Grand Sumo Tournament Tokyo - Osaka - Nagoya

This experience can be broken down into two parts: getting the tickets and the Sumo tournament itself. Both were excellent. Communication with our guide was smooth and easy. Ken delivered the tickets as promised and included tips and links to help us better understand the experience. The tournament itself is a little hard to describe in adequate detail. We loved the pageantry, ceremony and the "feel" of being in the arena. The wrestling component itself is a little lost on us as newcomers, but that' totally okay. If we want to dive into it more, we can watch the recap on NHK and learn about the individual moves and the wrestlers. We had a total blast, it was worth every penny to us and Ken provided everything promised and more.

Great day out, go early for fuller experience. Has festive atmosphere, meet sumo stars out front , enjoy the food stalls.

There was a major difference between the price printed on the ticket and the price your agency charged me. I will tell my friends and I will not buy from you again.

It’s a unique chance to witness a true Japanese cultural and sporting event that can not be seen anywhere else in the world

Ken from Island Travel Specialists sorted out an excellent experience and was super easy to deal with

Very last minute decision to try to find tickets for the Grand Sumo Tournament in Nagayo. Ken helped and did his best to find us the best tickets possible. And on Sunday we received confirmation for Monday! So took the train from Osaka and had a great day. Ken informed me about the seating and rules in the stadium (& gave some great tips), as well as the app with a lot more Sumo info. Would highly recommend this unique Japanese, traditional experience!

The views were amazing! place was captivating. thank you Ken for the wonderful memories! Thank you for making this happen for us.

I live in Japan and wanted to purchase Sumo Tournament tickets as an anniversary gift for my partner. Online, there were many $250 (USD) tickets available for good box seats. Not knowing anything about sumo, however, I opted to purchase two of these $495 tours ($990 total) from Viator assuming that we would have decent seats and a guide to stay with us throughout the matches to explain what was going on. Boy, was I mistaken. What the tour actually included was a meetup where the guide (very nice guy) talked to us (nine participants total) outside the stadium during the first hour of the tournament. He discussed sumo and had a couple people play-fight in a circle on the ground as other reviews have mentioned. Then we went in to the stadium where he handed each of us the $16 (2,500 yen) tickets and advised us that we could scatter into the better seats until we were kicked out and then would have to move to our assigned seats in the very top row of the top balcony. Then he was gone and we never saw him again. So if you have difficulty with the website or just want someone to actually buy your tickets for you and walk you into the stadium, then by all means go for this tour because watching sumo was fun! Just know that you may be paying nearly $500 per person for a $16 ticket and an hour of sumo chat outside the stadium. I’ve done many Viator tours over the years and this is the first one in which I’ve been disappointed by what I perceive to be a gross cost v. value discrepancy.

Magnificent show, great atmosphere. You can spend the day drinking and eating in the reserved squares. The best fights are around 2:30 p.m.

Ken was enthusiastic and friendly and practices sumo himself. He was the perfect tour guide. We toured around the area where we were given great stories and history lessons. He then gave us tickets to go into the stadium to watch the matches. We had a great time!