lsok

Has anyone heard of this tour company? I did a search on this site, but nothing on this company specifically.

The China Highlights Tour company sounded a little more reasonable, but I'd like some feedback if anyone knows about it.

I've learned a lot "lurking" on this board. We are planning a trip to China and Hong Kong next month. We have about 12-14 days to tour. We would like to see the typical first time visitor sites...Arrive in Hong Kong then on to Beijing, Xian, Guilan, Shanghai and back to Hong Kong for our trip back to LAX.
There are 6 of us spanning 3 generations. "Grandma" is a young 80 yrs, but is apprehensive about travelling independently. If it were just my husband and myself (we're in our mid 50's) it would be no problem. How reasonable is it to wing it with 6 of us? (Also coming along are daughter and son-in-law who are currently living in Taiwan and single adult daughter.)
Ideally, we would like to get hotels before we leave the US and book tours once we arrived at each destination. Are there taxis and/or small vans that we can book with private guides as needed? or is our group of 6 too big to go in one vehicle. What about the domestic flights? Any problem getting 6 seats at short notice?
I'm getting some good ideas from the various tour web sites, however we would be arriving on a Tuesday evening and many of the set tours don't begin the day we want. We also have ruled out the 3 day river cruise (not enough time), but a trip down the Li river sounds good.

Thanks in advance for your help.

quimbymoy

hi isok,

i am heading to china next saturday (YAY!) and booked our trip thru china highlights. i first dealt with elaine, our travel agent 2-1/2 years ago when we 1st planned our trip but aborted due to SARS. interestingly, they only charged us (4 people) $100 each cancellation fee. My friends who booked thru companies in the US were charged 1/2 of their final package prices! it was outrageous, so when we finally decided to book again, i went back to china highlights.

my experiences communicating with elaine have been fine, all thru e-mail. we are doing a 14 day tour to beijing, xi'an, guilin, suzhou & shanghai. since there are 8 of us this time, we decided to do a pseudo-guided tour, with days/mornings with drivers & guides in some places and loads of free time where we are unguided (in shanghai, we are completely on our own). if we only had 4 people i think we would have done mostly unguided, but it's hard to corral 8 people, so i had elaine book accordingly. also, since we are somewhat adventurous, we did not have her book meals outside of the breakfasts that are included at the hotels. and for added fun, i had elaine arrange for a cooking class in beijing! we are all really looking forward to that...

with elaine (or any agent over there), my best advise to you is to be very specific about what you want and she will do her best to accomodate.

if you decide to "wing it" i think most hotels can help you book tours as well. as for vehicles, i will let you know when i return! although it may not help you since you are leaving next month. we return oct. 1...

if you have any other questions, feel free to ask...

expatinchina

I live in China but I am doing a Beijing package with China Highlights next week. I am dealing with Karen and I have found them very good also. I was able to pick and choose the things that I wanted to do and she just arranged it for me. I speak "some" Chinese but I still would risk trying to do it myself especially when I have my family with me. Too many things can go wrong.

Have a great trip, it's worth the time and hassle.

lsok

Thanks for your replies. Quimbymoy, I would love to hear about your trip. I emailed China Highlights and they gave me a preliminary itinerary, but I'm hesitant to as them to fine tune it without paying them and I don't want to pay them unless I know that they will design the trip we want. Their first try included the 3 day Yangtze river cruise and was over $3000 PP!! Did you pay them before they perfected your itinerary?
Thanks!

expatinchina

Hi Isok, I asked them to change a few things on my package and I was never asked to pay any money till they got it right. Give it a go you have nothing to loose except your time!

expatinchina

quimbymoy

yes, expat is correct. we never paid anything until every detail was what i wanted. i went back & forth on a lot of little details and elaine was so patient. i am sure by the time you are done, you'll get it to a price you are happy with. our package is much less than yours, perhaps we chose lesser star (we have 3 & 4 stars booked) as opposed to 5 star hotels and the fact that we are unguided in some areas. also, it seems as tho packages with yangtze cruises are a more expensive than those without. when exactly are you thinking of going?

lsok

thanks again for your input. We are leaving fairly soon-October 24. I did email China Highlights again and she changed a few things (no Yangtze river cruise and cheaper hotels, fewer meals), to lower the price. However, some of the hotels got horrible reviews on trip advisor. Maybe we're not being realistic to expect 15 days for less than $2500 each?!?

