Help with Tour Company
 

My husband and I are planning on going to China in March and want to plan a tour. Does anyone have any recomendations. We want to start in Bejing and end in Shaghai -for approx. 10 days.
thanks!

You can get a lot of info (more than you can get with this one post) by typing in "tour companies" in the search box and searching under China. ((F))

DANAK,
Just returned from General Tours: "China Sampler" 10 day tour; Beijing to Xian to Guilin to Shanghai. Only 8 of us in the group. Very well done.
Christine

Thanks ChristineC. They look like a great tour company. Unfortunately we have to arrive on March 25, 2005 and depart on April 9, 2005. We will probably have to end up doing an individual planned tour. We are looking to use Pasific Delight Tours - has anyone been on a customized tour with them before?

Christine
Am presently doing research on China tours (v independent). Can you give me an idea of cost pls. I found a land content only covering much of what we would like for about $2400AUD.
Thanks
G

Mandg,
I'd be happy to give any information.
What would you like to know?
Christine

Danak,
We travelled with Pacific Delight about 7 years ago. Our guide was excellent and the only mediocre hotel we stayed is was upon our arrival in Shanghai. Other hotels ranged from 1st class to luxury. We usually had a choice of an America, Japanese, European or Chinese breakfast. Lunches and dinners usually had similar dishes. Our group (large) had about 30 people in it. We kept crisscrossing other tour groups following our same itinerary who paid from 25-60% more for the same hotels and tours. We took the 4 day extention Bangkok and 3 day to Hong Kong. Both worth it. We didn't care for the 2 day extention we took to Singapore. A new/modern city with not much to recommend it.Like most tours you'll be taken to several "factory" showrooms, that did have some interesting items to buy.

arbegold, i met with a rep from Pacific delight tours the other day and she gave me a customized tour package including flights within China for Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin and Shanghi for about $2900usd. I then looked at combining the four city as modules and that will take the cost down to about $2k/person. How much should i look to spend on a 11 day/4 city tour?

A few years ago we were looking into China tours. I couldn't find the exact itinerary I wanted, so I spoke to someone from PDT about a custom tour. It was very expensive. I realized that it would be best to take an existing tour and add listed extensions. Customizing was costly. :(

We eventually took a Uniworld tour with an extension. ((Y))

we're bound by very specific dates otherwise we would have done a tour 100%.

re: cost of tour
Dear ChristineC
Wanted to check prices but have now found same on w.site. V. good from USA! Self in Oz. They did not have a Silk Route itinerary showing. As a cost comparison, the S.R. all inclusive tours I have from local travel agent brochures are about $6K AUD. Steep eh! Final choice could be a sort of cost/benefit thing. Will e-mail 'General' for land content. I am slowly lookg up tours on net. My best 'air only' from Brisbane Qld so far is $1300+taxes.
1. Did you have an Eng.spkg. guide?
2. Is 'General Tours' USA based? They must be OK if around since 1947...
Will ask more re SilkRoute on a separate query. Many Thanks.
New to this....
G

Dear ChristineC,

We shall go to Japan, with General Tours - Japan Sampler tour. As you did with they China sampler, can you please tell me how this company is?
I book the tour via an agent who has not a very good opinion about General tours, so I am not so confident that my choise is a a good one.
What I saw till now was:
- they answer (if) with a big delay to all my messages
- the price that they gave me for pre and post tour nights at the hotels in Tokyo and Kyoto (at the same hotels as during tour) was 60% more than in internet.

So, I am afraid.

How are the guides?
Was it a big group?

Do you recommend General tours?

Thank you in advance.

Liliana

Most of the tours in this area will include Xi'an, however United Vacations offers an independent trip (local host, hotel inc. breakfast, airport transfers, etc...) to Beijing and Shanghai which I took last year. I added extra days in Shanghai and booked day tours in both cities so I could determine my own schedule. Several tour companies such as Pacific Delight and Ritz Tours also offer "city packs" that you can link together and they will also arrange flights between cities for you.

Mandg and Valtor:
General Tours is based in New Hampshire. They are also an AAA recommended tour company and that is why we booked with them. We also used them for Egypt in March. We had 8 people in our group. All were English speaking guides and they were all betweem 25 and 28. Three females and one male. They were from the youth Chinese tourist organization. We were able to modify our sightseeing schedule to add extras or change times because we were such a small group. This also applied to Egypt where we had 13 in that group. We have been on 3 Trafalgar coach tours in Europe with 50 people and there is a huge difference with smaller groups. We are presently checking between OAT and General for Peru for March. Each tour company operates differently when it comes to extra nights. It really depends on which country you are in. We wanted to add an extra night in Miami before flying to Lima but General wanted to add a $150.00 trip interruption charge per person to do this. Yet they offer free prenights for other tours they offer. For the price we paid for both Egypt and China, we were very happy with everything. Ask to fill out the opinion survey from your tour guide because it counts for $20.00 toward your next trip.Then General offers $50.00 toward your next tour. Also, AAA gives me a discount for each successive booking. I do my homework and check internet travel agents and AAA matches their price.
Christine

Thank you very much, Christine. For sure a small group is better; I hope to have a great time in Japan. I read also other good opinion about General tours, so now I feel better.

Thanks again and enjoy your next tours!

Liliana