Testimonial

Dear Ms Vicky Dong!

We are very sorry we could not meet you personally in Xian, but your assistant who had come to welcome us at the airport was very kind and helpful.

About the evaluation: in general the whole China tour was very well organised, the programs were not tiresome, the timing was excellent and all our days were full with good experience and knowledge. The hotels were very well chosen, they were comfortable and in convenient places in the centres of the towns.

The meals: The breakfasts were rich and had a great choice, except in Urumqi where the breakfast was very poor. We had several good dishes for lunch - or early dinner - e.g. the first food in Turpan was delicious.

In Lhasa we had two meals, both were delicious, one in a western stile restaurant, where we had very good fried chicken and yak-steak, the second in the hotel with buffet, where we had what we liked.

The guides. We had the best guide in Urumqui-Turpan. She was intelligent, had a very nice pronounciation in English, and had a good knowledge about the attractions she had to show us.

Dunhuang is a very fast developing tourist center, even the town itself is beautiful.

The guide in Lhasa was fair, she organized our program convenietly and was happy when we agreed to see the attractions alone. She explained everything we should know about the places of interest.

Cars and drivers: No problem, in general they were quite OK. But the car in Dunhuang and Lhasa was not clean enough.

Finally: Compliments to the guide in Urumqui, fair compliments to the Lhasa guide and the untidy cars. We had very good memories about the tour, we enjoyed every second of it.

We allow you to publish our comments in your testimonial column, but please do not publish our e-mail address.

After developing our photos in the next weeks we send you some interesting of them!

Thanks for these wonderful experiences, hope we can enjoy ChinaTour360 service in another time too.

With much regards, yours sincerely,

Maria and Sandor Raffai

Hi Judy,

Please find our comments below:

All meals were fabulous; I would like to complement all the guides on their efforts to select food for us that exceeded our wishes. They all asked if we did not like anything or had any preferences. We specifically liked the Cuisine in Beijing, and our guide certainly knew how to select some very interesting dishes.

The guides were all different, but all good. Winnie is still young, but she came right over when we heard about problems going to Dunhuang, and also offered to guide us through the Hutong’s after we had some extra time due to a later flight.

Robin in Guilin was probably the most experienced, and made it easy to have a very pleasant communication.

Jenny? or Cheng in Xi-an was a delightful guide, very refined, and has no doubt a bright future ahead of her.

The guide in Shanghai also was helpful going to a few places to buy some clothes, and help us with some guidelines. The next day when we were on our own, we did spend some time following up, and were quite successful.

All cars were good.

The highlights of the tour were:
1) The food.
2) The guides.
3) The hotels.

That was also the order we would have preferred (food, sightseeing, hotels).

Beijing had a mediocre hotel with a great location. All they require to do is to clean the rug in the room to maintain their 3 star rating (something that should not be difficult, but will be important for foreign visitors). Their breakfast was also simple, but OK. The room could have been because we arrived late and we stayed in the old wing. However, management does seem to have room for improvement.

Xian had a pleasant hotel in a fabulous location and good food.

Guilin was upgraded to 4 stars Bravo, which is indeed 4 stars as it applied to service, food, staff, location and a TV with many English channels.

Shanghai was a good 3 star hotel, very close to train, metro and bus, they had a good restaurant where we had dinner twice (partially also because of convenience).

China was a very interesting county, and it is truly amazing the unbelievable accomplishments everywhere. Both the imperial palace and the new skyscrapers are awe-inspiring.

Tourists should also show some patience with the Chinese people who often try to adjust to tourists from very different cultures.

As far as ChinaTour360: We are pleased in spite of the Dunhuang disappointment, but we are both glad we did not have to go through hoops for a few hour sightseeing.

My suggestion to you is to add a footnote on the web that people who prefer some extra time for relaxing, shopping or self-directed sightseeing are encouraged to add an optional extra day to certain cities of interest. Especially Xian, Guilin and probably Dunhuang as well, could do with one extra day. Even with the extra day were not able to visit a few things we would have liked. In addition, Guilin is just delightful for a relaxing weeklong holiday, or at least a visit to the famous show in Yangshuo

I had looked to many tours in China, and saw some attractive tours like S601 and others. However, they required all a large number of changes in accommodation (packing a suitcase every other day), and B604 was a good compromise. At least the budget tours seem to take a little extra time. However, to have the same tour with even more extra days to relax in Xian, Dunhuang and Guilin would have been ideal, and worth an extra 500RMB/day for just a hotel and breakfast.

As it turned out, the extra 2 days we had in Shanghai were quickly filled up with a little shopping and revisiting the old town, the museum and the Bund to view the evening lights.

They are all honest comments we made, so we have no problem you using or rephrasing anything we have stated as long as it reflex our statements.

Henk Wondergem

Dear Friends,
I am very sorry for not responding earlier to your request for the evaluation of our recent trip to China. I have been very busy upon my return. You have my permission to publish my coments.

First, we were on a private 11 day luxury tour of China, 2 persons with our own guide and driver in a private vehicle....usually a very comfortable van. I upgraded the hotels, at my own additional expense in Beijing and Shanghai....and I was very happy with them.

I am very happy that we began our China Experience in Beijing with our guide "Cindy" and our driver, "Mr.Leo". They were WONDERFUL!!! Very friendly and caring professionals, and a credit to your company!! The Peninsula Palace Hotel in Beijing is the very best, great accommodations and wonderful staff! The sightseeing was excellent and Cindy knows her history! Mr. Leo was a very friendly and professional driver! The restaurants we were taken to were very special, with great staff and excellent food!! Among the best was the Lunch after the tour of the Forbidden City and the Lunch on the way to the Great Wall at the Auspicious Hotel!

