, friendly, informative and well organised. Guiding 26 people around often very crowded areas with no hiccups and no losses is no mean feat! She did a great job.
Drivers – all excellent safe drivers.

6) Hotels – generally of a decent quality and location but I had issues with 2 of them. Hotel Kanazawa in Kanazawa … my room was clean but felt dingy and depressing. The pillows were heavy and uncomfortable ..no idea what the filling was but I don’t think feathers or hollowfibre!.. the AC didn’t work meaning I had to open the window and keep it open all night ..very noisy since hotel was opposite the rail station.. and then there was the high step to the bathroom which I tripped on twice. It felt like being in a very basic student study bedroom. The initial response I got from Wendy Wu on this was that they were surprised as "never had negative feedback" on it before ..I don’t believe that one ..and that a team member had stayed recently and found it “basic but comfortable”. Well given that Wendy Wu is a big source of ££ to the hotel I suspect the room they had was far better than my cell.

The hotel in Tokyo was extremely disappointing. The hotel itself .. optimistically named “Sunshine Prince” is old, dated and in real need of a refurb immediately. The beds are rock hard, the décor is Travelodge 80’s era with scuffed walls and carpets and the AC barely functions – fortunately it wasn’t that warm in Tokyo, 20C tops - and then another high step to the bathroom. The lifts were extremely slow at all times other than early morning or late night. The location – for me – was terrible. The only positive I can think of is the convenience store on the ground floor. We were in Ikebukuro area which was quite a distance to the north of the city centre areas like Shibuya or Shinjuka. To get to the centre took around 40mins by bus or cab and similar on subway .. and subway can be very confusing if youre not used to it .. many lines, many exits and yes crowded. The only thing to wander around was the attached shopping centre. It felt a bit like booking a weekend in London and anticipating a West end hotel but actually finding out you're in Borehamwood. I much prefer a central location as that gives me the ability to wander round the surrounding area and get to attractions faster – couldn’t do that at this hotel which I have to say very negatively affected my stay in Tokyo. I’ve previously stayed closer to Shinjuka on previous pre-cruise nights and this was a much better experience. The tours in Tokyo were essentially all places I’ve seen before so I would have preferred the option to explore independently. The tours were practically identical to tours I've done from a cruise ship. Friends on another Wendy Wu Tour a week ahead of mine said that their Tokyo hotel was very good and much closer to downtown. I paid a LOT of money for this trip – no2 in my all time spending behind Antarctica .. where I got incredible bang for my buck.. - and with this Tokyo hotel I honestly felt ripped off, annoyed and feel that a big chunk of my time in the city was wasted and I seriously question why Wendy Wu uses this hotel... well I can guess ... ££ .. Wendy Wu dropped the ball big time here – why shoot yourself in the foot like that? If there was the option of cutting short stay here and heading home early I would have honestly done so.

7) Food – The Japanese food was consistently good but it did get quite repetitive after a while with a lot of it being bento and hotpot cook it yourself style. Western style was ok. On some occasions if I didn’t eat all the bits in the bento – eg cold veg isn’t my thing and neither is the slippery jelly kinds of tofu - I was hungry again only a few short hours later and searching for a convenience store. Quality of hotel breakfasts a bit hit n miss, luke warm always. Some restaurants for lunches better than others – the Italian restaurant in Tokyo for example where we were shoved into a corner near the entrance on high stools in the bar area where the actual restaurant itself … which you walked through enroute to the toilet was nice, spacious and NOT full. The food was OK but essentially looked like a plate of "everything on the menu". I would have liked more variety like simple but filling bowls of ramen or udon, some gyoza, teppanyaki, yakisoba etc. I'm certainly not convinced we had the best experience Japan had to offer food wise. Don’t think I’ll ever knowingly touch tofu again. Maybe an obvious thing to say here but if you dont like Japanese food that much then you probably will struggle.

8) Other. As to be expected there was lots of Shrines, Temples, Castles and Gardens... which do kind of blur into one after a while. There were some cultural bits such as Tea ceremony, Miso brewery, Sake brewery, paper making and a brief walk round a wasabi farm but they all felt very brief I would have preferred more like maybe how to do bonsai, meeting a local family, meeting Geisha and Maiko, making gold leaf, sushi making, Kabuki, Sumo or food tour round local food markets.

9) Overall – good varied itinerary, an excellent guide, very pleasant group of travellers but given the points raised above I cannot honestly say this represented good value for money and this is very different to my previous view of the Wendy Wu trips I’ve taken before where all aspects were completely outstanding. Knowing what I now know I'd advise a shorter trip and dont necessarily feel you have to go to Japan at the - most expensive - and busiest time of Cherry Blossom. You may well enjoy it more when its less crowded.

