nagiffag

Here's an old trip report I forgot to post...

At the end of August 2006 I contacted my favorite travel agent in China, Toby, of Uniquely China Travel ([email protected]) to arrange the downstream Yangtze River Cruise specifically on Victoria Katarina for 5 people in standard twin rooms including daily meals and land excursions/tour guide departing on 24 September. We specifically did not include transfer between cruise piers and airports. He did his magic and booked our flights and cruise on Victoria Katarina (5-star top of their line until the Anna comes into service) for RMB 6,650/US$831 each paid via US credit card at no extra cost. The actual cruise was only RMB 4,650 each, which is good for high season. The balance was airfare (RMB 750 Shanghai to Chongqing and 1250 Yichang to Shanghai). My parents only paid RMB 5,900 because they flew Beijing-Chongqing and Yichang-Shanghai. Airfare was high because we booked so late. The airfare matched what I could find on elong.com and cits.com but adding website handling fee and foreign credit card fee would have made it more expensive than my agent. I called Victoria Cruises in the US for the same cruise and they quoted around US$800 for the cruise alone! Note that two Chinese travel agents told me that Americans pay a higher rate for the cruise even when using a Chinese agent because supposedly Victoria does advertising in the US and there’s a surcharge on Americans to pay for that.

So we arrived in Chongqing and got a taxi from the queue. The guy managing the taxi queue handed us a chart stating what the price should be for the type of car we were in, our destination and the time of day. Taxi driver flips on the meter anyway and we’re off through the fast-moving traffic with horns blaring. We get near the area where the ships depart and the driver fakes like he doesn’t know where it is located. He passes where we need to be and goes pretty far before he U’s back and twice, he stops, gets out, leans over the railing to look down the river to see where to go while the meter continues to run. Pretty good acting skills. We finally arrive and of course we inform him we’re only paying what’s listed on the chart, which we did. BTW the Victoria representative who met us there was pretty useless and didn’t attempt to help. We paid RMB 70/US$9, if I recall correctly.

At that point you can get a porter to carry your luggage for around RMB 5. You go onto the ship while the band plays a song from your country and then check in at reception. Our rooms were fine. I’d say they were bigger and better than standard rooms on Princess Cruises we took in the Caribbean in the past. Dinner isn’t included for the first evening but you can pay something like US$20p.p. if you want the buffet. Food was pretty decent and there was plenty of it. I didn’t hear of anyone getting sick.

I think all tour prices include a daily excursion and there aren’t additional optional ones. The tours were very organized and the only place we had a little bit of free time was in Fengdu. It was generally very foggy (smoggy?) so unfortunately our gorge pictures aren’t that great.
- Sunday, Sept 24: boarded ship
- Monday, Sept 25: Fengdu “Ghost City”. They’ve grazed the actual city and moved pretty much all inhabitants across the river. We really enjoyed the tour of the Ghost City on top of the mountain. Of course we opted to take the chair lift as opposed to walking!
- Tuesday, Sept 26: Daning River, Lesser 3 Gorges and Lesser Lesser 3 Gorges. Long, but relaxing boat tour over clear water. Saw more cliffs, life on the river, monkeys, suspended coffins…and even a floating footwear - a strange, but common sight on the Yangtze. We even started photographing them! Remains of the ancient tracker path in the Lesser Lesser 3 Gorges had just gone underwater the day prior but we did see some tracker paths on the Yangtze. Took a smaller boat down Lesser Lesser. One highlight was our boatman singing a traditional local song, which we enjoyed and captured on video.
- Wednesday, Sept 26: 3 Gorges Dam. End of tour. We were one of the cruises that didn’t get to go thru the locks due to maintenance of the dam. Thus the night prior they had us set our large bags out in the hall and they sent them up the elevator to the bus we’d use for our local excursion. (Later we found someone had stolen my camera charger…No we didn’t lock our bags which isn’t very smart.) We had breakfast then went up the elevator to our bus to point out our luggage to be loaded onto our bus. We drove around the Dam to view the locks, construction sites and some tourist exhibits. It was another hazy day but we could still see what was going on.

