It's Time to Go: Beijing
Written: May 25 '05
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Pros: Service, accommodations, opportunity for customization and flexibility. Excellence of the guide.
Cons: Minor reservations problems in coordinating with members of my party who'd booked earlier.
The Bottom Line: Excellent trip for all ages and groups. I plan on using them again for myself and will strongly recommend to others.
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| sewell1591's Full Review: General Tours |
I've made several trips to China, including Beijing, over the past 3 years, including tour (with a different operator) and independent travel. For this trip (March 2005), I selected General Tours (GT) to coordinate with friends who'd already booked with them and to give GT a try.
We were met, as promised, just outside immigration at the Beijing airport by a representative of GT, who spoke very good English and had us whisked off to our hotel right away. We stayed at the Prime Hotel, at the northern end of Wangfujing, about a 10 minute walk from the main shopping district and convenient to restaurants.
The Prime Hotel is a 5-Star establishment that lives up to it's categorization: clean, comfortable, friendly (all the front desk staff spoke excellent English, which I've found to be rare), and well appointed. The breakfast buffet, included in the tour package, had at least 50 choices of western, Chinese, and other Asian foods, as well as fresh fruit, custom omelets, etc.; all very tasty, plus superb coffee. I'd stay there again in a minute!
The packaged tour hits all of Beijing's highlights: Great Wall, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, Ming Tombs, etc. Our guide was superb: knowlegable, articulate (in English), sensitive to individual concerns (1 member of the party had a gimpy foot), and --- best of all --- accommodating to some special requests and adjustments to the itinerary. For example, one day was particularly chilly and windy, and everyone was tired of being outdoors. So, he took us to a shopping district instead.
We also visited silk, jade, and cloisonne factories which are a bit tourist trap-like but interesting. After all, you don't have to buy anything, and the demonstrations are fun to watch and educational. The lunches, which are preprogrammed, were mostly Chinese food cooked to western tastes but were decent enough.
My group had scheduled some extra days, and the extensions were at the same rate at the hotel as on the tour and were quite reasonable. Some members took advantage of a $400 add-on and took a day trip to Xian, which included transfers to and from the airports, guide services in Xian, roundtrip airfare from Beijing, and lunch. All reported this to have been a good value and well handled.
The only problems experienced were related to the reservations system, which I primarily did over the phone. There was some confusion about coordinating with other members of my party and the exact days we'd be touring. It all got worked out once we got to Beijing, but GT contracts with CYTS in China for the guides. This results in some difficulties when last minute issues arise before departure. When I reported these problems in a followup after the trip, GT was very apologetic and provided an extra travel credit for another trip. I was satisfied with the professional and speedy way they acknowledged the glitch and feel they have likely taken steps to eliminate the issue in the future.
I'm very satisfied with GT and would recommend them to anyone wanting a tour in China! I plan on using them again, myself.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Friends
Tour type: Group
Tour format: Various
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Epinions.com ID:
sewell1591
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Reviews written: 1
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