Travel Review: Luxury Japan Vacation, Tokyo, Miyajima, Naoshima Art Island, Hakone, Open Air Museum, Shimanami Kaido Cycling

Our travel planner, Laura, was quite knowledgeable about our destination, Japan.  I always do a lot of research, so I was checking things out with friends, books, the web; then I would go back to her with questions about places I thought we wanted to visit, logistics so we could come up with a reasonable itinerary within the allotted time.

I also had detailed questions about certain lodging and wanted to weigh pros and cons with her.  Laura was happy to engage with my detailed queries.  When she did not know something, she got back to me with answers as soon as she could.  

We had a wonderful 18 day trip with an itinerary that included Osaka (because it was our point of entry to Japan) Miyajima/Hiroshima, cycling along the Shimanami Kaido, Naoshima--the art island, Kyoto, Koyo-san--home of the Shigon Buddhists, Hakone and Tokyo.

I had only little quibbles.  It turned out that there was some volcanic activity in Hakone that precluded our being able to travel to one area of the park.  We feel the travel agency or their Japanese affiliate should have given us a heads-up. We learned about it from some Japanese people a few days before we got to Hakone (nearly two weeks after the heightened vaolcano warning had been issued), who told us it had been all over the news in Japan. 

The other quibble is that we splurged on a luxury ryokan in Hakone, called the Yamanochaya.  When we could not book into the one I really wanted, Laura convinced me to book into another one.  It was a wonderful, lovely place with caveats.  We lost more than 1 1/2 hours when we arrived, because--though we were expected--no one was staffed until evening who spoke much English.  More important, they had no tourist information for us about how to get around on the buses/trains in the region, etc.  Since we only a day and a half to visit, we lost valuable daytime when we could have been visiting the wonderful Hakone Open Air Museum.  We were pretty surprised that the ryokan seemed so unprepared for us (since the travel agency advised that they provide usual concierge services).  However, the Yamanochaya did have otherwise lovely service, amazing Kaiseki dinners, gorgeous outdoor baths and a private indoor rock tub in each suite.  When we were able to communicate all became easier.

Overall, we were very impressed with the thoroughness of our travel company and the wonderful booklets/PDFs they provided for each step of the way, which had our personal logistical information along with information about each place.  

I highly recommend them