The bus dropped us off at a location and our luggage was offloaded. I sent a complaint to Victoria because their staff at that destination tried to extort a fee of like 10 RMB per piece for moving our luggage from the boat to the bus. We, of course, paid zero because it was Victoria’s choice to move our luggage for us and they did not tell us about the fee in advance. They protested a bit but not much. It would be strange to have all costs included in an all-inclusive tour except for 10 RMB (US$1.25) per suitcase. There were taxis there so we took one to the airport. It was very far away! We were wondering if we were getting kidnapped or something. Ok, not really. But we were surprised it was so far away. The airport is small with little to do there. As you can’t check in until your flight opens, people from our cruise filled the seating in the bar in the airport. Thus it’s a good idea to get there quickly to secure a seat in that bar area.

Overall, it was a nice relaxing time to hang out with family and meet new people. We had wanted to see tracker paths, hanging coffins and life on the river, which we did accomplish. If we had only been on a two-week or so trip to China we probably wouldn’t have wanted to spend that amount of time on a boat. Since we live in China it was a nice option for getting away from the city and seeing the great river and sites that will no longer exist a short time from now.

Jed

We were fortunate to take this voyage in 2003, before the dam was completed. The images of the towns, gorges, and especially of the tracker paths still remain.

Shanghainese

Thanks very much for a great trip report from an expat's viewpoint!

Yichang

Know these in advance! Some tips for people who will take the Yangtze River cruise:

1. Taxi from Chongqing airport to pier is around 70-120RMB. So nagiffag paid the regular price.

2. Some taxi in Chongqing has gas tanks in the back, which made it very difficult to put luggage into. If you are a party of 3 or more, you probably need to spilt into 2 taxis.

3. It's difficult and confusing to locate the pier. There is no instruction at Chongqing Chaotianmen Port. You will only know the pier # at the day when you board the cruise. There are more than 10 piers there.

4. There are people at pier who want to ripping travellers off by carrying the bags. Make sure you agree the price first.

5. When you check-in, the cruise front desk may offer paid upgrade, and want to show you the suites. You can decide not to take them.

6. Drinks onboard is higher (not too much).

So don't find these things offensive. you spend money for vacation, and enjoy!

cookiescompanion

Hi Nagiffag,

Can you please tell me what you think of Toby's service? I know you say he's your favourite agent, but I just want some more confirmation before I use him to book a lot of things. Have all his bookings always worked out for you before? Have you used him for other things apart from the cruise and flights?

So far, I have e-mailed him and he has been extremely helpful and very prompt, but it is now up to the paying part and I am a bit nervous...lol.

Thanks!
cookies...

nagiffag

I replied to your other thread but will reply to this as well.

My colleague found Toby after calling around for pricing a group trip to Qingdao in 2005 and he had the lowest quote for air, hotel and local tour. Since then I've used him a number of times and have organized at least 5 Beijing/Xian trips for friends or family. Toby most recently booked our air and hotel reservations for Beijing in October 2007. I had to change a few times because we were going onward to N.Korea and N.Korea canceled our visas due to that big flood then the visit by S.Korean leader. Anyway he was able to get the hotel (Swissotel) not to charge me a 1-night change fee and ended up refunding money because the flight cost was lower. That was a first for me!

Air and hotel have always been perfect for us. As I noted in the other post we liked the local guides we used in Qingdao and Harbin but we did have one local guide that we didn't like at all in Beijing so I called after the first day to complain. Since it was high season he couldn't get a replacement but did give us a partial refund and a Chinese wall hanging as compensation. When coordinating trips for others I've used recommendations from friends or this board for guides in Beijing and Xian, but I used Toby for air and hotel. Whenever I compared his hotel quote to the others online even from the hotel itself I've found Toby's quote to be lower. (Note that some rates you see online at Chinese hotels are Chinese only and foreigners pay a higher rate or are not allowed to book that type of room. Welcome to China.) Make sure that you're specific about what you want because the usual assumption is you want the best room. Oh, and I've never taken Toby's shuttle service from airport because it's always super expensive and we feel confident a taxi driver will get us to our hotel. (We do speak a little Mandarin.)

I'll be interested to know what you end up doing and how you like the service.

cookiescompanion

Thanks again Nagiffag.

We are using Toby to book our Yangtze River Cruise and 3 internal flights and 2 internal trains (soft sleeper).

I am leaving tomorrow for the first leg of my trip (Thailand and Laos), but will let you know how Toby's arrangements go. Many thanks and merry christmas.