China Tour Reviews from Our Customers

Hi Wendy,

We had a great trip! I have just arrived back home to Tasmania. We all had a great time and your guides were great

Meals were all good. Our favorite that would have to be the one in Beijing on the first day we all enjoyed it.

All our guides were amazing and very helpful and spoke great English easy to understand. They were all wonderful and full of knowledge. But I think Minco went that bit more by giving me her number for when I came back to Shanghai in case we had any problems, such a lovely girl

All hotels were great and rooms very clean.

Thank you.

Karen Welsh

Dear Wendy,

You tour organization was highly efficient and secure. The tour went like clockwork.

Miss May was informative, charming and good company. Her presence made the tour very enjoyable.

Driver was prompt, drove carefully and skillfully. Highly courteous and helpful.

First restaurant was charming, food was average. Ambience was good. Second restaurant was excellent as there was entertainment as well. Food was good as well.

I would recommend this service highly to anyone. The final "view of the water cube and birds nest" is becoming less relevant as time moves on from the last Olympic Games. The city is proud of these of course. It would have made more impact if the buildings were actually entered to see inside.

From the outset, the tour guide was waiting on time at the agreed meeting point in the hotel foyer. The vehicle was modern, clean and comfortable. The young guide (Ms. May) was very helpful and had a good grasp of English. I felt instantly at ease and as the tour progressed, it was clear that I was safe and secure in a strange city. The driver was quiet and courteous but clearly able to ensure my safety. I was conducted efficiently and carefully to the selected venues and was not subjected to any sales pressure. Having a dedicated guide while traveling alone was well worth the extra cost involved. Entry to all venues was seamless and quick and the guide was enthusiastic company throughout the tour, appearing to be totally concerned with my enjoyment of the experience.

Sadly, the weather was foul while my tour was being conducted and while good for my memories, I doubt if pictures of terrible smog one day and rain the next would be useful on the website. I again comment that despite these unpleasant conditions, the tour guide made the whole thing enjoyable.

If I do return to Beijing, I would definitely use the same service.

Neil Hearnden

Hi Ladies,

We thought the tour was excellent and have already recommended it to our friends. Everything went very smoothly with no problems and of course the excellent weather is a good thing to have for any holiday. Our rain in Guilin came at times that didn't bother us. We really enjoyed relaxing and letting the guide and driver do the work and we thought it was nice that our guide took care of us from arrival through check in and walked us to security. We found the trip fun and relaxing for us.

1. We thought the meals were very good and enjoyed the restaurants planned for us. They were upscale, beautifully decorated and the food was excellent. We felt that the allowed amount was plenty to try more foods than we would normally order, but that was fun. Dorinna guided us to the DaDong Peking Duck restaurant and we thought that was a great experience. We were surprised to see smoking allowed in the restaurants and had to change tables in Shanghai.

2. We enjoyed all of the guides and they all had good information about the sites we visited which they provided to us as we drove there and then at the location. The guides were very different, but all good. We enjoyed the young people, Dorinna and Jay and their fresh approach. Mr. Wu in Shanghai had a more professional appearance and was very business-like. His skills and efficiency helped make the most of our short time there, including our special requests, but we were happy to have the young and more relaxed guides in the other cities. I am sure that they will only get better as they mature and present a more professional appearance. We were fine with their relaxed clothing and it seemed more like a holiday outing, but the hotel staff and others may not give them as much respect as they would give to Mr. Wu. We felt that the guides all had good English.

3. We found all of the drivers to be very safe, very helpful and with good attitude. We thought our Beijing driver was the safest driver, although his car smelled like smoke. All of the cars looked clean, but there were moldy smells in the Guilin car as well, maybe from the frequent rain. I realize that I am more sensitive than some people about the smoke smells and the other smells.

