Testimonial

Dear Karen,

We are back in the US after a wonderful trip in your country. Thank you again for all the work you put into making it happen and go so very well. All the arrangements went off flawlessly and we had a wonderful time. All the guides which were provided were knowledgeable and very helpful. The guide in Chongqing managed to get us to the boat in fine time and tried to provide some information about the city as well. There are so many things we would like to come back and see more thoroughly. If and when we do that we will certainly contact you. I would be very pleased to do that. Again, thank you for all your help and for enabling us to have such a wonderful trip. We will be very interested to watch China as it continues to grow, using what we have learned during our trip as background and better understanding.

Best regards,

Catherine M. Banbury

Dear Jean,

We found sailing down the Yangtse was very relaxing and interesting - especially the shore excursions - they were great. I had previously visited the Great Wall, but it is certainly a memorable site. While it was not part of your tour the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace in Beijing are impressive.

In China, Kiven, John and Kitty were all very good. John had a greater understanding of the subtleties of the English language, but all were helpful, thoughtful and attentive. Kiven took us to Jade and Cloisonné factories in Beijing as well as to tea tasting. John arranged for us to visit the Stillwell Museum in Chongqing, and Kitty arranged for lunch and for a visit to the Relics of the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang. In Tibet Dolma was very responsive to our need to change my itinerary as I was not well enough to travel to a higher altitude. She took us to the bank and supermarket and made sure we were okay. All guides met us with their drivers and ensured that we had the right tickets and were put on the right train or boat. The drivers of all the vehicles drove safely and their vehicles were clean and comfortable.

The Redwall Hotel Beijing was fine, everything worked and was clean - the breakfasts were good. It was well situated near the Forbidden City and we could get cheap meals in the nearby market street. The Xiongbala Hotel room in Lhasa was fine too. Clean and comfortable and adjacent to the Barkhov and Jokhang Temple in the Tibetan quarter of Lhasa. Breakfasts were adequate, if one didn't get there early there were limited options and the food was not kept properly warm. I understand the accommodation at the hotel in Shigatse, Tibet was very spacious. Breakfast was fine (better the Xionbala)

The Bell Tower Hotel, Xian was very nice, with a higher standard of accommodation and it was noticeable - wider range of television channels, stylish, better maintained and more modern decor. Breakfast buffet with more western type choices. Well positioned near the Bell Tower and the Moslem quarter. The lunches with the tours - we had lunch at the Jade factory in Beijing - this was tasty and extensive - the set menu was fine. Lunch in Chongqing at the 4 star hotel was very tasty and enjoyable. In Yichang we asked Kitty to find us a restaurant for lunch and she ordered for us - this was also very good (not part of the tour package). In Lhasa the food at the restaurant near Barkhov was satisfactory. The meals on the boat the Zhao Jun were very good with many choices and variety. We were also provided with a western breakfast each morning which was very substantial.

Thanks again

Dear Karen,

Thanks for your organizing of our comfortable trip in China.The weather was nice. The restaurants our guide selected were great and the food in this regions is very enjoyable We were surprised with how high we were, 2700 to 3400 meters, and we didn't feel any elevation effects. The hotel was nice. Being in the old town allowed us to walk around. We did learn about large groups as those European foreigners ate everything in sight for breakfast, but the staff replenished it. The staff was very nice and helpful. The guide and driver were very professional and attentive to making sure our needs were meett. Barb would like to go back to that area and see more things. I am always interested in historical sites and anything related to the Flying Tigers which were in this area of China during the Second World War. Oh yes and the guide even took us out to lunch on the last day for the local special noodles before we left for the airport. Now we need to plan for May holiday.

Thanks,

 John

Dear Sunny,

We have just returned home from our trip to Guilin and I wanted to take a moment to thank you for putting together such an excellent package for us. We found both the value and quality well worth it and I have recommended your company to several of my friends who are planning trips to your beautiful country. It never ceases to amaze me by the quality of your staff. Last year, Angela arranged our itinerary for Beijing and Xian, and we were so impressed by your guides and drivers. They were professional and well trained and we were sad to say goodbye to them. Our guide, Lily Guo, was excellent in her job. Not only did she show us the beauty of Guilin, but was very accommodating to our every request. In Yangshuo, for example, we asked her about the possibility of taking a ride on the bamboo rafts which we saw all throughout the city, so Lily arranged it for us and to have our bicycles trucked to our destination.

To be quite honest, that was a highlight to ride the bamboo raft. But we were so amazed at how Lily responded so willingly to make our trip everything we could hope for. We were very impressed at the flexibility of having a private tour, because this would not be possible on a larger tour. Please send our sincerest appreciation for her dedication and hard work in making our holiday to China one of the most memorable vacations we have had in a long while.

Sincerely,

Ray Yokoyama Patrick Lajko

Dear Cheryl,

I was just organizing all of my pictures and putting them on a CD when I thought I should e-mail you some pictures and a big THANK YOU for planning a wonderful trip. We were so happy to meet you. I did feel like I knew you before I met you - from our e-mails. You were so efficient and pleasant to work with. Thank you for all of your help and especially thank you for giving us Foster. What a joy he is! So I have attached some pictures. Let me know if you would like more and if there is anything special you would like. I have 300 something! Thanks again Cheryl. Good luck to you on the rest of your busy tourist season!

