First of all, the service from Japan travel centre was, in the main excellent. The accommodation found for us fitted our requirements perfectly. We wanted to try a traditional ryokan, but this was our worst experience, in Hakone at the Aura Tachibana. The rooms were fine, but dinner and breakfast were fixed menu and very traditional. We enjoyed Japanese food at other hotels and restaurants but at Hakone it just wasn't to our taste.
As we had paid full board this meant poor value and we had to buy food from local shops. We had 5 days in Okinawa at the manza international resort, and this was the highlight of our holiday, partly because of the facilities and location and also because we had our son and Japanese girlfriend joining us for this part of the trip, to organise things and help us get exactly what we wanted from the trip. We had a potential problem with hiring a car as I had not been advised to apply for the correct international license. Fortuna tely my son's girlfriend was able to step in and she had to drive the car. This was arranged by myself, so no blame attached to Japan travel centre, I just didn't do my research properly.
We saw a lot of what we wanted to see, toured Tokyo by bus, saw mount Fuji, toured the north and west of Kyoto seeing many of the main temples and the bamboo forest.
Weather was a bit unreliable, very spring-like (sunshine and showers).