4. All of the hotels were great and the food was good too. We were amazed at the service of the Shangri La in Guilin. The staff was very welcoming and the room was clean and pretty with lovely view. Our breakfast was good there and I had a great massage at the spa. Their facilities were great and little children enjoyed the private garden - they ran around squealing and chasing each other in the dark (great for family travel).

The Yangshuo Mountain Retreat was very nice. It did seem very family oriented, but we like the view and quiet (when the kids were yelling). We were happy that we didn't stay in the town. The breakfast there was good that it was a set breakfast and we enjoyed that, although it was all beige. I left them some comments about their white bread and white fruits with white eggs, but it tasted good. We had some good food at the restaurant but it would get boring if more than a couple of days. We did like the bike ride from the hotel with just a bit of road and then on the path through the villages and the wide road with shoulders to the Banyan and Moon Hill sights.

The Peninsula Hotel in Shanghai was amazing! Our room was beautiful and elegant with a coffee maker and fruit to welcome. A gorgeous bath tub and double sinks were nice. They had a great set up in the closet we've seen before with vanity and a bench for your suitcases so that your main bed and living area does not get cluttered. We loved the breakfast in the light and airy lobby restaurant. They had a great set up with hot food ordered and you helped yourself to the pastries and fruit. We would want to return to that hotel if we went back to Shanghai.

Thanks,

Patricia Young

Dear Wendy,

Please see comments below. Overall, we were very happy with the trip.

I thought the time distribution was good. Also, the guides were always open to suggestions from the group as to whether we wanted more or less time at a particular spot, so the flexibility helped as well.

Everything was wonderful. Our guides were all delightful and a pleasure to be around. They had so much knowledge to share. They were also very polite and quite funny.

Our guides, Do, Waldner and Jimmy all offered a lot of knowledge. We didn’t have to ask many questions, and when we did, we received even more information. They were very knowledgeable and personable.

The best meal in my opinion was the first lunch in Beijing. It was very tasty and absolutely delicious. I enjoyed most of the meals. My least favorite was the meal following the great wall and the first lunch in Xi'an. The lunch at the private home in Xi'an and the 3rd lunch in Beijing were also very very good.

The rooms, service and breakfast at the Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson were very nice and very comfortable.

We would recommend encouraging your guests to do the bicycle ride on the City Wall in Xi'an. We decided on our own to do this but it was so lovely.

Best regards,

Kathryn

Thanks for the memorable tour. Had it not for the drinking water, China is a beautiful and historical place to visit.

Although our group is composed of different nationalities and age, the time spent together in various spots didn't matter at all. I believed all of us were there to appreciate the grandeur of each place according to the time we have to spend.

The lunch in the restaurants that we went into are all good except the one on the Li river cruise as alerted to us by your emails. The tour guide in Beijing and Xi'an asked us if we want them to choose the food to order since we are not familiar with the names. We all agreed and Sarah in Beijing gave us the best lunch. The choice of Lili in Xi'an was also good. The one in Guilin as chosen by Liu is not so good, and choice of Tracy in Shanghai is also good.

The knowledge of each guide in visited sites is ominous. They clearly explained the history of each sites and we listened. Some of us do have additional questions but some are satisfied already with the narration of the guide. The guides were clear to us, especially Sarah of Beijing and Tracy of Shanghai. Their knowledge of the place is well rounded, I would say. I think Sarah even gave us more than what we need to know and we are very pleased. The drivers and their cars were all okay.

The breakfast in Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin and Shanghai are great. The only exception is the one in Yangshuo; the choice is so limited. The hotel is not 4-stars; we all rated it as 1 or 2 stars only. The room is quite dark and the bed is made up of box springs. All of us agreed that it would have been better that we were driven back to the Guilin hotel after the Li river cruise instead of staying in that damp place in Yangshuo. It was only a 2-hour drive anyway back to Guilin.

All of us agreed that Sarah in Beijing is your best tour guide. She is very organized, pleasant to talk with, really knows the history of each site, and she was able to call us by our first names on the following day at that. We are all impressed.

Buddy