Should I take a tour package?
 

Ha! Just kidding. I was bored and wanted to rattle a cage.:)

Nice one. Made me look.

Sometimes the tour package can end up cheaper than the hotel, airfare by themselves. You need to shop around.

We booked a flight, 5 night in BJ plus sightseeing/shopping tour Feb 2009 with all 5 nights at the BJ Westin Financial District including the full breakfast buffet. we only did the Ming Tombs day with the tour and spent the other days on our own. Price of tour was $3100HK. Buying RT tickets HKG PEK was almost $2300 each.

I actually got involved in the constant go-round argument re: China guided tours on this forum.
For me, in 2010, a tour was perfect. I got a 10 night tour (RT airfare, great hotels, daily breakfast, and several tours: 3 in Xian, 3 in Beijing, 3 in Shanghai and environs) for $1100 (from LAX); this included flights to Shanghai, then to Xian, then to Beijing. No way could I have arranged the price on my own, and it went pretty well. We ditched the Shanghai tours to visit our daughter, and she was a terrific Shanghai guide.
But my oh my, try explaining that to the resident expert at the time!

To be entirely fair, I just re-read your posts. I'm not philosophically against tours, but I have to admit I've never been on one.

If in your posts you had said the raison d'etre of taking the tour was to save money, that would be fine. But you said it was because you didn't want the hassle of travelling in a country where you don't speak the language, and preferred to pay $20 for a $5 scarf instead of haggling (your words).

On those grounds, I would argue that most people don't need to take a tour. Of course, they are at liberty to do so.

tb

I arranged guides through a tour company for part of my travels in China last year. It worked out well. It did require comparison shopping and working through expectations up front, including on shopping stops (we didn't do any). Given the number of cities and the shortness of time, it made sense for us. We did some independent touring as well, just arranging drivers, and I'm sure we'd do more of that on a future trip, but this was good for the kind of trip we were doing.

+1

I often encouraged people to sign up for reasonably priced junkets, as long as they know what they're in for, and understand that if they deadbolt their door (and maybe remove the phone from the receiver) at 8a, there's not much the leader can do to force them along.

Good to see you back on forum, sylvia! You little wind-up, you! ;)
I think I remember that thread from 2010. Something about "chicken entrails" if I recall. :D

On the topic at hand for any readers wandering in this room, I'm an independent traveler myself and generally not in favor of mass-market organized tours...including ones in China. But I'm also not dogmatically anti-tour. As long as the expectations of the tour purchaser are realistic and they are aware of pros and cons, it does work fine for many people. Compared to independent travel, I think on a mass group tour, one's potential upside experiences are more limited, but then, with most tour companies, one's downside experience risk is limited also.

And I think a lot of the choice comes down to where your priorities lie on the "Experience - Cost - Challenge" matrix mix. Also your personality and how you deal with travel situations in general.

Just for kicks. We're planning a family outing of 14 people (4 families-- 3 generations ages: 80,73; 40s x6; 10-14 x6: We have plenty of points for air and hotels, BUT arranging all this would on awards would be problematic. --Grandparents are Chinese born and rest are American Born Chinese.

So what's the thoughts on a 10 day trip: Beijing-Xian-Shanghai-Hangzhou in June?
-If package deal tour: What is the best American Born Chinese oriented tour for families with kids?
-If private guided tours suggestions for each city would be appreciated.

I believe if I planned fully independent, we'd have a family feud by the end!

This one's not too hard.
10 days for these places: doable but you will be rushing a bit. Cutting one place out would be better. End up in the city you'll be flying out of (i.e. Shanghai might give you more options vs Hangzhou).

One worry I have: this is too much of a city-based trip and particularly with the kids involved. Things start to run together as you go from city to city. I strongly suggest you amend the 10 days and consider Beijing + Xi'an + natural/outdoors site. While Guilin area would be ideal, in June it is prone to raininess so I won't recommend that due to your trip timing. But the general vicinity of Hangzhou has some opportunities, and there's some other options where the group my split into two for a day and the actives go hiking and climbing, while the grandparents and the non-action types go boating or garden looking. I also have some ideas for this using Xi'an as a base instead.

