BluesTraveler
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2015
Such good information in your posts. Thank you!
Sounds horrible. I probably would have been begging to get out and walk, LOL. That's road didn't feel that long.The traffic along the beach in Kamakura was HORRIBLE. Literally crawling for at *least* an hour. You could tell James and Tomomi would probably have gotten out & pushed the bus if it would have helped!
Sayhello
Great timing! Thanks for linking. Hopefully it will help someone. It really is a great deal. I was able to take advantage of a bonus transfer so we made that sweet spot even sweeter.for those wondering about the airline mile advice here is a video on it actually (Just showed up on my youtube feed) mods feel free to move it if necessary its a video explanation of the ana sweet spot for miles
Glad you are finding it helpful--thanks for reading along.Such good information in your posts. Thank you!
We didn't have an ABD guide either, but fortunately our guy had pretty good English. Sounds like a nightmare for you and DD. So sorry to hear about that. We had one young adult on our trip get pretty sick on the Hiroshima day I felt so badly for her.I'm with you on the "food tour". We usually do actual food tours in cities that we visit, and the ABD one was lame in comparison. I can recall a small sample of miso soup, a very small piece of tofu (that the guide had with him and we ate in the street), some kind of meat on a stick, the thimble of sake and the candy. We didn't have an ABD guide with us on the food tour and our assigned guide didn't seem to understand English well. I asked him at the end where we could have a nice lunch and he suggested back at the bus station (???) where there weren't really any restaurants. I asked him where the restrooms were and apparently he didn't know. We ended up finding the police station and the policeman at the desk was able to show us where the restrooms were.
I agree with you that this activity needs to be either seriously improved or scrapped from the itinerary. I would've rather spent my time wandering the shops then waiting for a food tour that didn't really exist. We never got an explanation as to why we didn't have an ABD guide on the tour -- one was on the bike ride and the other was MIA (either stayed with the calligraphy group or as we heard, went back to the hotel because someone forgot something). This is the part of the trip where dd got really sick, so some ABD support would've been really appreciated. Luckily I was able to get her back to the bus station (which took forever because she was so sick) and lay her down on a bench in the blazing sunlight. After 30 or so mins on the bench I spotted Tomomi and Ken coming back from the bike tour and thankfully they were able to help a bit with dd.
I don't think getting rid of the food tour is the answer. I think they need to re-think it, and fashion it as a true food tour, where you go into the shops and into the restaurants, and get full tastes of whatever it is that location specializes in. Taking us to a Tofu shop and then pulling out a 3mm square tidbit of tofu is *not* how most true food tours work. I love to take food tours, too. It's become one of my favorite pre-day activities. For what we pay for these trips, they can pay these shops to provide fresh, decent sized portions of food! I don't know if the fault is with ABD, or with the company providing the local guides, but it really needs to be changed.I'm with you on the "food tour". We usually do actual food tours in cities that we visit, and the ABD one was lame in comparison. I can recall a small sample of miso soup, a very small piece of tofu (that the guide had with him and we ate in the street), some kind of meat on a stick, the thimble of sake and the candy. We didn't have an ABD guide with us on the food tour and our assigned guide didn't seem to understand English well. I asked him at the end where we could have a nice lunch and he suggested back at the bus station (???) where there weren't really any restaurants. I asked him where the restrooms were and apparently he didn't know. We ended up finding the police station and the policeman at the desk was able to show us where the restrooms were.
I agree with you that this activity needs to be either seriously improved or scrapped from the itinerary. I would've rather spent my time wandering the shops then waiting for a food tour that didn't really exist. We never got an explanation as to why we didn't have an ABD guide on the tour -- one was on the bike ride and the other was MIA (either stayed with the calligraphy group or as we heard, went back to the hotel because someone forgot something). This is the part of the trip where dd got really sick, so some ABD support would've been really appreciated. Luckily I was able to get her back to the bus station (which took forever because she was so sick) and lay her down on a bench in the blazing sunlight. After 30 or so mins on the bench I spotted Tomomi and Ken coming back from the bike tour and thankfully they were able to help a bit with dd.
