I've been reading a number of the threads and most people say that they liked the Li River and Guilin much better than the Yangtze. But then all the people that I know here in NYC have told me that I have to do the Yangtze and that it's a key part of the China trip experience. I only have time for one and I'm having trouble dropping the Yangtze river from the itinerary. I have four days to plan out between my Beijing/Xian visit and my Shanghai visit. What should I do?

Dear Messed: After much deliberation, I skipped Guilin and included the Yangtze river. I still believe it was the better choice. I rationalized that I would most likely return to HK someday and could easily take a side trip to the Li River then. We left from Chongqing and thoroughly enjoyed the river experience.

Either one is a good choice. But please please please keep in mind that a Yangtze cruise and a Guilin/Li River trip are totally different animals. Entirely different scale and lengths.

You shouldn't be disappointed with either choice, but I think a Yangtze cruise is often a good idea to break a long (like 3-4 week) trip to China, when one can relax a little on the ship. That's not a factor for a short trip like yours.

We did a Yangtze River cruise a few years ago but not the Li River. We had limited time and the feeling was, the Li will still be there but the areas of the Yangtze will undergo a drastic change due to the damn once it is fully operational and we wanted to see that before it changed forever. I'm glad we did it, it was beautiful. I have heard and read that the Li River cruise is nicer but we felt that we can always return and see that. Once the damn is up and running, the countryside around the Yangtze will be forever changed, much of it completely underwater so I would suggest seeing that while you still can.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't some of the changes already take place in the Yangtze River?....such as the closing of some of the gorges and the dam or something like that?? With that in mind, would you still want to go see the Yangtze River?? Is it still the same or is it now better or worse than the Li River?? I know about 2 or 3 years ago, a lot of people were scrambling to go see the Yangtze River right before the changes took place. We've never done the Yangtze, but we did do the Li River and it was nice.
Rkkwan is right in that they're both 2 entirely different cruises. Our Li River cruise was only a little over 2 hours long! I don't know how long the Yangtze cruise is.

The reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam is half-filled, if I'm not mistaken. Some of the old sites and villages are already underwater, while others are not.

I'm sure the scenery is quite different from a few years ago, and it'll be different again in a few years when the water level rises again. But there's little logic to say that because it wasn't like the old way, then it's not worth going. In fact, the level of the Yangtze through the last gorge was already higher than it was before the Gezhou Dam was built in the 60's(?).

Chongqing to Yichang is 649km on the river. It's usually 3-day downstream, 4-day up on one of the largest and longest river in the world.

On the other hand, even if water level allows navigation from Guilin to Yangshou, it's still only about 60km and takes half a day on a "river" that is few feet at its deepest.

Again, it's completely different from a Li River cruise in Guilin. You just cannot compare the two! They are not the same thing!!!

Ok, thanks for all the advice. I understand that the Li River and the Yangtze are different animals, but I guess I'm really trying to decide if I should do a visit to Guilin and Lijiang over the Yangtze Cruise for those four days...I'm more interested in seeing villages and culture, so I'm siding toward the two towns. Any thoughts would be helpful...