We had a very positive experience with China Tours. From the initial contact and throughout the planning process they were very helpful and quick to respond to my emails even booking a restaurant for us in Shanghai.
The tour itself involved several flights and bullet train journeys and meeting different guides at each destination; all the arrangements worked perfectly. We were accompanied to the hotel check in desks and even on and off the boat for the river cruise (including porters organised by the guide) and to the security gates at the airports/train stations. All the guides spoke very clearly and had a comprehensive knowledge of the English language and of the places we visited.
A great tour made all the better by the guides.
We were a group of three (71f, 75f and 73m) who took the small group tour with ChinaTours.com in May 2019. In short, the tour was well worth the price with one caveat. Here is what we liked:
1. COMMUNICATION – China tours communicated reasonably well through the pre-planning by email with very complete information and a good response to questions. During the trip there was a need to contact ChinaTours and the response was good.
2. SMALL GROUP – The group started out with 7 amiable members and half-way though reduced to 5 as two members went to other sites. We had a guide and driver at each city.
3. GUIDES – All guides were efficient, friendly and competent. English was understandable at all times. Three guides stood out: Shirley in Beijing was so kind and helpful even assisting getting a sim card for our cellphone In Guilin Tony went the extra mile to recover an item we left at the hotel. John in Beijing was extremely knowledgeable and helpful in getting travel arrangements.
4. SIGHTS – Two of us had been to China five times previously. One was a newbie. We all enjoyed seeing the main tourist sights and just as much enjoyed the high-speed train, van and air travel. We saw what many tourists do not see including a rural village, and the incredible madness of chinese construction projects. Some guides answered our political questions as well as normal tourist things.
5, FOOD AND ACCOMMODATIONS: The tour provided meals were all good in terms of quality and variety. The hotels were all high quality and clean. Location was good for all the hotels except in Shanghai where a taxi ride or metro was needed to get to the sights.
The one caveat is that the three of us are experienced travelers with one having visited 80 countries. Group tours require doing the group schedule and do not leave much time for creative exploring. We could not have seen everything we saw without the arrangements by ChinaTours, but a little more free time would have been nice.
All in all we would recommend this tour by ChinaTours.
Visited with my 35 year old daughter. Thought we were on a group tour but to our pleasant surprise we had exclusive use of guide and driver in each of the cities. China tours does not have a guide that travels with you throughout the trip. One guide driver team take you to the check-in desk (airports) or departure gate (high speed train) and the next is waiting for you at your destination. The system worked flawlessly with guide and driver always there to meet us at our destination. Signs in the airports, subway and railway stations are also in English and we had no problem navigating from check-in desk through security to the gate The guides were very helpful and really made each place come alive. The hotels they booked us in were new, or newly refurbished and of 4 Seasons quality with duvees, high tech bathrooms and a good selection for breakfast including western breakfast foods. My daughter has many food allergies and each of the guides explained this at length in the restaurants we visited.
Great private tour, very skilful driver and thoughtful guide. Day one picked up from International Cruise Terminal (Boashan), we saw the sights of Shanghai, the Bund, Nanjing Road, Peoples Park, shanghai museum, and acrobatic show. Day two, Suzhou, Master of the Nets Garden, and Tongli Water Town. John, our consultant, worked with us to organize the tours according to our needs, the driver was very skilled, the car clean and roomy, our tour guide Jacki made sure he accommodated all our needs, the sightseeing pace very easy. Day three we were driven to Shanghai Pudong Int. airport, where our guide stayed with us until all formalities were completed. Highly recommend China Tours.
We had a wonderful vacation in China and the trip exceeded all of our expectations. It was truly an adventure for my wife and I to travel around to so many cities in China and know that the ChinaTours had every accommodation taken care of for us. The itineraries, excursions and sites that were selected by ChinaTours were perfect for experiencing the culture, history, landmarks and people of the region. By traveling via plane, bullet train, sleeper train, van, bus and taxi, we were able to really experience the many modes of transportation that China has to offer. Our tour guides were excellent and very knowledgeable about their respective city. The small group experience meant that we could take as long as we liked at a particular site as well as get to know the the other families that join you along the way.
I highly recommend ChinaTours.com to everyone that is interested in traveling to China. Thank you very much China Tours for a memorable vacation.
Overall we can say that we had an excellent trip and that is for a big part because of ChinaTours. We travelled several times in Asia on the same concept (private tour driver/guide) and this was one of the best organised.
China Tours helped us plan and execute a private personalised 28 day tour across China. They were able to tailor the tour to our requests for several hiking trips during the 4 weeks.
They were very efficient and everything went as planned and promised. Had some lovely guides along the way.
Saw all the things we wanted to and managed to get away from the crowds some of the time.
We had 16 days private tour with China Tours.Guides were excellent,Helen in X’ian was outstanding we learn so much about X’ian history with her and the terra-cotta warriors are impressive.
We did also Shanghai, Guilin ,the Li river cruise is a must, the cruise on Yangtze river also was very relaxing with gorgeous scenery and Beijing ,each stop was fantastic.
I highly recommend China Tours if you plane to visit China.
I was able to custom made my circuit ,hotel, bullet trains, airlines, length of stay in each city without any problems with the help of Kote who always was answering in the next 24 hours.
We had 18 day tour with China Tours. Each stop was fantastic, from Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Suzhou , Wuzhen, Hangzhou. We had a private guide each stop & all were fantastic. Hotels were 5star, & guides recommended the best restaurants. We saw all the best tourist attractions but was glad of our guides to organise tickets etc. a must I think as not a lot of English was spoken. I organised this trip from Australia via email to the lovely Virginia from China Tours. I’m so glad we did this type of trip as we could tell them what time to pick us up each day when possible. A must organisation
Visiting China has always been top of my adventure list so I wanted to see all the main sites and for it to be a holiday of a lifetime – this 14 day tour certainly made that happen! We visited Beijing, Xi’an, Guilin, cruise down River Li to Yangshuo, Chongqing then 3 night Yangtze River cruise to Yichang, finishing in Shanghai. At each place the lovely China Tours guides met us off the plane or train – they were all friendly, helpful and knowledgeable and we would have been completely lost without them as the language barrier is a problem! They were all great but especial thanks to Ginger in Guilin/Yangshuo who thought of everything and really went the extra mile to make our stay a happy one and John in Shanghai who gave up his own time to show us round parts of the city and how to use the subway on an afternoon when we had no formal sightseeing scheduled. Do bring extra cash to tip the guides, we hadn’t factored this in when ordering our currency.
The itinerary though full, worked perfectly. I was concerned I would find all the constant moving between places too much but the way it was organised meant there was free time as well as full on sightseeing days. As someone else has mentioned, the only thing I would change is to add another night in Shanghai as we only had 1 full day there and Shanghai is WONDERFUL! All the travel arrangements were seamless, the cars were all comfortable and air conditioned, the hotels were luxurious (and I am not a lover of hotels). I couldn’t imagine trying to do all this on your own, it just wouldn’t be possible to have the same experience. We had a mixture of small group tours and some time when it was just me and my daughter with the guide as people peeled off to do different itineraries. We met some great people!
I am so pleased we decided to include the Yangtze cruise as it was a chance to really kick back and relax after some of the busier days. I’d read mixed reviews of the boat we were on – Century Sun – but we found it clean, very comfortable, great food, lovely staff members and our cabin was huge! The initial booking and follow up communications with the China Tours office was extremely efficient. Especial thanks to Wynn who was always so prompt to respond and very helpful!
I’ve no hesitation in recommending China Tours and would definitely use them again.
PS I NEVER bother writing reviews but really felt I needed to reflect the great experience we had!
