Aug 15,2008

Very difficult to choose only one meal from the entire trip all meals were good. The one that I enjoyed the most was the Peking Duck.

All guides were very conscientious looking after all our needs. All guides had an excellent command of English and with the Taiwanese in our group we had a good mixture of languages. This added to the trip making the tour more Asian just in hearing another language and a native language at that.

I found that the guides really did know their topic well. Even when asked questions that others of us had read in Travel Guides there was no conflict in replies. Thank you so much to Yvonne in Guilin and Ginger in Yinchuan..

The Beijing driver was the best. The Xian driver was young and inexperienced. The Xian driver did improve with the help that he offered by the last day so with experience he will be much better.

I think Ginger had a hard job with George complaining about the hotel in Yinchuan. The hotel was not good. But the Cruise Company let you down so this was very difficult for you and us. This was not Ginger's fault and she really worked hard in sorting things out.

This was a trip in a life time and to have it arranged by Travel China Guide made the trip stress free and really enjoyable. The food was great, the tour guides helpful and hard working, ensuring that such a diverse group of people had a good time. The web site really gave so much detail that I became really excited prior to travelling.

Kina Lu thank you so much for travelling 14 hours by train to join us on the Yangtze River cruise. You may have had to do that by as a requirement of the government. Thank you for taking time to travel such a great distance and time to be with us.

Here are some other suggestions:

The website to have a section on the weather and temperature.

To go to clothing factory shops rather than jade, pearls, pearls, jade. As a traveller you can only buy once at a pearl or jade shop. Then another visit to a the same type of jade or pearl outlet in a different city is not good.

Another idea for shopping opportunities.

For example: I started in Beijing. Say I landed in Beijing without the right clothing i.e. clothing that is to thick for warm weather not having properly checked the web site. It would be great for the first shopping trip to be a clothing store. I enjoyed the free time to be able to shop in Shanghai.

The final thought. It is not clear on the Travel China Guide web site for the weight allocation for baggage for families when travelling by internal flights. Having travelled often myself I was aware of the baggage allowance being only 20kgs. The American families with little children that I travelled with were not warned about this.

Thank you for all your help.

Amanda Mussell