Review

Basically great, but at times it was a bit rushed. We saw a lot but it seemed like we were always concerned about missing our trains. We did change our departure from Hakone to Takayama to a later train so we could go to the Open Air Museum, which was well worth it.

The ryokans in Hakone (Hakone Pax Yoshino) and Kanazawa (Yuya Rurusaisai) were wonderful. The Takayama Ouan had very thin mattresses so it was almost like we were sleeping on futons - fortunately I was able to get an extra mattress for my 91 year old mother so she could get up from the bed. The Shinagawa Prince had a VERY LARGE step up to the bathroom - we had to change to a handicapped room which was not available the night we arrived. Fortunately this was the only property that had that issue. I like the fact that all rooms had mini-refrigerators.

The breakfasts were all great - all buffets except in Kanazawa, and enough western items available. The guide in Tokyo gave me a card to show to restaurants to avoid foods I would not eat. That was not relayed to the Yuya Rurusaisai where we had our dinner, but when I showed them the card they modified some courses "on the fly" so I would have enough to eat!

The gentleman who met us at the airport very kindly helped me get reserved seats on the trains - don't know how long it would have taken to do it myself. Our guides in Tokyo and Kyoto were both great as well.

I would have preferred receiving the guidebook in print as it had too many pages to easily download and my mom could have had a copy before we left. It had lots of good information that was quite helpful in planning.