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
Archives
Mr. Norman Goldsmith
We had a private tour covering Beijing, Xi’An and Shanghai. All three guides had a good command of English, and had an obvious set of knowledge about the local culture and history. We arranged the tour to have a free day for additional exploration on our own. I highly recommend doing that.
The spefic activities were well chosen to match our interests. All of our guides also took special care to adjust to the needs of this 85 year old traveler.
In addition to our guides we had great support from Wendy at the home office including changing our trains on short notice. I would use China Tours again without any doubt.
Mrs. Mandy Doda
As a professional travel agent for 30+ yrs I have worked with many tour operators and guides and I can categorically tell you that China Tours is the top of the line! This was a private luxury trip for my husband and myself for our 20th anniversary to Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and Beijing and I had some unusual requests! I started off with 4-5 other companies but the rest fell by the wayside as they could not comply with my itinerary but Ellen from China Tours was consistently patient and answered all my inquiries with full details. Since I had access to booking hotel rooms on my own, I just needed to have China Tours book daily tours with car and guide and they sure did come through! From start to finish everything went super smoothly without a single hitch!
Thanks to our lovely and competent guides, Kenni in Hong Kong, Zoe in Shanghai and a special mention to Shirley in Beijing. Everyone spoke beautiful English and knew their city & history well and there was never a dull moment on our long drives. Our drivers Chi and Huang were also very polite and we felt safe in every city.
Mrs. Shirley Thackray
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!
David Roberts
You will not find a better tour company than this one. From the booking process to the tour itself. We did a group tour Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Guiliin, Shanghai absolutely brilliant Lora was our contact at their office and did a great job. Although it was a group tour you can chose your itinerary and we had another couple with us for Beijing and Xi’an the rest of the holiday it was just the two of us …. like VIP’s with our own driver and guide. Cannot praise them enough 🙂
Carolyn Dilena
I went on this tour with my adult daughter and two friends (all from USA). There were five other people on the tour (3 from Australia, 2 from UK) that we did not know but ended up being friends with. We could not have had a better experience! The hotels were absolutely THE BEST…five stars without a doubt. The included breakfasts were totally incredible huge buffets of the most high quality, delicious food. In each city, our guide was there waiting and our private mini-bus was always there when needed. All guides – Andy in Beijing, Linda in Xi-an and John in Shanghai were wonderful. John, especially, went out of his way to show us how to use the subway – truly above and beyond as not strictly on this tour!
We travel a lot and by the end of the trip we added up how much it would have cost us to do this on our own (hotels, breakfasts, taxis to sites, entrance fees to sites, 1st class seats on bullet train, flight to Shanghai, not to mention private guides) and we came up with almost double the price!!! Plus a LOT more hassle.
Wendy at China Tours staff has been professional, efficient and helpful every step of the way. I recommend China Tours 100%!
My only piece of advice is – if you book this particular tour – add an extra day in Shanghai at the end of the tour. We really only had one full day there, which was packed with sites and tours, and we would have liked another day to explore on our own.
Overall a fantastic experience!
David Roberts
You will not find a better tour company than this one. From the booking process to the tour itself. We did a group tour Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Guiliin, Shanghai absolutely brilliant Lora was our contact at their office and did a great job. Although it was a group tour you can chose your itinerary and we had another couple with us for Beijing and Xi’an the rest of the holiday it was just the two of us …. like VIP’s with our own driver and guide. Cannot praise them enough 🙂
Mrs. Mandy Doda
As a professional travel agent for 30+ yrs I have worked with many tour operators and guides and I can categorically tell you that China Tours is the top of the line! This was a private luxury trip for my husband and myself for our 20th anniversary to Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and Beijing and I had some unusual requests! I started off with 4-5 other companies but the rest fell by the wayside as they could not comply with my itinerary but Ellen from China Tours was consistently patient and answered all my inquiries with full details. Since I had access to booking hotel rooms on my own, I just needed to have China Tours book daily tours with car and guide and they sure did come through! From start to finish everything went super smoothly without a single hitch!
Thanks to our lovely and competent guides, Kenni in Hong Kong, Zoe in Shanghai and a special mention to Shirley in Beijing. Everyone spoke beautiful English and knew their city & history well and there was never a dull moment on our long drives. Our drivers Chi and Huang were also very polite and we felt safe in every city.
We also had an issue regarding a double entry to China and Ellen gave us detailed information regarding that. I cannot stress enough what a fantastic company this is! Nothing was too much trouble! I wish all the companies I dealt with on a daily basis were like this!
Mrs. Amber Tibb
We had a great experience! Very organized tour. We loved the Accor Hotel chain they arranged fro us as well. All around a great experience for kids ages 5 and 8. China Tours also did a great job making sure activities were just right for our kids age group.Highly recommend!
Mrs. Rebecca Dorling
A thoroughly memorable trip to beautiful China. We visited Xi’an, Chengdu and did a cruise down the Yangtze River, all of which was booked through China Tours. The tour was well organised by Candy based on everything we requested with excellent communication throughout the booking process. We travelled with our 18 month old daughter and her needs were taken into account from the start of the booking process up to our final day in China. Each guide was friendly, informative, knowledgeable and punctual. The hotels were all great (especially Sunrise on The Bund in Shanghai!). We would recommend China Tours to anybody looking for a stress-free way to experience all the wonderful things China has to offer.