Asia Highlights

The overall trip was great. We really enjoyed allan our guide in tokyo. He was very instructive, and gave us great information as well as being so fun and helpful.
Our guide slash in kyoto and osaka was very helpful with coordinating our trip and helping us get around and making dinner reservations for us.
Alisa did fine. It would have helped if she had put the correct people together in hotel rooms to save us about an hour on the first check-in when they had completely random rooms assigned. She obviously doesn't know anything about hokkaido. We didn't need to spend one night in sapporo. We easily could have gotten up early and gone straight to the airport. It was a waste of a whole day since we didn't actually have time to see sapporo. The hilton niseko is not very good and I think another part of the mountain like hirafu would have been better to stay. It would be better to ask for help from other guides who are familiar with the ski culture.

The pre-planning of the trip and the tours that were set up were all excellent. Our guide in Tokyo and to Mt. Fuji - Allen - was wonderful. The only complaint I have is that our hotel check-ins took more than half and hour each time because the names for who would be occupying the rooms were completely screwed up. This caused quite a bit of confusion at check in. Kim Kim had all of our families names and knew who should be sharing rooms but somehow the room assignments were somewhat random.

We thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Japan and would recommend it to everyone. Some of the timing could have been changed: for instance we spent a night in Sapporo that would have been better spent in Niseko. I think Alissa would benefit from taking a trip to Hokkaido herself.
Allan Tan, our guide in Tokyo was the highlight of our trip. He was not only very knowledgeable and helpful, but incredibly charming and enthusiastic.
Slash, our guide in Osaka and Kyoto, was also very knowledgeable and helpful. He helped us find and reserve some excellent restaurants.
The transportation everywhere was excellent. All our drivers were prompt and efficient.
We thought Kim-Kim did a fine job with reservations and we felt we got our money’s worth. Great trip.

We chose to use KimKim for our second time since we had an an amazing ttrip with KimKim in Italy last year, May 2023. All of our expectations were met and we thought we would have the same experience this year with our trip to Japan. Unfortunately, this was not the case. From the moment, we arrived in Tokyo, there were problems. They were as follows:

1. The room in our Tokyo hotel was small and totally outdated for a 4 star hotel. The bed was small and up against the wall which only allowed us to enter the bed from one side. Needless to say, this was a major inconvenience as we had to climb over each other to get into bed. We contacted Asia Highlights and they rectified the situation the next day by moving us to another room which was bigger and more modern. This was the type of room we were expecting from day one. We spent 5 nights in this hotel.
2. Our guide for Tokyo was extremely poor. He was supposed to contact us the night before
to make arrangements about when and where to meet the next day. We did not hear from him until we decided to contact him. Not a great first impression. Once we met him, Carter, we realized there was going to be a language barrier. His English was poor and his understanding of English was just as poor, making communication a challenge. He was very inexperienced an did not know the logistics of being a good guide. He lacked the knowledge and expertise of a guide and really did not not make our visit to Tokyo enjoyable. We kept giving him the benefit of the doubt, but his performance was sub par.
3. When we arrived in Hiroshima, we met our driver at the train station who would take us to our hotel. Unfortunately, the 10 minute drive to the hotel took 1 hour because the driver did not know where he was going. Again, a real lack of communication.
4. Finally, at our hotel in Osaka, we came across the same problem with our room as we did in Tokyo. The room was again small, bed to one side and the room was very dated. This time, we could not change rooms because all of the rooms were booked. Not pleasant. We are seasoned travelers and these accommodations were unacceptable.

On a positive note, we were extremely pleased with our guide, Ho. (Kyoto to Osaka) He was a true professional and paid strict attention to detail. He made the rest our trip very enjoyable. He made changes to the itinerary as he saw fit and always took our needs into consideration when planning the days ahead. Asia Highlights also tried to make accommodations and were responsive to our many messages back and forth but it really did not make up for the poor execution of this trip. We booked this Trip last December and this should have given them ample time to provide us with the best experience possible. As the company that represents them, a better vetting process should be in place. In conclusion, this trip was highly disappointing.

Our local guide was really good - kept us organized, helped with restaurant planning, and good overview of places, e.g. shrines and traditional places.

Support in-country, and especially with language barriers, was really helpful and important. Itineraries include pretty touristy stuff, but also things you don't want to miss! Kate was very kind and responsive - added a special touch when I had my birthday in Japan! Second time using KimKim and it is very useful.