Welcome to Tauck’s Cruising the Land of the Rising Sun – Northbound Forum

I'm not Emily but will try to help you out on this one as you appear to be new to the forum.

The thread Emily posted back in 2014 is kind of a generic one that Tauck does whenever they add a new tour to the list of available tours. It isn't specific to the year so you just get the first one. As long as a tour in still available then the forum for it will still be on the forum home page. Looks like over the years about 5 different topics have been brought up and responded to by various travelers on the northbound trip. Plus additional topics started under the southbound version. So yes the forum is still active by travelers and no there won't be a specific 2018 one started by Tauck.

The forum is primarily a tool for fellow travelers to ask and answer questions. The moderators - Emily and Tim - only occasionally respond so if you really need a response from Tauck, call or email them directly.

As to traveling from Dulles to Japan and back, you can book your own flights or have Tauck's air dept do it for you. There are some advantages to having Tauck do it (don't have to pay for your reservation til the rest of the trip costs are due, somewhat more lenient change policies, etc). I recommend you do some internet research on your own as to available flights, airlines, prices etc between your destination points. Do you have a favorite airline you want to earn points with, what type of seats do you want, etc. Then call Tauck's air dept and see what flights and prices they have available. Sometimes their price is more and sometimes less. For our most recent flight plans to Europe Tauck offered several hundred $$ less than Delta had.

If you book air for yourself, just make sure they know by the time you pay you last bill to Tauck what your flight details are so they include that in your Green Book (handy travel docs) and have a driver there to pick you up.

Also, I highly recommend you read through everything on the "Before You Go" page for you tour and all the older topics for both north & south bound tours. Lots of useful info.

Best wishes.