China Tour Reviews

Dear Maggie Ye and Ruby Zhao,

Thanks for your e-mail. I was intending to contact you.

First, overall, we were very happy with the service you provided, and will certainly put ChinaTour360 at the top of our list if we come again.

This was our first experience of a guided tour, so we were not sure what to expect, and with hindsight we would have made different choices. Please do not take the negative sounding comments as criticism of your provision. You delivered what you said you would. But there are things which could have made our stay better.

Because of the timing of David's business tour, we traveled as a couple. This had the benefit of giving us the personal attention of the Guide, which was great, and also meant that the Guide could be flexible in letting us linger over things that we found particularly interesting. We also did not have to wait around for other people, or worry that we were delaying others. On the other hand, there is pleasure in sharing experiences, and it was quite a relief when we got on the boat to have the company of others with a western outlook to validate our impressions. That was why we queried "joining another group" when we first contacted you. We also love meeting people from around the world, and had great fun on our day off when we went on an excursion on our own and met some very interesting fellow tourists. Perhaps it would be good if you offered a tour with more free time.

It was lovely to find a welcome at each airport, and our personal Guides were helpful, friendly extremely well informed. We felt supported and cared for. Our personal Guides showed an astonishing level of English, using a wide and varied vocabulary. They were even full of funny stories and jokes. Clearly, they work hard reading and studying to improve their command of English.

However, the differences between the structure of English and Chinese grammar, and the particular ways in which each nationality produces its basic phonemes means that it is hardly surprising that there are some "quaint" turns of phrase and occasional words that are mispronounced - especially where private study is involved. This was mostly not a problem - but do you have language refresher courses for your guides run by native English speakers?

Food - on the whole was great. The individual restaurants were good, and we were very happy with the provision on the boat. In fact, we appreciated the buffet system on the boat as we were able to choose the quantity we liked. The reason for not scoring the boat kitchen higher was that it was clearly "mass catering", rather than what we see as five star food in the UK.

We had a problem with the QUANTITY of food, and wish we had asked for packed lunches in place of main meal lunches. The kitchens were keen to show off their talent and hospitality, and brought many dishes; when we asked for fewer, (the Guides tried to help!) they were often piled high. The result was that we felt obliged not to insult our hosts, and ate more than we needed; we were then too full to look forward to the next meal, which was a real shame. This was a common theme among fellow travelers.

Sorry - can't single out a particular meal - part of the pleasure of Chinese food is the range and varied of taste and texture. The dumpling banquet was magnificent, but would have been far better had we had a small snack for lunch. I loved the fresh fish dishes that were cooked for us specially.

Mostly the cars were fine. There was one that was disappointing (my tick was outside the excellent box. The driver's attitude was helpful and friendly - hence I wasn't prepared to mark him down, but the car was not as clean as it might have been.)

The one trip that disappointed was the trip to Fengdu, the ghost mountain. The site was very crowded, with tour guides everywhere using amplification to tell their groups about the various spots. It was the one temple where there was no sense of respect for the fact that it was a temple.

Ting, our Beijing Guide, and Rachel our Shanghai Guide were delightful as hosts. Thank you, Rachel, for the moon cakes. What a lovely gesture. Oscar, our Wuhan Guide, has outstanding English. James (Xian) tried really hard to get us smaller lunches.

TIPS. Hmm. Not easy for a couple traveling alone. The Guides worked really hard to look after us, and yet we are scarcely able to give them as much as a group of a dozen or even twenty. We hope we did not disappoint. We eventually discussed this with a Thomas Cook rep on the boat. I wish I had brought with me a collection of typically English sweets or biscuits, to have had a small something personal to offer as well as cash.

We have arrived home safe and well after a long day traveling - still quite overwhelmed by the wonders of it all.

We have no idea when and whether we will come again - but will certainly consider using China Tour again, especially as we now have something of a relationship. We would definitely mix and match tour with free time! We would also recommend you to friends.

Thanks.
Freda