26 Oct 2019
Our private tour to Mt Fuji was supposed to take place 2 days after Typhoon Hagibis struck Tokyo.
Due to the typhoon, there were a lot of road closures, including many of the roads and highways that led to Mt Fuji. However, the private tour driver was totally unaware of the road closures, and followed the GPS on his car through 3 different routes that were all closed (he eventually switched to Google Maps which showed where the road closures were at, after encountering the second road closure and making a phone call back to his office). We had met up the driver at 8am, and it was already 12nn by the time we encountered our third road closure. Sseeing how late it already was, I suggested to abort the trip to Mt Fuji and to visit Kamakura instead. We spent a few short hours visiting Kamakura, and it was a very disappointing day, all in all.
To be fair, it was no fault of the driver that the roads were closed because of the typhoon. Also, he was a nice guy, though soft spoken. However, as a tour operator, they should have minimally checked the road conditions when they knew that a typhoon had struck just 2 days ago. If we were made aware of the risks of road closures even one day in advance, we could have made alternative plans in Tokyo, or even cancelled the private tour. The day was half-wasted trapped in the car, and we were tired and it was just such a dampener for us, especially since we were with our parents who were old and could hardly withstand such a long road trip circling around the roads of Tokyo.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend this tour operator. They need to be clearer on their responsibilities as a tour operator, and be proactive to ensure that the trip can run smoothly.