This was in general a fabulous tour. I really enjoyed everything which was enhanced by our wonderful guide, Chiyomi. A wonderful trip - well organised and executed, many thanks

First class from start to finish.
Attention to detail superb from pickup to the return home.
Our tour guide was exceptional, from history lessons ,to her attention to detail, nothing escaped her! She really was great, had a great sense of humour, even though at times it must have felt like she was herding cats!!,,
Would not hesitate to use Wendy Wu tours in future.

We had a great time and the concept of group tours was new. In hindsight we should have spent some time at the welcome meal for people to introduce themselves.
For our taste there were too many “western style dinners”, particularly as they were of low quality. We loved the Japanese food and realized that it must have been a challenge to serve 27 people quickly.
The schedule was kept to, despite some folks returning late to meeting points, there was no contingency for this,
Our tour leader did an amazing job juggling the schedule and some special requests.

Our wonderful guide “ Jimmy “ made the trip so special his knowledge and how he looked after us was exceptional.

Sadly not the quality of holiday we were led to believe especially given the price and a complaint has been made to the tour company. Guide's English was poor and a day and a half wasted in the pouring rain. I did not expect to be left at a funfair in the rain when we should have been at a heritage centre which we were told was inaccessible but turned out to be 10 minutes up the road. Why also take us up a cable car ehen visibility was virtually nil. We were given 30 minutes at the museum in Tokyo - just time for a toilet break and quick look round the shop. Very bad planning.
Food was mostly tasteless and luke warm having been left on the table.
This review will no doubt be mirrored by the other 27 people on the tour who were likewise very unhappy.

Attended The Wendy Wu Tours open day in Bournemouth yesterday and booked several bucket list tours.
Glen was knowledgeable and engaging throughout his talk on each destination. Later assisting us with any questions we had.
I highly recommend attending one of their open days if you find yourself overwhelmed when researching online.
Thank you to Glen and the team, we’re very excited for our upcoming tours.

The young lady I spoke to was helpful and cheerful.

Excellent very knowledgeable

Knowledgeable, organised and friendly tour guide. Good variety of places/ experiences e.g. temples, snow monkeys, bullet train. Enjoyed the meals and the opportunity to taste different Japanese foods. Hotels were of a good standard. We did feel that categorizing the tour as 'physical level 1' was not accurate as on some days a lot of walking and steps were involved.

Easy to follow booking process in line
Immediate response for questions
Booking schedule and ATOL certificate received next day

The Experience Japan tour was a great introduction to Japan for a first time visitor.
The pace of the itinerary was fairly full-on and the group I travelled with were interesting people who seemed very open to enjoying the tour. There were occasions when I wondered if anyone from Wendy Wu had actually attempted to visit everything in the time allocated as we didn't have enough time to properly explore some of the sites (for example, the queues at Matsumoto castle meant we didn't all get chance to see inside). Our wonderful guide, Yu, was exceptional and as flexible as the itinerary allowed. He managed to get us all where we needed to be within the time allocated - not an easy task, but he accomplished it with tenacity and good humour.
Quite a lot of the travel was by coach, which was comfortable and spacious. There was a moderate amount of walking involved as we toured the various sites, but none of it was strenuous. The train journeys were very good and well organised. Yu's English was excellent and I really appreciated his knowledge of the areas we visited and his enthusiasm for sharing information about the Japanese language and culture, including providing tastes of local delicacies.
The hotels were quite varied and all were comfortable. Food options were mainly buffets. I did expect more Japanese menus, but on a group tour all tastes need to be accommodated and a buffet is probably the easiest way to do this.
Highlights for me were the train rides, beautiful clear views of Mt Fuji (we were so lucky with the weather these two days!), vending machines, the lovely mountain scenery, the onsen, and getting a small insight into a different culture to my own.
I could have happily dispensed with the river cruise in Osaka (underwhelming), the origami and fan painting. I realise these activities are optional and if I visited again I would prefer more free time to explore and immerse myself in the places we visited. The shrines were really interesting, but towards the end of the tour I did feel as though I'd probably seen enough for the time being.
The trip felt a bit like a whistle-stop tour of Japan at times, but it has provided me with a very good idea of what I'd like to do next time I visit - and I do think there will be a next time.

Able to book holiday to Japan easily and change airline to a perferred airline. Flights confirmed.
Confirmed type and grade of hotel accommodation and will a guide be available for the additional 3 day tour.

We felt the brochure was misleading as this tour was rated level 1. We are fit ,but found the tour strenuous and tiring. To be fair we saw so many wonderful things but some passengers had difficuties.
The first transfer surprised us that we needed to get a bus then taxi. After 16 hours flying with 3 flights this wasn't ideal. It was even less ideal on the return when we were expected to do the same and be at the airport a 5.45 am. Eventually Toshi our guide was able to arrange a taxi at a very late stage. We really enjoyed the activities, tea ceremony, origami and fan painting. We would have liked a couple more evening buffets to allow for a bit more International food and not quite so much Japanese food. On hindsight we would have liked an evening with Geisha music singing and dancing. Probably at extra cost. We really enjoyed the holiday and were very lucky with the blossom and weather. Thank you.