I saw some tours like that advertised. They pick you up from train/airport take you around all day then drop you off. Seemed like a reasonable deal given the convenience, but I was concerned about feeling rushed. I like the idea of the overnight train because as another poster pointed out air travel can be somewhat unreliable this time of year with the weather. In addition I don't mind sleeper trains at all due to my extensive travel experience in Europe.

If you can read/write Chinese then apparently you can book on WeChat but did not try myself.

As I said, I was not rushed at all and even added things to do to eat up the time and again, I did all including the flights in one day. It's only about a 2 hour flight and if I remember correctly there was over a dozen flights to chose from thought out the day.

I've also done Chinese over night trains to other cities and after experiencing it I won't be enjoying them again

I think what i may end up doing is taking an evening train to Xi'an from Beijing where I would get in at like 10pm. I would check in to the hotel and just get a sense of the basic area so then I could be ready to go first thing in the morning and then I will catch an evening flight do to Guilin. Its not so much a problem of the sleeper train but if I stay at the hotel I can make sure I get a good night's sleep and they can hold my bags etc, until i am ready to leave/ help me make any necessary travel arrangements. If I just came straight off the train who knows for sure how rested I would be and I would have my bags (although in that situation I think I would definitely need to book a guide to get me around all day and handle transport to airport etc. Besides I can pay for the hotel on points, but the extra cost of the sleeper compartment would be out of pocket.

The overnight trains are rather comfortable in China and are almost guaranteed to be on schedule.

Unlike the very unreliable domestic flights with stressed and rude fellow passengers and airports in the middle of nowhere like Xi'an.

Yea I am doing an xi'an- Guilin flight, but taking trains for th shanghai-beijing and beijing-xi'an routes.

If you wanna take a softsleeper on july, 1st, tickets available for 3 night trains T231, Z43 and Z19.

All other trains are (nearly) sold out or just hard sleeper available.

For Z43 and Z19 a few deluxe sleeper still available.

I, for myself, have no problems with hard sleeper, but know enough traveller who feel uncomfortable.

Your decision.