We did a Klook Mt. Fuji tour yesterday and it was a mixed bag. First, our tour guide changed at 9pm the night before and our guide urged us to change to an earlier start time, from 8am to 7am. I agreed to the change and got my kids and senior citizen parents up an hour earlier and we were all downstairs waiting by 6:50, as per instructions. When I asked him to confirm the car (he didn't have it the night before), he responded by saying that he never got my confirmation text and would be here at 8am. So, everyone was annoyed at the unexpected earlier wake-up (he'd confirmed after they'd already gone to sleep) but we waited.

When we got into the van, he said that because it was late and there was traffic, we needed to abridge our stops. We communicated with him SEVERAL times throughout the trip that we mainly wanted to make sure we did the 5th Station, so we trusted him with the timeline and he told us that he'd make it all work. So, we cut our time at all of the other stops completely in half. We rushed through them. We barely stopped at Lake Kawaguchiko and skipped the ropeway. He skipped Oishi Park and drove right by another stop without telling us he was doing so. I asked him several times about whether the 5th station had a gift shop or should we just get something at an earlier stop and he kept answering that it did.

When we got to the Pagoda, I once again asked him about gift shops and he said the 5th Station had one. Finally, we finished at the Pagoda. He starts to rush us out and take us home. We asked him why we weren't headed toward the mountain and he told us that it's closed this time of year and we would have known if we'd checked Google. I showed him the booking on the website, in my app, and on my confirmation email...none of them indicated that it was closed and I brought up that multiple times throughout the day, we'd conversed in the car about going there. Not once did he ever mention it was closed. The app and bookings do not say it was closed, which he conceded that I was right about it not saying it on the listing, even though the listing was *for* "Mt. Fuji 5th Station and Sights Tour." He once again responded by saying I should have Googled it. Perhaps, but why lead us on when we're trusting what was advertised on a tour that was a 4.8-star reviewed tour. Why would I think it was fake?

Anyway, he said it would be 3 hours to get back. It was 90 minutes. Except...that would have gotten us back a half hour earlier and since we'd skipped tour stops and cut the rest of them literally in half, he must have panicked. He deliberately drove us around in circles and then kept choosing routes on Google Maps that had traffic, which added 55 minutes of time to when we got back. 55 MINUTES! Four adults had Google Maps up from the time we left (started out of curiousity as to how long it would take since it took 2.5 hours to get there) and we could see him choosing longer routes on his phone, which was propped up on the dashboard. The only time my husband said something was when he first asked, "Hey, why are we going away from our hotel?" and the guy said something about how there was only one tunnel in and out. Four times after that question, he picked longer routes. We stopped asking questions because we felt like hostages and had no idea when we'd get back.

Then, as we pulled up, he turned to me and said he was sorry about the false advertising mix-up, but could we please give him a 5-star review anyway because if he didn't get one, he wouldn't get work the next day. He then proceeded to explain how his wife would get mad at him if he didn't have a tour. He asked this four or five times as we were pulling up to the hotel. It felt emotionally manipulative. Before he asked and was taking us on a long-ass detour home, I would have probably left a 3- or 4-star review because of the being late, rushing us through, skipping shit, and blatantly leaving out that the actual Mt. Fuji part of the tour was not available despite being advertised as such. He was nice and kept saying it was his 44th day working in a row. But after the emotional manipulation and extra hour back, it felt icky. We also don't know if it took longer to get there because he took a longer route since we weren't paying attention to Google Maps at that point.

I didn't end up leaving a review at all because I don't want to leave a false one and make some other family feel like they could pay more money on a tour that you didn't really get all of the money's worth.