The perfect way to dip your toes into Japan and to get a taste for what the country has to offer. The tour is very solo traveller-friendly, giving you plenty of time to explore on your own but also the opportunity to travel around with likeminded folk. Claire our guide was super switched on and had plenty of off-schedule recommendations to keep us busy. If you love great food (Osaka’s the spot for you), historically significant landmarks (Kyoto’s full of ‘em), and visually rich metros (Tokyo is a sensory treat), then this trip will suit you. The only downside? Not long enough!

Our guide Claire was amazing, even if there was an issue or delay, she kept her cool and make sure it all went smoothly. Even after the tour finished she still offered to help us if we needed it

The previous topdeck trip I went on prior to this was much better than this one, during the time we were there it felt like everything took way longer than what it needed to get from place to place and a lot of the really good stuff I wanted to see had to do by myself as a lot of the included stuff was quite poor.
At a certain point, people need to be able to navigate through the areas by themselves which was difficult as our guide stopped every 50 metre to count and make sure everyone was there. If we were just given info each day on where we were so if we got lost we could find out own was it would’ve been a much better time. Ultimately I met some great people but I felt my time was wasted going on this trip as we were either spending numerous extra hours navigating that was required or doing nothing as the guide spent too much time worrying about everyone also if we went past a place of importance or interest we were given no info about this

Our tour guide Claire was amazing! Unfortunately Top deck's communication with their paying customers is terrible. At the start of the tour we were told we would have our bags onforwarded a day earlier to us moving to Kyoto (no worries, we could work around that). Then we were told it would be 2 days we would be without our luggage (we could still make this work but it was stretching the friendship for sure). Finally we were then told we wouldn't be getting our luggage back for 4 days! We had access to our luggage for a total of 2 days out of a "7 day" tour, this is absolutely ridiculous and just poor planning/communication on Top Deck's behalf, how are we meant to live for 4 days out of a backpack?!

This tour had to much “free time” we expected to be taken out for meals each day as well as walking/ travelling tours to each destination however it was a lot of free time then anything.
We also were not told until the second night of the tour that our luggage was going to be taken from us for 4 days. When booking this trip we were told we would not have it for 1 day, this was not the case and we had to purchase more luggage as 4 days is a long time for 2 people without their luggage.
Also the hotel Tavinos was run down, dirty and not worth it.

Honestly I don’t think this trip was worth it, I did have a good time (most of the time) on the trip, however I did run into some major issues with topdeck.

FYI, I went on this trip with my 3 best mates.

To start off positively, Marion our tour Group Leader was awesome! She answered every question we ever asked her, she was friendly and outgoing, and even when we contacted her after our trip had finished she was still an awesome help. She was constantly trying to get the group involved and bring us all closer together, and I think she done an amazing job with the tour and group. She was the best part of the whole tour.

The other positives are, I liked Kyoto and Osaka and the places we went there, I preferred them both over Tokyo 100%.

These were the issues I had:

Firstly the Hotel you stay at in Tokyo compared to Kyoto and Osaka, is ridiculously small. My mates and I booked shared rooms but we ended up getting single rooms (not complaining, this was definitely a huge positive) but even with the room being for just 1 person. It was still too small compared to the other locations.

Moreover, on the first day Marion (tour group leader) asked why we never responded to emails that were sent to us. And upon letting her search through my emails, she found a few emails in my junk mailbox that were too late to respond to. These emails were required to book the Mt Fuji. Tour and the Samurai Experience, which my whole group of friends missed out on both activities. We never received a message or call or follow up emails from Topdeck confirming this with us or too check our junk email. As none of us knew about this, until our tour started. These two things are the main two we wanted to check off our list and we missed out on both.

Topdeck also took a long time to provide us with Tripnotes and any sort of details about our trip, even when I was contacting their help desk.

Final thoughts: if you’re looking to experience new culture and visit a new country and see some interesting new sights, then this might be for you. Just be prepared for Topdeck to be hopeless and no help whatsoever before going on your trip. Also this trip wasn’t full of parties and clubs and drinking, so if you’re not looking for that, then this is also a good trip for you. If you manage to get Marion as your tour leader, have the best time because she’d be the only reason I’d ever book with Topdeck again. I’d probably look at a different more organised tour group next time.

