Overall the trip was very good. Felt we saw a lot of Japan. Our tour director, Yoko, was phenomenal and absolutely made the trip. Her knowledge, expertise and warm personality were outstanding. She went above and beyond to assist everyone. Can’t say enough about her. However there are several things that we did not like. We purchased land only and I felt that smarTours was not customer friendly after that. 1) It seemed that since we weren’t doing the whole package their response was “too bad so sad” you’re on your own. There was no help or basic information given on ways to get from airport to hotel. There was no way to see if we could be picked up by bus picking others up even though we landed within 5” of those booking entire trip. Receiving information on confirmed trip with hotel info didn’t help in arranging bus transfers early. 2) We had to prepack overnight clothes etc twice and carry with us as our luggage was sent another way. We had NO warning ahead of the trip regarding this. Not good! 3) we did not like having so many meals on our own. 4) Voice boxes for hearing guide had a lot of static. I’m not sure that we will use smarTours again. We were lucky to have a terrific guide that helped make our trip.