Oct 19, 2007

We felt that the time distributed to each sightseeing spot was good with the exception of the short time allocated for Shanghai. Why could we not have taken an earlier flight to Shanghai once we had visited the Dam Project. This visit was extremely interesting but the remainder of our time in Yi-Chang was plain.

Most of the meals were very good, but at times we felt we were offered more food than was needed and so there was quite a bit of waste. We really enjoyed the buffet dinner at the Holiday Inn Yangtze where we were able to choose between Chinese and Western style food.

All the guides were extremely knowledgeable and we enjoyed all of them. We felt that our guide in Beijing, Jason, was the most personable of the guides and he went to great lengths to remember everyone's names and made our stay very enjoyable.

All the buses we traveled in were very clean and the drivers were very courteous.

Overall we thought that Travel China Guide was very good value and a well run organization. All of our guides were excellent and nothing was too much trouble for them. We would certainly recommend this China tour to anyone who asks.

Oct 18, 2007

Dear Maggie and Ruby,

We had a great first visit to China--thank you for all Travel China Guide did to make it happen. It was so nice to have all the details taken care of for us--from hotel reservations, meals, tickets to shows, airport check-ins, and someone else did the driving! We don't usually take tours, but this was well worth it.

The time we spent at each sightseeing spot seemed about right. The guides were usually flexible enough to change the amount of time if the group wanted a shorter visit. I think we were also able to skip some things per group request. It was also nice to have some free time on our own to just wander around whatever city we were in.

The meals were all pretty good. There was so much variety at each meal that there seemed to be something that everyone wanted to eat. It would have been nice to have some explanation of the some of the more interesting food. Sometimes the servers were able to tell us, and sometimes we just guessed.

Our guides were excellent. Ray, in Beijing, was friendly, spoke good English, and seemed very concerned about taking good care of everyone. Echo, in Xian, also spoke very well, was friendly, and knew lots of information. Ting Ting, in Guilin, was very energetic, friendly and knowledgeable. They all had a good sense of humor and sense of caring for people.

The drivers were all very skilled and we always arrived at our destinations safely. The busses were kept clean we felt safe leaving our things on the bus when we didn't want to carry them around. It was also nice to have water available. We eventually were comfortable enough to just take our allotted amount when we needed it.

Our hotels were all very nice, although the beds seemed unusually hard. Our hotel in Shanghai was a 3 star, but you couldn't tell any difference from the 4-star hotels, except for one thing. They didn't cash travelers checks. It was the end of the trip, and people needed cash to get to the airport the next morning. It all worked out, but would have been nice to know ahead of time, since you advised us to bring travelers checks.

We would recommend Travel China Guide to anyone planning a trip to China. Everything was well planned out, and the guides seemed able to handle anything that came up unexpectedly. Our group was a friendly bunch of people of various nationalities and we had a great time.

Feel free to publish our email address--I know it was nice to be able to email someone who had taken a tour with you.

Thank you again for a wonderful China experience. Pam Wareham