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!