First trip to China
 

We are hoping to take a trip to China for my retirement. It will have to be in July ot August. We liked the Friendly Planet 17 day tour and could add on Bangkok for 5 more days. Does anyone have any info on this Company's tours? My wife is apprehensive about the food. I am excited about the experiance.

Perhaps I can help on the food front, at least in Beijing. Have a look at these restaurant recommendations which encompass both traditional chinese food and western style.

http://www.mcdougalladventures.com/category/china

You should be very excited! It's a wonderful country.

Friendly Planet is actually a booking agency and works with different tour companies in each country so the quality of their tours can greatly vary. Based on my experience on the Pyramids & Nile Cruise I would NOT encourage anyone to travel with this company. They made significant changes to our itinerary about 2 weeks before leaving, ie (1)switch from an in-country flight & staying in a 5 star hotel to taking an overnight sleeper train (2) switch from a direct flight to/from Cairo to an overnight layover in Zurich. We weren't reimbursed for any of these downgrades.
Problems continued while touring (1)our tour guide "forgot" to meet us at the airport (2) we consistently fell behind schedule & didn't see all the sites
In short, don't travel with Friendly Planet!!!
Instead, I recommend China Focus's Life Experience tour. It's all inclusive and although we spent a little too much time shopping, it's a great value. The food is excellent, you stay in 5 star hotels & my tour guide was absolutely wonderful!
http://www.chinafocustravel.com

There's no reason to feel apprehensive about eating in China. The feedback (no pun intended) I've had is that tour companies tend to take their customers to "safe", foreigner-friendly but often unexciting restaurants.

Can't comment your potential tour company but can certainly endorse the idea of going to China - a great destination. If you are going with a tour company there should be no problem with the food - unless of course you wife just doesn't like chinese food! - all the place that we ate on our recent trip had excellent food. We used Helen Wong's Tours for China and previously used Travel Indochina for a Vietnam trip - both were fine. Both companies specialise in small group tours which is the way to do it IMO. Our Vietnam trip comprised 4 couples, which was excellent. Our 'group' for China numbered 2 - my wife and I - but that was because we wanted to go the reverse order to their usual tour. We only visited Shanghai, Xi'an and Beijing over 9 days and had a wonderful experience - and there is so much more! It is hard to avoid the shopping stops on any touras all tour itineraries are subject to government supervision but we didn;t find it too difficult. Hope you have a great time.

We booked with Friendly Planet on 01/14/06. Now I am very apprehensive after the response from prekipesa. Any other thoughts or should I just lose my deposit. By the way thanks prekipesa for the info. I have wanted to go to China for years and am now depressed about our choice which makes it not fun to plan a trip.

Don't worry! Just tell yourself prekipesa has their experiences in Africa and you're off to China so it will all be ok!

You are both going to have the most wonderful time. China is an extraordinary country and a 17 day tour means that you will get to see a lot. Steffek2, You are going to see the GREAT WALL OF CHINA!! Please go back to being excited!

Chin up. It will be brilliant.

Thanks for the encouragement. I found other comments about Friendly Planet by accident in a magazine and travel section of a newspaper which made me feel so much better. Your encouraging comments helped as well. I am excited...again.