2001 Customer Reviews

Being back at work has been such a let down after our wonderful travels through china, and i meant to drop you a thank you note to express our appreciation for your arrangements and the super guides we enjoyed in our travels. Please do not worry about the meal in Xian. I understand the mentality of Chinese cooks; just in the future, if a tourist makes such a request for "meiyo weijing", and the cook feels it imperative to drop in some msg, the waiter/waitress should inform the tourist which foods contain that spice. it is a very serious problem for people who are very allergic to that spice. generally, we were very satisfied with the tour arrangements, and again, as mentioned previously, with the guides. peggy (jing lan) in xian was superb! li in guilin was also very good, as was cheng in beijing and fan fan in shanghai. we were duly impressed with their command of the english language and knowledge of the chinese culture and history. with respect to the meals, we would recommend switching the luncheon meal outside the summer palace in beijing, as it was totally unsatisfactory. the last meal in shanghai at i believe the dynasty hotel was also very poor. on the whole most of the meals were average. we were impressed with the first dinner in beijing and the first lunch in shanghai; the dumpling dinner in Xian on our first nights stay was excellent, as was our meal (on our own) in shanghai at lu bo lang in the old town which fan fan recommended. the hotel accomodations were satisfactory, with the exception of the sheraton hotel in guiling which although rated a 5-star, should have been rated more as 3-4 star. we particularly enjoyed the hyatt in xian and the jc mandarin in shanghai. as you know, there was a bit of a mixup at the sheraton in guilin upon our arrival, as the date for our arrival had not been revised by the agent in guilin, and we were informed that there were no hotel reservations for us; however, that was eventually straightened out. We were very pleased with the touring arrangements; what really impressed us the most and what we truly enjoyed were the guides that you utilized in the cities - they were excellent. we particularly enjoyed peggy and li, in their improvising and sharing with us sites off the beaten path as time permitted, and their desire to show us what we were interested in. thank you once again for the wonderful tour of china and such wonderful memories. we plan to return to china in about 2 years, at that time with Petes daughter who is now 16. we will, again, contact you, and hopefully our paths will cross, if not then, when you come to san francisco. we will meet someday! "xie xie, zai gen" (spelling? maybe at that point in time, i will have learned a bit of mandarin).

"Marsha and I had a wonderful time on our visit. I must compliment the local guides because they were so kind to us and helpful. I dont remember the name of the young woman who picked us up in Chongqing, but she was very helpful when we had to wait for an extra suitcase that the airline had accidentally left behind in Beijing, and she was able to tell us so much about the city of Chongqing. Charlie in Wuhan was very helpful also. Our boat was late getting in to Wuhan, but he was there to meet us and gave a great tour of a temple and the bonsai rock garden.He also told us so much about Wuhan that Id like to return there in the future to see more of the city. The boat tour was wonderful.

We were treated very well and loved the shore excursions. Thank you so much for all your help. I will definitely use your services again the next time I go to China."

"My Son and I had a very nice tour of Beijing and the Great Wall! Your tour guide, Vivian, was very efficient and made our visit very enjoyable."

"My wife Marcia and I just want to thank you for a wonderful experience in China. We could not have asked for better guides or travel arrangements. Your employees, Shu in Beijing, and Dorothy, in Xian, were just great!

We were so fortunate to have found you. Our friends on board the ship who made arrangements via the ship line and other agencies had a very difficult time arriving in Beijing, but because of your employees and their helpfulness we were able to arrive in Beijing early. Our shipmates unfortunately did not arrive until four hours later! We appreciated so much all the help and information that was given to us by your people. We have and will continue to highly recommend your company to our friends who frequently travel to China.

Thank you again for making this a life long memorable experience. We wish you well in the future and perhaps will be using Travel China Guide again in future travels."

Hotels: Gloria Plaza Hotel was great; Jinguo Xian Hotel was not so great--mildew--not clean--smelled.

Itinerary: The Great Wall was the apex of the trip for me. Wish we could have gone earlier and spent more time there.Enjoyed the Great Mosque and market area. Did not enjoy the acrobatics,and would have rather gone to the opera. Loved the "Las Vegas" type show and the food.I wished we had been warned about the trust factor of money. No marked or torn bills etc.I was a bit confused on walls,gates, bells and drums--seemed to be repeated. Hope that once I read all my books it will make sense.

Food: Food was ok, but wished we could have had more fish dishes. Noodles and soup were the best at the Terracotta Warriors Museum Restaurant.

Shopping: Shopping was fine. Wish I had bought that panda blanket for $4 and waited to get the fish at the restaurant where you, Jim and Kenny danced with the entertainers. Also wished I had bought more purses for $1 and the silk shirts.

