Honestly I don’t think this trip was worth it, I did have a good time (most of the time) on the trip, however I did run into some major issues with topdeck.
FYI, I went on this trip with my 3 best mates.
To start off positively, Marion our tour Group Leader was awesome! She answered every question we ever asked her, she was friendly and outgoing, and even when we contacted her after our trip had finished she was still an awesome help. She was constantly trying to get the group involved and bring us all closer together, and I think she done an amazing job with the tour and group. She was the best part of the whole tour.
The other positives are, I liked Kyoto and Osaka and the places we went there, I preferred them both over Tokyo 100%.
These were the issues I had:
Firstly the Hotel you stay at in Tokyo compared to Kyoto and Osaka, is ridiculously small. My mates and I booked shared rooms but we ended up getting single rooms (not complaining, this was definitely a huge positive) but even with the room being for just 1 person. It was still too small compared to the other locations.
Moreover, on the first day Marion (tour group leader) asked why we never responded to emails that were sent to us. And upon letting her search through my emails, she found a few emails in my junk mailbox that were too late to respond to. These emails were required to book the Mt Fuji. Tour and the Samurai Experience, which my whole group of friends missed out on both activities. We never received a message or call or follow up emails from Topdeck confirming this with us or too check our junk email. As none of us knew about this, until our tour started. These two things are the main two we wanted to check off our list and we missed out on both.
Topdeck also took a long time to provide us with Tripnotes and any sort of details about our trip, even when I was contacting their help desk.
Final thoughts: if you’re looking to experience new culture and visit a new country and see some interesting new sights, then this might be for you. Just be prepared for Topdeck to be hopeless and no help whatsoever before going on your trip. Also this trip wasn’t full of parties and clubs and drinking, so if you’re not looking for that, then this is also a good trip for you. If you manage to get Marion as your tour leader, have the best time because she’d be the only reason I’d ever book with Topdeck again. I’d probably look at a different more organised tour group next time.