In Xian we were well taken care of by Lily and Mr. Yen. Again, two professtional, and like Cindy and Mr. Leo, a true credit to your company! The Hyatt Regency had a great staff but the hotel is "tired" and in need of a great face-lift!

In Guilin, "William" took wonderful care of us, very up to date with his knowledge and a true professional, while being a very kind person. The trip down the Li River to Yangshuo was memorable, and a wonderful day!! Meeting 2 local brothers in their home, after the River Cruise was special, honorable and proud men who were honored to have us visit in their home, a cherished memory for us!!

The internal flights in China were great, superb service, new aircraft and on-time!! We were very happy to have upgraded to First Class for the 3 flights, better seats, more spacious, good meals, wine, and at a very reasonable fare, for First Class travel! The Sheraton Hotel in Guilin should be looked at again by your company. It is very tired, and in need of a renovation. I stayed there in 1988 and not much has changed, including the very over-crowded dining room at breakfast-time.

The Dumpling Dinner was really delicious and interesting and we really enjoyed it very much! All of the shows were excellent and very different from each other. Wonderful theaters, comfortable seats and good sound systems.

If I go back to China in the future I would definately use your company. Thanks for creating a mostly wonderful and memorable trip to Beautiful China!!

Very truly yours,
Daniel Boyle

Hello Friends,

The mixture of sites selected was very good.

Because every meal was a variety of dishes, it is not possible to select one specific restaurant. The way multiple dishes are served with every meal is excellent for a mixed group of people like those I was traveling with including our Moslem member.

All the guides were very knowledgeable and considerate. All were able to communicate very well and had a very good knowledge of their area. Each spoke as if it was a natural conversation rather than a recording or memorized speach.

The vehicles were always clean and the drivers maintained a very smooth and comfortable pace.

While I consider all four guides as having done an excellent job for our group, I would pick Miss Chen as the best of all. I think the cities and sites chosen in your tour packages give an excellent introduction to China and would recommend your tours of ChinaTour360 to anyone.

Cheers,
Robert Hanke

Hi,

We thoroughly enjoyed this China tour, all the guides were very professional, always on time and very knowledgeable. If we had to pick one guide that shone above the rest it would be Susan Feng from the Guilin tour, Susan's glowing personality was like a breath of Spring.

All the cars and drivers worked very well, so no problem there.

Our favorite arranged meal would probably be the lunch served on October 16th our second day in Beijing. Also the Peking Duck dinner was very good. We did not care for the arranged lunch served on October 24th in Shanghai.

Other than the cruise boat lunch at Guilin, and lunch in Shanghai, all meals were great. We noticed that box lunches were available at the Sheraton hotel in Guilin to take on the River Li cruise, this might have been a better option than the boat lunch.

We really enjoyed the theatre in Guilin and the Acrobatic show in Shanghai was awesome. Do they have DVD's of that show available?

All in all, a very well run and enjoyable tour and I'm sure I speak for Mr. Whitehead in saying we would have no hesitation in recommending your company to other people. (I already have).

Please feel free to publish our comments on your website but due to the amount of SPAM we now get , please do not publish our email addresses.

Regards

Alistair McCabe

It has taken me rather a long time to give you any feedback following my trip to China in July, but better late than never. Here is what I made of the trip.

Guides: We had some excellent guides on our trip. I was impressed by the standard of English of all of them. Something that I particularly appreciated was their ability to manage a group who had different ideas and interests. They managed well when half of the group wanted to do one thing and half another, and never allowed us to miss the scheduled visits because not everyone was keen. Our guide in Xian was particularly good. I was impressed at how enthusiastic they were, and how much they knew. We also particularly appreciated knowing exactly what was happening each day. The guides told us what time everything would be happening, when we would have meals, when we would get back to the hotel etc, and this really helped us to relax and enjoy the visits. Well done, guides. Keep it up!

Food: The food for most of the tour was outstanding - it far exceeded my expectations. Occasionally we had a disappointing meal (Hong Kong was a bit disappointing after the magnificent food we had enjoyed for the rest of the trip). But the variety was great - it was lovely to try so many new things. There was one night when we ate as a group but chose our own dishes - this did not work as well as the guide ordering for the whole group. It caused a lot of confusion. But I have very happy memories of the meals during our tour.

Visits: We saw some outstanding things, and I really enjoyed the visits that we made. I wonder if it might be possible to spend more time at the Great Wall (we were there for a couple of hours, but it would have been lovely to spend longer so that we could spend more time walking; and at the Terracotta Warriors - I would have liked to spend another hour looking at them.) But most of the visits were timed very well and we spent about the right amount of time in each place. Well done to our guide in Beijing, who gave us 2 hours at the wall when some of the group wanted to go back sooner.

Hotels: Our hotel in Beijing was outstanding. The service was excellent, and it was lovely to have a swimming pool. The other hotels were mixed.My feeling is that slightly smaller, less grand hotels, might provide better service. The four star hotels were better than the five star ones.

Evening entertainments: These were magnificent. I enjoyed every one of them. The performances were colourful, entertaining, skilful, and gave us a real flavour of Chinese culture. There is nothing I would change about the itinerary here.

Cruise: I enjoyed the cruise and everything that we saw, but the accommodation was not rather comfortable. I understand that it is difficult to provide comfortable accommodation on a boat, but I wonder if you could warn people in advance how noisy it is, so that they can bring some ear-plugs! The staff on the boat were friendly, and very good about providing us with water whenever we asked for it.

Bus: It was lovely to have an air-conditioned bus to get into after each visit.

Overall, this China tour was outstanding. We were looked after superbly, and felt really welcome thanks to your guides. I would definitely recommend ChinaTour360 to anyone I know visiting China. It was also lovely that Maggie and Sally came to see us in Xian - it was a nice touch, and much appreciated.