Guides: Peggy, the guide in Xian, seemed a little pushy for me to buy at the museums. I did not like that.

Bathrooms were tolerated. However, some places had beautiful, clean bathrooms.

Food: excellent.. could have used a bit more variety...

Itinerary: A bit long on pagodas.... and old guys palaces....Great Wall... WOW... a must see. Could have used another hour there in my opinion... The constant funneling toward shopping is overplayed. Its painfully obvious they want you to spend money... which is fine... but gives the trip too much of a commercial slant in my opinion. The "representative" house... as you pointed out... is simply a joke....anyone can see thru that.

Guides: English was adequate, overall well qualified....
Transportation: well done....

Hotels: Gloria Plaza in Beijing...excellent; Jinguo in Xian...smoke smell in rooms was bad.

Overall Agenda: Could have used a couple of 3 hr. downtime breaks every 3 days or so. Personal time for napping, reading, excercise etc.The trip could have used more cultural experience...rubbing shoulders with nationals. A little Tai Chi lesson.....and/or a little bike ride. These could have been fun.

"I have enjoyed working closely with you nice ladies via the internet. You have always been so professional and promptly responsive to any and all of my inquiries about the tour you arranged for my party of ten covering the ancient and modern day capitals of China (Xian and Beijing) during the period of October 16-23, 2001. Overall my group rated the tour an exceptional value for money spent; it met or exceeded most of my groups expectations. Both of our English-speaking guides were exceptional: Ms. Nicole Xuemei Su and Ms. Peggy Blue Jing Lan in Beijing and Xian, respectively. The drivers were neat and the air conditioned minibuses were first class. The Gloria Plaza Hotel Beijing was excellent as I was already familiar with it; the Jinguo Hotel in Xian did not measure up to my groups expectations since it was musty due to smoke and mildew and is showing its age.The food was generally good but some thought should be given to adding more variety in the form of noodles, dumpling and more seafood/fish items. The Dynasty Restaurant (our first night in Xian) was a disaster since we were promised Cantonese food.Cantonese food it was not since we had five Cantonese people in our group who definitely knew better.Dynastys food is too oily also for Western taste; noodle soup and dumplings would be a big change of pace by then.

Special praise for Ms. Peggy Blue for helping one of my group recover left-behind articles in the Gloria Plaza Hotel Beijings room safe. We were very impressed with her getting all the details taken care of. We glad to see Ms. Nicole Sus familiar face greet us upon our return to the Capital City from Xian in order to catch our going-home flight too.

Other suggestions: having a tourist map of the cities to show the tourists the orientation of hotel location to various sites would be helpful; taking the "representative house" off the Hutong tour since it is not a true representation of Hutong life; add more free time for shopping away from the factories; and keep doing a wonderful job. Overall on a scale of 0 - 10 with 10 being the highest or best rating, I would give the tour 9.0- 9.5 - superb, in fact!!!! Not bad since this was my third trip to China in the last 1 1/2 years!!! Your company is as good as Ritz Tour in most respects but they use ALL ***** hotels.

I will definitely consider Travel China Guide my first choice for my next trips to China and look forward to working with you all again very soon!"

"The tour was very well organized and the tour guides were very professional. In addition communication was excellent and all our questions was answered promptly prior to the tour. We enjoy the tour very much!"

"Thank you very much for your kind words. It is really heart warming to see how the world is coming together and hopefully also will work together to find these terrorists.

Even with this terrible incident in our minds, we still enjoyed your tour very much. Tibet is a really interesting place. We were very impressed with all the arrangements. Everything worked out beautifully. Our guide in Tibet was knowledgeable, but his English was very marginal. Unfortunately, our stay in Chengdu was cut short by a day. Our Guide (Lily) was extremely nice, very informative and her English was excellent. We enjoyed the stay in this city and are considering to visit again in the future.

Thanks again for a wonderful tour and great memories.

Maybe we can work together again in the future."

"The service was excellent. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and both her and the driver were very accomodating to our needs.

The tours were well planned very informative. The meals were also two of the nicest meals we had in China, particularly the last lunchtime meal that Echo took us to.

One suggestion to make life easier for us foreigners would be to include the tips for the driver and guide in the pricing of the tour (eg +$10 per day for tips) so that we didnt have to guess an appropriate amount to provide at the end and hence remove any potential embarrassment for eitherparty. This was how it worked with our first tour. (Note: We had anwsered the question in our FAQ.)

As an aside: We found the staff serving at breakfast at the Jianguo Hotel not very attentive (unlike in the Beijing hotels), as if they didnt really want to be there. This, I hasten to add, has no bearing on your arrangements but it may well be worth forwarding to the hotel for their information.

Overall a very pleasant holiday!"