Yumiko was so wonderful in answering all our questions beforehand and kept us informed on the pickup location and time. Wes was our guide, and Aoki-san was our driver and photographer. Both made us feel very welcome and took care of all our needs. Everything was top notch. Highly recommended!
To get into some details, we opted for the Onizuka Center. There are bathrooms there. Around the pickup time, the parking starts to fill. So if that's the pickup location, recommend arriving 10 minutes prior to their pickup time. They had warm sandwiches for us to enjoy while getting acclimated to the higher elevation. Then we loaded into the vans. They had heavy jackets and pants and gloves to keep us warm. Definitely recommend putting these on so you can actually enjoy the experience. Wes provided lots of interesting information on the ride up. At the top, both Wes and Aoki-san helped us take photos with our phones and cameras. Aoki-san also took lots of photos with his camera and air-dropped it to us immediately. After the sunset, we went star gazing. Wes used a laser pointer to show us constellations. We even saw some shooting stars! Then Aoki-san set up for some night photos, which were air-dropped immediately after. These were absolutely amazing. At first, I didn't see much, but you have to do some basic photo editing. Just with the iPhone, editing the photo, we could see the Milky Way behind us. Absolutely amazing. Aoki-san took the time to get the photos right and we stayed a little longer when the clouds cleared up for a better photo.
This team cares about making this an amazing experience for everyone. Highly recommended