The tour guide was very helpful and kind

This tour was well worth the money and the tour guide i had was amazing, friendly and very knowledgeable. I would recommend this tour company to all my friends and family, and i look forward to using their services again in the future.

The tour leader was amazing, really pulled through to make my group have an exciting and unforgettable experience. There were some problems on the Top Deck side but everything ended up fine in the end.

Amazing trip. Our group leader Claire was incredible! I learned so much, and had so much fun! 10/10 would recommend!

Trip was great would recommend. Claire was a great guide and had great recommendations. Accomodations were really good and had a great amount of free time to check out everything we wanted

Fantastic tour guide Katherine made it very worthwhile and went out of her way to make the experience memorable

Japan is an amazing country with so much to experience.
However, the tour experience from Topdeck was not what I imagined it to be.

The tour guide did their role in guiding us from location to location, however, they did not really provide us with any historical insight or learnings into the locations or areas we explored. I don't really feel like I learned a lot about Japan's history - which was something I wanted to get out of this tour.

There was a lot of "free time" on the tour, so, when asked of what "must do recommendations" should we do with the time we had, we didn't really get a straight up answer, or any excitement over what was recommended. For example, an area/experience we heard about in Kyoto was something we really wanted to do, but when asked about it, we were told that it's not recommended as there was a hike. We decided to do it anyway, the hike was only 10 minutes, and it was an amazing experience as we got to see the whole city from a vantage point, but also got to see monkeys!
The free day in Tokyo meant that we could have done many things, but there were no suggested recommendations of what we "could do". It was up to us to decide what we wanted to do and to really just do our own research, which I found very disappointing as I've been on other tours where they give you a tonne of options/must do's and we at least had an idea of what we could have done to maximise the time.

To summarise, the small group I had was amazing, however, I felt like I could have just booked accomodation and travel in the cities we explored and maybe had a better experience.

Amazing tour guide and top spots. Only advice would be to spend a bit more time with Kyoto and Osaka.

Like I stated previously. This is a great trip for those wanting a quick, week long hit of the essence of Japanese culture. Would highly recommend.

Overall it was an amazing trip. The tour guide Katherine was very friendly and knowledgeable and went above and beyond for us. The hotels in Osaka and Tokyo weren’t great and could’ve been more centrally located. Kyoto hotel was amazing. Topdeck also doesn’t include a Shinkansen ticket for the Kyoto to Osaka leg so it was frustrating taking the all stops train and it took longer than it should have. The tour should have included more buses instead of having to rely on public transport. Osaka also felt very rushed as it was only 1 night, they should’ve had 2 nights there. Other than that, the trip was incredible, met some amazing people and all the sights were awesome!

Our travel guide Katherine absolutely made this experience, she was an absolute gem and we all adored her. Her knowledge, care and attentiveness was fantastic. The itinerary was great overall, however needs tweaking as mentioned above

The trip was very disorganised and all over the place. There was no consistent structure or timing of everything and we were constantly given free time every day. My complaint with this is that I feel like a lot of the money paid for the tour, didn’t go towards much since a lot of the places we went to were free and we were given extra free time which means that we had to use our own money for additional activities we wants to do.
We weren’t able to do any of the add ons because they were already fully booked, but Topdeck should have advised of this prior to the commencement of the trip.
Overall I had an amazing experience in Japan, but the tour was quite disappointing as I feel I didn’t get my moneys worth.

This trip added no value to my travel experience. Poorly planned, promised destinations on itinerary that wasn’t feasibly possible to visit. Basically paid $2K+ to meet other 20 year old.

I've done previous Topdeck tours and had a wonderful time so was excited and looking forward to the tour of Japan. Unfortunately the tour did not meet the hype or my expectations. Trip leader often seemed unorganised or unsure of the itinerary. Which resulted in missed experiences despite being advertised as an inclusion on the trip itinerary. The group was not offered any of the optional activities listed with the trip package or alternative optional activities. The trip leader appeared not to go above and beyond to share her local knowledge of the places we visited or the culture. When seeking advice she often seemed unsure of recommendations or information to offer. Karaoke evening was booked for 5pm and only lasted for an hour which was disappointing. I enjoyed the company of the tour group but feel I could have booked a similar itinerary and than some for the same or less money.

Amazing experience with an amazing tour guide!

It was very affordable for me and for other students as well who are interested in travelling.

It was a fun tour. Really was the Japan express!