One company did a plan that was reasonable, but didn't include the cost of the hotel or any tours for 4 days in Hong Kong, because prices changed too frequently! They also didn't include the flight back to Hong Kong. No wonder it cost less!

We have almost given up on going on our own. Worried about getting domestic flights for 6 people, 3 hotel rooms, etc., all at the last minute. Would just like NOT to be herded with a million other tourists. (why should I think I'm different than the other tourists?) We'll just have to choose one company and work with them.

Guimbymoy-I am interested in the Beijing cooking class. All in our group would enjoy it.

We we'd better decide soon--any helpful hints will be appreciated.
LSOK

quimbymoy

hi isok-

wow we leave tomorrow morning!

perhaps your itinerary is more expensive since we are unguided (1) day in beijing, 1/2 day in xi'an & all 3 days in shanghai... if you think you can go at it unguided in some areas, you can bring the price down. for example, you can easily see the forbidden palace & tianenmen square on your own and outside of the terra cotta warriors, we are going to be free to see the rest of town on our own since our hotel (bell tower) is so central.

i am interested in the hotels you are being quoted... i haven't found much info on any of the ones we are booked at... but then it's too late to change now! will report on those when i return.

if you e-mail me before tomorrow morning at [email protected], i can e-mail our final itinerary, perhaps you can use to compare.

tina

holden2

I realize that my response may be a little late for the original inquirer, but it may be helpful for others checking later.

I have used China Hightlights a couple of times in the past and I'm working with them once again--this time for a trip on the Yangtze. Like someone else on this thread, my contact was Elaine ([email protected]).

We generally prefer independent travel rather than group tours, but China is a difficult country to travel if you don't speak or read Chinese (and we're Chinese-American). So China Highlights has allowed us the opportunity to compromise by having a private guide and driver at very, very reasonable prices. They are also very willing to customize offers according to your individual needs. They can develop a package with flights, train tickets, entertainment, tours, meals and hotels--or you can add or subtract anything you don't need. The strategy we used with them for the Shanghai-Suzhou-Hanzhou-Shanghai trip included our reserving our own hotels independently. You can ask for a quote with and without the hotel. Then you can check other sites like sinohotel.com or others that offer discounted hotel reservations in China. You never have to pay for anything until you are totally satisfied with the offer they put together.

Because the tour consists of your own group, meals are whenever you want. If we finished the pre-planned activities for the day early (because we didn't have to stand around waiting for tour members), we often would be taken somewhere additional of our own choice. On the other hand, we could stop and rest whenever we felt like it without being rushed either.

Elaine has always been prompt and polite in her responses. All our dealings have been via e-mail and we have gone back and forth until we came up with a package to my satisfaction.

The local guides spoke excellent English and were very professional, entertaining and informative. For only the two of us, they provided a van with a professional driver.

althom1122

Was Elaine a native English speaker? I just put in a request with China Highlights and told them EXACTLY which cities I wanted to visit and that we had 21 days. What I got back was an email (from Jean) with a link to one of their standard tours that covers all the places I want to see, PLUS a bunch more places - for 32 days. And she asked which of those places we don't want to visit. Duh. We don't want to visit any of the ones that weren't on my original list! So I feel a bit frustrated. But then, this is my first experience trying to have someone customize a tour for me. Maybe I should stick it out and go back and restate what I already said? The other thing is the English was very poor - I'm wondering if that will make it harder to make arrangements. Any thoughts?

quimbymoy

Sorry this is late in replying, but I don't know who Jean is at CITS. Re-email Elaine at [email protected] (I know she still works there, I got an email from her a week ago) and tell her exactly what you want. She is not a native speaker but her English is pretty good.