While I love curating incredible experiences, there are a few things I typically don’t book for Japan trips:

❌ Dining reservations
❌ Spa appointments
❌ Medical services
❌ Ghibli Museum tickets
❌ Pokémon Café and Kirby Café reservations
❌ Harry Potter Café reservations
❌ PokéPark Kanto tickets
❌ Nintendo Museum lottery registration and tickets

A note on experiences that feel like attractions but are actually dining reservations: the Harry Potter Café, Pokémon Café, and Kirby Café all require dining reservations — not ticket purchases — and fall under the same restrictions as other dining bookings. These reservations often open with very little notice, sell out within minutes, and require Japanese-language apps or payment systems to complete.

The Nintendo Museum operates on a lottery system that opens periodically through the Nintendo Switch Online app. Registration requires a Japanese Nintendo account and is time-sensitive. I can walk you through the process, but lottery registration and ticket management are handled by you directly.

Many of these reservations — especially dining, spas, and limited-entry experiences — are highly restrictive in Japan. Restaurants often require guests to select specific menus at the time of booking, prepay in advance, and agree to strict cancellation policies. Spa and specialty experiences can be similar, sometimes requiring multiple back-and-forth confirmations.

In many cases, these bookings open last-minute, sell out within minutes, or require Japanese-language apps or payment systems. They also often do not generate confirmations that I can reliably track — which means if anything changes, you would still be responsible for contacting the venue directly.

Because of how much time, uncertainty, and liability is involved — and because agents typically do not receive commission, sales credit, or confirmation documentation for these services — I focus instead on the areas where I can add the most value:

• Flights

• Hotels

• Private transportation and trains

• Bookable activities and experiences through trusted platforms like Klook, Viator, GetYourGuide, and Project Expedition

Bookable activities are reservations with confirmation numbers — tours, cooking classes, guided day trips, theme park tickets, and similar experiences. Independent neighborhood exploration, finding a coffee shop, browsing a market, or wandering through a district are not travel bookings. They're some of the best parts of being in Japan, and your itinerary and destination resources will give you everything you need to make the most of that time on your own.

If there are specialty reservations you want to pursue — dining, spas, or limited-entry experiences — I'm happy to point you in the right direction so you can book them yourself. If you'd prefer to have me handle those details, that falls under my concierge-level planning upgrade.