I too always do a food tour and usually book a private one for my family. Great way to get to know the city, etc. I am guessing though ABD can't take you into stores, etc. too many people? I can't see moving 40 people into a store or a restaurant for sample tasting. I think, and I could be wrong, that the next move ABD makes will be to differentiate the tours with small group vs. regular. My beef with this is the cost is such premium a 20 people max should be a given...but I bet they try to increase the cost to offer fewer than 22
I don't think getting rid of the food tour is the answer. I think they need to re-think it, and fashion it as a true food tour, where you go into the shops and into the restaurants, and get full tastes of whatever it is that location specializes in. Taking us to a Tofu shop and then pulling out a 3mm square tidbit of tofu is *not* how most true food tours work. I love to take food tours, too. It's become one of my favorite pre-day activities. For what we pay for these trips, they can pay these shops to provide fresh, decent sized portions of food! I don't know if the fault is with ABD, or with the company providing the local guides, but it really needs to be changed.
So sorry to hear about your DD getting sick. Was it the heat? Something she ate? We didn't have an Adventure Guide with us on the food tour, either, until the very end of the tour, when Tomomi met up with us to help us finish up & get back to the bus. But our local guide spoke wonderful English. The local guides are *supposed* to be their representatives at this point, and I would have thought they could have contacted the Adventure Guide who wasn't on the bike ride and gotten some help for you. They all have phones, after all!
Sayhello
Just wanted to clarify, half of our group of 39 was doing a bike tour; then ABD split our group further -- half did the calligraphy while half did the food tour, then switched. I think there were maybe 10 or 12, including dd and myself on this pretend food tour. It wasn't horrible, just not great.
I didn't mind our group size. Everyone got along very well -- we had a great group, probably one of the best groups I've been with on an ABD. To me it didn't make an impact. Now if you have some slow movers in the group then I can see a group of this size being an issue. It may have helped having Ken along as a shadow guide since he was very hands-on.
I don't think getting rid of the food tour is the answer. I think they need to re-think it, and fashion it as a true food tour, where you go into the shops and into the restaurants, and get full tastes of whatever it is that location specializes in. Taking us to a Tofu shop and then pulling out a 3mm square tidbit of tofu is *not* how most true food tours work. I love to take food tours, too. It's become one of my favorite pre-day activities. For what we pay for these trips, they can pay these shops to provide fresh, decent sized portions of food! I don't know if the fault is with ABD, or with the company providing the local guides, but it really needs to be changed.
Totally agree. I love doing food tours and I was really looking forward to that part of the itinerary. That and/or a cooking class are definitely on our list of "must do's" in countries we visit.I too always do a food tour and usually book a private one for my family. Great way to get to know the city, etc. I am guessing though ABD can't take you into stores, etc. too many people? I can't see moving 40 people into a store or a restaurant for sample tasting. I think, and I could be wrong, that the next move ABD makes will be to differentiate the tours with small group vs. regular. My beef with this is the cost is such premium a 20 people max should be a given...but I bet they try to increase the cost to offer fewer than 22
Just wanted to clarify, half of our group of 39 was doing a bike tour; then ABD split our group further -- half did the calligraphy while half did the food tour, then switched. I think there were maybe 10 or 12, including dd and myself on this pretend food tour. It wasn't horrible, just not great.
I didn't mind our group size. Everyone got along very well -- we had a great group, probably one of the best groups I've been with on an ABD. To me it didn't make an impact. Now if you have some slow movers in the group then I can see a group of this size being an issue. It may have helped having Ken along as a shadow guide since he was very hands-on.
