The price you paid for this trip includes $450 from each person for group expenses. We call this the "Money Pool". The intent is to use this money when we do things as a group such as

• Visit a museum, castle, kabuki theatre, culture show
• Have one of the meals included in the trip price
• Charter a bus, or use taxis to get to some destination
• Have other expenses as a group

It is just practical for one person to pay for these kinds of things rather than each person stepping up to the ticket window or paying their own dinner bill (and having separate checks).

But you should know that we actually keep separate accounts on paper for each traveler, and record only expenses attributable to you, as follows:

• Subtract each ticket / admission price
• For dinners, subtract an equal portion of the total price
• For transportation, subtract an equal portion of the total price
• Note that if you don't attend a meal or event, we do not charge your account

Here is the approximate budget figures we used to anticipate the needs in the money pool:

• Meals: $60 per person per meal; some may be more, some less, so $240
• Admissions: ¥3070; this is about $41.00
• Taxi from Tokyo hotel to bus station, about ¥2000 per person (maybe $26)
• Shipping bags to Hiroshima: ¥2200 (about $29.00)
• Sub-total: $336.00
• Cushion: $114.00 gives $450.00

 

Near the end of the trip, we will calculate each person's balance in the money pool and refund them any remaining balance in their share. You can ask about your personal balance any time. We will let you know if you are getting low in your account. We will not generally advance you money from this pool until we are at the refund point, since the whole idea is to keep some money in reserve for needs the whole group may need to cover unforseen expenses.

We have tried to be conservative in our estimates, and we will use great caution in managing this money, so we have every expectation there will be some monies left for a refund, but we can't make any promises. We have used this technique in previous trips and it has served us (all the travelers) well in terms of convenience and keeping overall costs low.