Besst regards

Karen

Dear Sunny,

I am very happy to be dealing with your tour company and would like to point out that i had at least two other companies that were quoting the same prices for the similar tour on the 31st. however due to your efficiency in dealing with me i decided to do business with yourselves. i hope i will continue to be happy with the service i will recieve from you.

thank you

Dear Elaine,

Thanks a lot for organising our tour. We really had a splendid holiday and we really liked China.

The trip was wonderfully arranged, and we greatly enjoyed the rich variety of opportunities it offered us to see many different aspects of Chinese life and culture. It was a continually exciting and absorbing, but also an exhausting and demanding trip, especially after I injured my tired arthritic knee by so much walking for two weeks on end.? Almost all our guides were first-rate, speaking good to excellent English and providing useful information about the sites we visited. More important, most of them were very flexible, allowing us to alter the schedule in accord with our wishes and sometimes going out of their way to satisfy our particular needs.

For example, Sandra in Beijing arranged for us to visit a small art museum I had learned about, omitting locations we were not interested in, and hastened to find a store in which to buy a camera when mine ceased to work; Lemon or Shou in Shanghai arranged for us to visit the wonderful museum both morning and afternoon and similarly found a store for us after the?camera I had bought in Beijing was stolen in the museum; Jane in Chengdu added Tu Fu's cottage to the list of sights we visited; and Foster in Guilin arranged to find us an upper floor room in the hotel after the ground floor room proved to be unacceptably mouldy, and arranged for us to have massages before leaving. You of course were personally of great help in arranging for us, after my knee injury forced a change of plans, to take a later flight to Guangzhou and proceed directly from there to Hong Kong. Thank you again!

The most memorable natural sight for both of us was undoubtedly the Li River cruise in Guilin. Unforgettably beautiful. The Great Wall was of course spectacular, but so famous as not to be unexpected; so too the stunning terracotta warriors of Xian, some of whom we had previously seen on tour in San Francisco. More surprising was to find the Shanghai Museum such an astonishingly comprehensive collection of Chinese art of? every major kind throughout the ages: surely one of the greatest museums in the world (even if my camera was stolen there!).

As indicated, at least four of our guides were outstanding. But our very favorite was Shou, or Lemon, in Shanghai, who was especially energetic, lively, interested, and informed. She went far beyond the standard tour guide presentations and was a continual source of fascinating conversation. She seems to us worthy of advancement! 

Bob Torrance (rmtorrance@ucdavis.edu) and/or Donna Reed (dkreed@ucdavis.edu).

Dear Elaine,

We arrived back from our travels 3 days ago. Our first day in the Bund View Room on 87th Floor of the spectacular Grand Hyatt Hotel—looking out the window and seeing how enormously Shanghai had changed in less than 30 years, visiting World Class hotel restaurants, tripping across the road, on our own, to discover the magnificent new Aquarium, etc.

 All 3 Guides were good, but we had serious concern about their preparations to handle our special excursions—we got on particularly well with the Guide (and Driver) in Hangzhou, and enjoyed many interesting “experimental” meals together at restaurants neither had previously visited.

In addition to the Hyatt, the Sheraton at Suzhou was very pleasant. Restaurants were mostly selected by ourselves. We were on an “la carte”, pay aa s you go, basis—this worked excellently and we enjoyed our eating enormously.

If they want to do anything other than Standard China Highlight Tourist Trips, they should insist on involving the local Manager/Guide in the pre-planning and making of special bookings—accepting that this may add to the cost of the package. In hindsight it would have been worth an extra 20% (2,000US $) for us to have had effective local planning of our special trips to the M50 Art Gallery, the Sungiao Modern Agricultural Area, the Hangzhou Chinese Medical Hospital, etc.

Yes, certainly I would be willing to correspond by email, as a reference. I could, and probably should, go on—but fear you might just think me a moaner, looking for a refund—this we certainly don’t want. I expect you have heard of the worries we had in establishing contact with the new Guide on our arrival in Hangzhou and the problem with the Sofitel Hotel? Our guide in Shanghai was a charming young lady who had a rough time meeting us, unfortunately having to wait 4 hours at Shanghai Airport for our flight arrival—we were very sorry but she made no complaint. No doubt she was well able to handle standard trips but was hopelessly unprepared for our two special requests. Our Guide at Suzhou was a splendid chap and everything went smoothly, but of course here there were no special requests. The Guide in Hangzhou, as I have said, was an excellent fellow and certainly tried to do his very best for us, in difficult circumstances—we found it an interesting experience.

Kind Regards

Robert Craig

Hallo again, Elaine. There is now a few weeks since we came back from our trip to China, and we have needed some time to absorbe the things we have seen, the people we met and what we learned about the culture of China. Under in red, we have answered your questions as good as we could. Thank you again for your help booking our trip; you made it really great: We have already spoken warm about China Higlights to all our friends and family. The best thing about this was to have a guide on our own the whole week, that have given us the oppertunity to learn about China from the inside. Best regards!! Hanne Furu

Hi Cheryl,

All went extremely well and the tour was fantastic. The boat, food, crew, guides etc were excellent and all the local pickup arrangements and guides were great. Thanks for all your work in organising the trip. We will not hesitate to use your services again and to recommend your Company to friends.

Regards,

Benn and Michele Rafferty