Review

The Peninsula Hotel was fantastic. A terrific central location combined with a quiet and lovely place to return to each day.

We enjoyed our visits to each place on our itinerary. We had not realized that the Hama-rikyu Garden would close at 5 p.m. each day, so we walked there but found it not accepting new visitors at 4:35 on May 22. We wish we had done more homework re: this or that Samurai Tours would have alerted us to these limited hours.

Breakfasts at the hotel were superb. Our first lunch at a museum was just fine. The lunch we grabbed at a Denny’s in Yanaka was simply OK. Since we did not see many cafes or restaurants during our walk through Yanaka, this may have been unavoidable.

Kurie was a very helpful and friendly greeter at the airport. She helped a friend of ours locate the hotel limousine service and proper place to wait for that bus. Her English was excellent as well. Etsuko was very thoughtful and helpful as well. She efficiently guided us around. Her English was good to excellent but she did consult her electronic translator device a good deal. She went out of her way to facilitate our visit to the fish market, something we really appreciated.

The handbook was invaluable. The tips for what to pack, the nice summary history, etc. were all very useful.