Laurus and China Plus Tours

Wendy and I travel every year and normally plan our own trips but as we wanted to see as much as possible and enjoy every minute of the experience of China, we decided to go with a tour group. In researching tours we wanted to go with a smaller group size and as a unique a tour itinerary as possible (in the 16-18 day range). After extensive searching on the internet, I kept coming back to the Laurus China Odyssey tour. The small group size, getting to visit to a second section of the Great Wall at sunrise and the visit to the Dazu grottoes were what made sold us on this tour. We started looking in to this in 2002 and were to go in 2003, but decided to wait a year once SARS became an issue.

We finally had the pleasure of traveling with Laurus on their China Odyssey tour in October of this year. It was an incredible experience that we will remember for their rest of our lives. The whole trip went like clock work. Our Tour Leader Michael was very knowledgeable, had a great sense of humour and took care of all of the details for us (luggage transfer, checking in hotels, tipping). We traveled in a full size bus although there were only 16 in our group, airport transfers were seamless, the meals were in most cases excellent (on any tour you will get a few average meals) with the mix of dishes varying from night to night. The hotels and their breakfast buffets (Western and Chinese !) were also excellent. We had local guides in the cities who were all very informative and kept us from getting lost (which is easy to do). The mixture of the big cities (Shanghai and Beijing), the historical sights (Terra Cotta Warriors, Great Wall, Forbidden City), the beautiful scenery in the south (Guilin and Yangshuo) and the Yangtze cruise combine to result in a truly a magical experience. This trip starts and finishes at somewhat of a hectic pace but heck, how often will you be going to China, you can rest when you get home ! The cruise is nicely scheduled at the mid point of the trip which gave us all some time to recharge. The cruise was truly 5* with a ratio of about 1:1 staff to guests.

We would highly recommend traveling with Laurus Travel to China. Julius and the rest of the staff are very helpful and will answer any questions you might have. If you have any specific questions feel free to email me at mark.mcmullan@alcan.com

Mark M.

Thanks Michael. I think we're going to take one of the Laurus Tours.