Great day tour - We had a great day, got to see lots of sites in a short time. Our guide Tracy was fantastic ! He was very helpful, explained a lot about the sites we would see and kept us on schedule. It’s a great way to travel to Nara to see the dear as well as many popular sites in Kyoto. Highly recommend!

Fun day outing - This was a great trip but a long day. Bus was comfortable and our guide spoke english well. Tracy was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The temples and shrines in Kyoto were beautiful and nara Deer Park was a fun stop. We were both surprised how long the day was (approximately 12 hours), unsure if we saw that detail in the listing.

Great experience! - For a day trip, this fully exceeded my expectations. My siblings and I went on this adventure together, and was thoroughly impressed. It was very thoughtful to have different pick up and drop off locations, as I saw some people were coming straight from the Osaka airport. The VIP lounge that we met as was a very short distance from the Kyoto Station. We were chartered along on a spacious bus and our tour guide, Lisa, did a wonderful job mixing history and humor in her presentation as we ventured throughout Kyoto and Nara. We covered a lot of ground visit 3 sites in Kyoto and the deer park in Nara, and while I would've enjoyed more time to explore our stops, but overall this was a great introduction into Japanese culture. We learned about the beautiful Kinkakuji temple, and the mountain with the 1,000 tori gates. Lisa also taught us about the importance of religious/spiritual customs in Japan and how its expressed in different holidays and during shrine and temple visits. During drops there was about an hour at each place to explore by ourselves, however, Lisa mentioned how she was available to guide people at each stop. She showed us to the bamboo forest in the midst of the busy streets of Arashiyama. I would definitely do this again, and I look forward to other bus tours with this company at different stops. Worth the money!

Great value, good service and good day trip from Kyoto. Definitely recommended! - Our guide, Tracy was engaging and interesting. He was fluent in both English and Chinese and gave clear, precise information. A good day trip from Kyoto visiting multiple locations dropping guests at sites for self directed tours. We had a really good day at a reasonable price.

Good trip aside from the tour guide - The itinerary was very good. We were able to visit few places in one day. The only thing I was very disappointed was our tour guide. I have been to Japan many times and lived there but I joined a tour to learn something I don't know about the places we visited but our guide Michael didn’t say anything or gave us any information. He was just there to take us. He is very pleasant but not a good tour guide in my opinion. We spent most of the time sleeping on the bus coz it was such a boring journey to the places we visited.

Was a good tour - The tour guides should lead the people and go with them to visit the places and not only leading them to a place and leave the group to their own. They park the bus in places that are sometimes difficult to find

Don’t waste your day. - We left from Osaka, the tour lasted 12 hours and most of that was on the bus. When we did get to our stops there wasn’t enough time to enjoy the shrines/temples/town. Felt like this tour was just for the perfect instagram photo and then move on. In hind sight, this tour would have been better to be done by yourself via the trains. The tour guide didn’t contribute anything historical or interesting, very limited information given. Trains in Japan are easy to navigate and very quick. Consider this an an option for those that are interested in more than just one quick photo of the site.

Rushed and disappointing - Very disappointing tour. The worst we had in Japan. We had 45 (!!) people on the bus - a mix of people from Osaka and Kyoto and TWO languages. The poor guide was repeating everything first in English, then Chinese! They packed too much in a day so it was all - run-run and a lot of stress was around getting everyone back to the bus on time. I felt sorry for the guide who was trying to give us a good experience of his country. Despite the high price of this tour, at the end of a very long day, the bus driver and the guide had to ask for gratuity (as they are obviously not paid much by the owners) which is not customary in Japan. You could see how uncomfortable they were. So my impression was that VIP tours’ focus is on making the most money for the American based company that runs them, with no respect for tourists or Japanese culture.

Disappointing - Delayed bus arrival, only time to literally run through the two most important visits. English guiding was minimal compared to other language.

Transportation, not a tour! - This is falsely advertised as a tour with live commentary. It is actually more like transportation only. The 'guide' spoke little english and did not speak about the history and background of each location. The 'guide' was not knowledgable at all. I had to look on Wikipedia! The shabu shabu lunch was decent.