VELTRA tours & activities, fun things to do

Could be better orginized

I attended with my wife the afternoon tour. Pick up location was very broad. We ended up looking for the tour guide office for over 15' as it was not indicated that the locqtion is at the basement level of a Mall near the Kyoto station. As a result, we were 2' late. Thankfully the bus that have already left came back because they needed to return a couple of passangers who were wrongfully assigned to our tour.

The first two visits to our tour were great! Very knowledgable tourguide and great Shrines!

On the third one, we were dropped at this great location at the bottom of the shrine. There were a number of stairs that we needed to climb. My wife has an issue with her knee, she wears a knee protective sleeve and she needs to avoid stairs. The tourguide told us there was a longer way to go to the shrine that was built for wheelchair users. She told us that there were a bunch of stores along the way and that we could browse these instead!!! We obviously wanted to attend the tour that we paid, so we tried meet up the group. However, noone was wiating for us at the top and we had to walk around on our own as our group was already on their way down.

The tour could have been better organized and prevent issues like these before hand, or at least let us know in advance that thebtour is not applicable for people with difficulties climbing stairs.

Couldn't hear what the guide said

When we were on the coach I was sat at the front and could hear everything the guide said. Once we were at the shrines the group was too big for most of us to hear. Many people just wandered off on their own because they were not benefitting from the guide's input. If you were close to her it was possible to hear but there were too many of us for this to be possible. I enjoyed the shrines but could just have easily made my own way there as I learnt nothing much from the guide.

We enjoyed the tour very much. The guide was very knowledgeable and friendly. The lunch was ok, personally Japanese st<x>yle lunch would have been better.
I would recommend this tour.

The guide in the morning was very professional and I really enjoyed the morning tour. However, in the afternoon I was given a seat at the back of the bus. Due to the engine noise at the back of the bus, and the noise of a kid sitting at the back, it was impossible to listen to the soft voice of the tour guide. I could not even hear the place we were going to visit. I knew the other travellers at the back had the same bad experience as I could see a couple requested to be changed to seats in the front and other guys also said they could not hear a word. Although I expressed my concern to the tour guide, I did not find any improvement. For the whole afternoon trip, I could not hear most of the thing the tour guide said on the bus. It was very frustrated and disappointed. It is a big bus. I hope you will consider improving the microphone and sound system on the bus and also advise the tour guide to speak louder and slower, so everyone on the bus can hear the useful information provided by the tour guide. I would also like you to point out to your clients that if they bring small children on the bus, they should be considerated to be quiet.