Ours was broken down that way, too. I think we had 12 on our food tour/caligraphy.But still the guide ratio I feel should always be 2...but at least you had a shadow guide. We did not. We had one guide constantly assisting a few in need leaving the other guide dealing with 35 people. Glad that was not your case
I can totally see him springing into action. He's a great guide.For a young, single guy Ken didn't flinch at all at the mess and situation in general, so kudos to him (he said they see everything in the parks -- I suppose they do!).
Continued Activities Day 2-4:
The much looked forward to “hike” in Miyajima was a big disappointment. They should have billed it as climbing two staircases since that’s what it was. I thought we were climbing to the top of the mountain. That needs to be changed in the itinerary.
Thank you for your trip report!
My family went on our first Thompson Family Adventures this summer, partly due to your postings on this site! We have been on several ABD trips and wanted to try something different. We went on the Canadian Rockies TFA trip. I didn't realize how I interpreted the TFA itinerary through an ABD lens until we were on the trip. We knew we would be in a much smaller group but didn't appreciate a difference in the activities. On Day 2, my DH and DS12 went on the cave exploration while DD19 and I went on the easy hike. After the caving, DH asked...Um, what kind of trip did you book for us? They had a strenuous hike followed by repelling into a cave followed by crawling, climbing, clawing, wiggling for three hours. The easy hike took three hours.
The next day, we had river rafting. At this point, we had a sense that it would be different than rafting with ABD. Sure enough, Class 4 rapids for 2 hours! As we got into our raft, our guide said, "Now this ain't no Disney ride!" My family totally cracked up. We found we really enjoyed the more strenuous activities. Even though we went into thinking "hike" would mean about two staircases!
We really enjoyed both Tokyo hotels and both are ideally located in central Tokyo. The Peninsula was a solid #1 of the hotels in our stay and probably the nicest hotel I"ve ever stayed at. The Tokyo Station Hotel was also very lux feeling, but it didn't have the space of the former. The Tokyo Station Hotel is attached to one of the big train stations so that's nice, but there is a subway station super close to the Peninsula so you don't have to walk too far if you are moving around a lot. It basically comes down to room size and $$. I just looked on booking.com and the Peninsula is about double the cost of the Tokyo Station. Wow! The size of the room in the Tokyo Station hotel was much smaller, but it had really high ceilings and a "grand old dame" hotel feel. I would read reviews and look at pics to see what you would prefer.Loving this report. Super helpful to me, thank you! Both of your Tokyo hotels sound lovely. I made a note originally based on your recommendation to book Tokyo Station but the other Tokyo looks amazing too. For a home base on a 5 night stay, which do you recommend for conveience?
I just got home from the Japanese hotel HALEKULANI in Waikiki and it is amazing. Our second year there. It is all Japanese and it had the same tub you had in your last hotel. Trouble is when I got out of it, I forgot how deep - i.e high off the floor it was so I wasn't thinking about that when I stepped out of it and almost went headfirst into the vanity. I just wasn't expecting such a deep step down.
Super tips and glad you enjoyed that last day. Sometimes breaking away is nice. Glad you will get some on our own time in Disneyland. Excited to read that . Thanks! Melissa
Great trip report @CaliforniaGirl09!
It was my friend @Calfan who has done Thompson, but I'm definitely looking at them as well. It sounds as if it would be a great trip for us. I'm LOL at the description of the cave hike and river rafting. Sounds much more our cup of tea. Was it a fun trip? I'll have to add it to my list. Canada is supposedly beautiful.
I really enjoyed the shrine on the last day -- it was one of my favorite shrines. We saw the priests (?) coming from morning prayer in their robes walking towards another building. I found the blessing we got (only maybe 15 from our group went for the blessing) to be a very moving experience. However I understand it's not for everyone. What a shame ABD eliminated this.
We had quite a few families skip the last day -- I can think of at least 3 off the top of my head and there was another family where half stayed back.
We had a family in our group also go to the stadium to get the baseball hats! They are quite nice!
Loving your trip report!