Any China tours that don't include meals?
Feb 18th, 2008, 07:44 AM
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Any China tours that don't include meals?
We are interested in going to China this summer, and I was wondering if there are any tours or packages to Beijing & Shanghai or Beijing/Shanghai/Guilin that include the international flights, flights within China, and hotels, but not meals? We'd like to eat meals on our own and don't need meals included in the tour/package. Maybe a few included lunches/dinners would be OK, but only a few. Honestly, we don't really like group meals.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Thanks for any suggestions!
Feb 18th, 2008, 08:25 AM
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If you go with a tour, they almost always include meals, as it's often difficult and time-consuming for the travelers to find their own food.
Meal cost constitutes a very small part of the total cost of a trip, so first, you should decide if you want to go with a tour in the first place. You can go book just flights and hotels on your own. Or if you go with a tour, and when you feel like it, you can just skip the meals and go eat on your own.
Meal cost constitutes a very small part of the total cost of a trip, so first, you should decide if you want to go with a tour in the first place. You can go book just flights and hotels on your own. Or if you go with a tour, and when you feel like it, you can just skip the meals and go eat on your own.
Feb 18th, 2008, 09:05 AM
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Food on tours is almost always inferior so avoiding as much of it as you can is a good idea, but as remarked above it's almost always integrated, particularly lunches (and indeed it's hard to see how a tour could be managed if it wasn't so). The answer is to look for a tour that either gives you plenty of free evenings or plenty of free days, or if you're happy with the tour price simply look through the schedule and identify those evenings when you are either eating at the hotel or being bused to some other place and decide that you won't join but will go off by yourselves (as suggested above.) Eating out in China isn't expensive (although you can make it so if you want to, of course) so ten nights (say) of your trip feeding yourselves needn't amount to much of an overhead.
The difficulty of eating by yourself is rather in the mind. There are so many restaurants in China that it's not exactly hard to find somewhere to eat, and whether you find the subsequent negotiations to get something you want enjoyable or impossible is entirely in your own head. Certainly the restaurant knows you want food, and is eager to serve you.
Of course if you're on a better tour with familiar foreign name hotels you can be sure of English speakers and the table and an English-language menu, as well as pricing to match London or New York.
If you're on a tour using Chinese hotels then again there's likely to be adequate English provision, but rather less than exciting food available, and possibly overpriced compared to what can be found outside.
On a tour you won't find yourself in somewhere outlandish, so for a start in your guide book and on-line you'll find plenty of restaurant recommendations. Certainly for Beijing, Shanghai, and Guilin there's no problem at all. In better guide books the restaurant names are in Chinese as well as the names of recommended dishes, so it's just a matter of jumping in a cab and showing the name to the cabbie (taking the hotel's card to show when you want to get back), and then showing the dish names when you want to return.
But very many restaurants in larger cities now have something resembling English on their menus, and even more have picture menus, so walking along at random looking in windows until you see something bright, clean, and cheerful you like the look of is also and option (and sometimes a better one).
No picture menu or English? You can point at dishes neighbouring diners are eating (no one minds) or you can also take with you to China the bilingual menu from your local Chinese take-away. The characters are not quite the same, but the waiter will be able to read them anyway. You're main problem with then be if you enter a Cantonese restaurant and order a Sichuan dish. They'll make it for you anyway, but it will be surprisingly bland. In general, though, what you're given will be much better than you get at home, and much cheaper, and if you regard the odd mishap as part of the adventure you'll have an enjoyable time. All it takes is a bit of gumption.
And if Beijing and Shanghai constitute most or all of the desired itinerary, there indeed seems no reason at all to take a tour.
Peter N-H
The difficulty of eating by yourself is rather in the mind. There are so many restaurants in China that it's not exactly hard to find somewhere to eat, and whether you find the subsequent negotiations to get something you want enjoyable or impossible is entirely in your own head. Certainly the restaurant knows you want food, and is eager to serve you.
Of course if you're on a better tour with familiar foreign name hotels you can be sure of English speakers and the table and an English-language menu, as well as pricing to match London or New York.
If you're on a tour using Chinese hotels then again there's likely to be adequate English provision, but rather less than exciting food available, and possibly overpriced compared to what can be found outside.
On a tour you won't find yourself in somewhere outlandish, so for a start in your guide book and on-line you'll find plenty of restaurant recommendations. Certainly for Beijing, Shanghai, and Guilin there's no problem at all. In better guide books the restaurant names are in Chinese as well as the names of recommended dishes, so it's just a matter of jumping in a cab and showing the name to the cabbie (taking the hotel's card to show when you want to get back), and then showing the dish names when you want to return.
But very many restaurants in larger cities now have something resembling English on their menus, and even more have picture menus, so walking along at random looking in windows until you see something bright, clean, and cheerful you like the look of is also and option (and sometimes a better one).
No picture menu or English? You can point at dishes neighbouring diners are eating (no one minds) or you can also take with you to China the bilingual menu from your local Chinese take-away. The characters are not quite the same, but the waiter will be able to read them anyway. You're main problem with then be if you enter a Cantonese restaurant and order a Sichuan dish. They'll make it for you anyway, but it will be surprisingly bland. In general, though, what you're given will be much better than you get at home, and much cheaper, and if you regard the odd mishap as part of the adventure you'll have an enjoyable time. All it takes is a bit of gumption.
And if Beijing and Shanghai constitute most or all of the desired itinerary, there indeed seems no reason at all to take a tour.
Peter N-H
Feb 18th, 2008, 11:01 AM
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I know you are not asking about restaurants per se, but this is such a good site that I am linking it here...
I, too, was concerned about the difficulty of eating out in Beijing and Shanghai. No need! Supremely easy for me, a single traveler with no Chinese-language skills! Peter has given you good advice above.
http://www.savourasia.com/content/view/189/214/
I, too, was concerned about the difficulty of eating out in Beijing and Shanghai. No need! Supremely easy for me, a single traveler with no Chinese-language skills! Peter has given you good advice above.
http://www.savourasia.com/content/view/189/214/
Feb 18th, 2008, 05:17 PM
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Wow! Peter has given you so much good advice. While in the cities you're visiting overnight and dinner is included, just tell your tour guide that you wish to go elsewhere. I so wish I had done that in Bejing. Dinners are easy to get away from the tour since you're not moving hotels.
Lunch would not be practical to move away from the tour since you're on the road. But, it's usually o.k food.
I'm thinking you just want to have different dining experiences at night that perhaps have been recommended. Please go for it.
Lunch would not be practical to move away from the tour since you're on the road. But, it's usually o.k food.
I'm thinking you just want to have different dining experiences at night that perhaps have been recommended. Please go for it.
Feb 19th, 2008, 04:39 AM
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For the most part, Peter gives good advice. We have traveled within China with Grand Circle and Pacific Delight -- we love tours for many reasons. We cannot agree with his condemnation of meals served while on tour, however. Ours were just fine. We had no trouble when we wanted to use our free time and eat elsewhere. We simply checked what other customers were eating, pointed and smiled to our server. No problem. We found that the farther inland we went, the spicier the food became until it was practically inedible (to our Midwestern and aged stomachs, that is). If you like hot-hot-hot-hot food of mysterious content, you will love going farther and farther inland.
