Hi Katebeth67, thank you for your review and feedback. For the early autumn leaves tour, yes we did travel quite long distances to get to the areas with the best colours for the time of year. And this tour is one where we do more travelling than usual. Probably the later autumn tour could have been a better option as it covered less ground. Certainly we are looking at changing the schedule the 2020 autumn season. And I also agree that the "very average" hotel we struck was very disappointing for a first time use and we will be avoiding that chain in future.

@Dscoobe - great trip and thanks for so many laughs along the way. Guests travelled across the New Year period (group of three).

There are two sides to a story.We spent an extensive amount of time during the planning stage working with these clients to put together a custom tour that met their exacting requirements for the dates they wanted. Right from the beginning we advised that this time of year was the peak of summer telling them “July or August can both be hot” and that 2018 had “record temperatures around 40C (over 100f)”. July and August are peak periods for inbound and local tourism and it is not like the country closes down across summer. Each year people working outside in the heat or the elderly not using a/c does result in hospitalisations due to the heat, but that is not to say people sightseeing would be at heightened risk. (And we know hospitalisations and deaths from heat also occur in Florida.) Because of the heat we do have the flexibility to adjust our tours and activities where other companies would be working to a rigid schedule. We offered and suggested several times that a rest day could have been a good option, but they were set on completing everything on their list. We book accommodation in advance, and the hotels we use allocate the rooms, not us. In several places we provided a choice of accommodations and after the guests checked the options made their personal choices. The resort hotel mentioned was one of those, and of course there would be many families at the hotel (and non-resort hotels) as it is summer school holiday time in Japan. Our guests were just one of many families The personal attack on Wendy in this review is unwarranted. She did not behave in a hostile fashion to the guests and actually did their laundry for them (gratis) six times across the three weeks. She did remove the unnecessary Facebook link and then this was labelled a “hostile act”. Across the duration of this tour, I was in regular contact with Koji and Wendy, and the range of demands being made upon them required giving them advice and support. The “reprimand” mentioned was a reminder to treat our staff with respect. It did not say the guests had been disrespectful, but presumably this must be where the invention of the “general accusations and blame” originated from. My supporting my staff was criticized and labeled “one-sided” but I would not hesitate to support my staff again in a similar situation. Overall, we provided the tour that these guests requested and worked hard both before and during the trip. They did produce a string of complaints throughout the tour that were either things outside of our control (like the weather), or are subjective (such as the quality of a breakfast buffet). As these guests said to us “don’t get confused by the facts”.