Donna's Feedback on 26-Day China Tour

We have several highlights – The Great Wall of China, The Terracotta Soldiers and the Forbidden City and the Li River Cruise (unfortunately it poured all day but we enjoyed it anyway.)

Dear Nancy,

The itinerary worked perfectly for us and we appreciate very much your guidance Nancy in setting it up. We greatly enjoyed all of the activities and we had just the right amount of free time to go on some adventures of our own making.

We have several highlights – The Great Wall of China, The Terracotta Soldiers and the Forbidden City and the Li River Cruise (unfortunately it poured all day but we enjoyed it anyway.) We did three home visits altogether and were very glad we did. All of the people were very friendly. We also enjoyed the bike ride on the wall in Xian, Zhouzhuang Water Town and the village walk in Yangshuo.

As for our tour guides, we would rate Pan highest – he was knowledgeable, had great English language skills and was flexible and well-organized. We really appreciated that he showed us how to use the subway because we used it frequently on our own. We would rate him as a 5+. Tracey and Sarah we would rate as 5 and Justin as 4.5. We were overall delighted with the guides who were all friendly and knowledgeable and well-organized.

Our drivers were amazing. Mr. Woo especially was top notch. China traffic is unlike anything we had ever experienced and all of our drivers were very good at getting around in a safe manner. We were amazed at how relaxed we quickly became in the vehicles. The vehicles were very comfortable.

The hotels were very good. We were particularly grateful that in all five locations the hotels were located within easy walking distance of tourist central areas. We had many enjoyable walks from our hotels. The breakfasts were all good. We found the staff at Yangshuo Aiyuan Hotel the most helpful and friendly and the staff at Xian Skytel Hotel least friendly and helpful (but overall we would still recommend that hotel.)

We are not shoppers so didn't spend much time shopping. We did have one memorable experience in bargaining in the Silk Alley Market which was amusing and made for a good story.

We would have to say that our overall involvement with China Highlights from the time of our first contact on the internet with you to our last good-bye to Pan at the airport was one big 'Wow.' The service you gave us was exceptional and our trip went very smoothly. We liked the fast responses we got to our inquiries and questions as we planned the trip. We liked the videos you included on your website (Anssi used the Chinese language one quite a lot.) We liked all of the guides who were always on time and ready to go with the day's plan.

We have already been telling people about your company and when we look back, we know that we had a great time because of the services provided by your company. We used the guides for tours 11 times on our 26 day trip and for us that was just right.

It was important to us to interact with local people as much as possible, therefore we built into our trip three nights on overnight trains (soft sleepers) and although the trips were long, the pleasure of interacting with local people was great. We also used the subway systems in Shanghai and Beijing extensively. We went by subway and bus to Botanical Gardens in Shanghai and Beijing and that was an enjoyable experience. The garden in Beijing was beautiful and very enjoyable. We liked it when our guides agreed to let us buy lunch for them (and we respected their wishes if they said no thank you.) The meals we had with guides were more interesting than meals we had on our own.

For tips, travel light especially if you are doing overnight trains. Big luggage – big problems. Our itinerary worked very well – Shanghai (5 nights), travel to Guilin by overnight train, Guilin (3 nights,) Li River Cruise to Yangshuo (3 nights,) travel to Xian by overnight train, Xian (4 nights,) travel to Beijing by overnight train, Beijing (6 nights,) Beijing to Shanghai on fast train, Shanghai (1 night.)

Thank you again Nancy for all you did for us in setting up our trip. It was an excellent trip and it went very smoothly from start to finish. We know it was your skill and expertise in putting our trip together that resulted in our trip being so great. We enjoyed everything we did. We found the people in Chinese very friendly. It is a beautiful, interesting country.

Donna and Anssi Rantamaa