Logistics:
With this many people and all related, your solution is the private guided tour. With one of you (yourself?) as the official liaison with the company you choose to work with. You've got two options depending on how you want to handle the TPAC air:
1) If you want to use air mileage awards, even though it means different family members may be coming on different flights from different locations and converging in one spot, then do this separately and then the China tour part will be it's own thing. This also works well if you have some families that can get off a day or so earlier than others; any "early arrivals" can use hotel points for independent stay prior to official tour start, and especially in Beijing, there is literally an inexhaustible supply of great filler activities/sights to do before the entire group shows up for the official tour. I'd have any domestic Chinese air ticketing done as part of the tour. And some intercity may be by rail, particularly on this itinerary.
2) If you don't want to be fussed with using mileage awards for the TPAC, then you can deal with a single US-based agent who can put together the whole thing including TPAC airfares. This might be problematic if your relatives are scattered all over the US and convergence to a single departure point would be a hassle.

Handling on the China end of things is pretty easy, they'd provide a small bus for the party for local transportation from place to place, and a guide to accompany and smooth the way in each local location. Up to you as to whether you want an additional guide that literally travels intercity with you--I suspect you will not need that, and can just have meet-and-greets at each stop with local guide and driver(s). What you should do right now is:
a) decide on structure #1 or #2 above. Agent type/location would change depending on choice.
b) homework each of these locations and short-list sights. You won't see everything so careful choice and balance is necessary. When time comes to talk to an agent, you at least need to have an idea of your family's priorities to get the ball rolling...fine tuning comes later.
c) decide on a hotel type/budget that will be OK with everybody. For logistics reasons, you really want to keep this party in one hotel per city and not scattered. The agent will need to know what sort of budget/type of place/services you are expecting. Trying to use hotel points for all this inside of a tour is possible but a bit more work on your part. Certainly though, tour agents in China can put together a package of services that either includes or doesn't include hotels at one or more cities.

Get the ball rolling and then report back on your latest thinking. Then we can help a bit with itinerary details, companies, hotel comparisons, etc. This could be a really fabulous extended Family trip. And I agree with you, to do this 100% independent would be like herding cats. With the structure of a tour in place, the tour guide will serve as a defacto deterrent to arguments over what/where/why, grumble, grumble...:D But with the private customized tour, you get to pick what you all want to see and do rather than fit yourselves to a canned mass market tour. With a group of14, the cost differential would be negligible compared to the increased value.

1) I would rearrange the order so that you finish off in (and fly home from) Shanghai.
2) I agree with jiejie it might be a good idea to swap in a natural beauty spot in place of Xi'an or Hangzhou.
3) it isn't that hard to manage 14 people without a guide

@ Big Sister - Thank you for the extensive response. I've been leaning the same way on getting specific quotes and US based tour operators, and then some individual ones via Chinese newspaper/TripAdvisor/Flyertalk for a specialized directed tour guide at each city to coordinate everything.

Most tours appear to use Air China as the base quote ~$1200 for Airfare from SFO (all families in SFO fortunately) so that's not really a deal breaker either way..

You're right. It's a whirlwind and we added Hangzhou specifically (I typed in wrong place).. SFO>PEK>XIV>HGH> (bullet train) PVG>SFO.

Budget: Moderate 4* Hotel: Sheraton/Hilton

Bucket To Do List is pretty standard fair except for aquariums...luckily none of the kids have been to China and the 30,000 foot view is a good starter.

Beijing: standard Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Great Wall, and Olympics sites + Aquarium
Xian: Warriors -MUST for wife
Hangzhou: Impressions show and biking/canoe --MUST for Grandparents
Shanghai: Bund, Shopping + Aquarium


---So we probably will go all inclusive with TPAC included to keep it simple and forgo the perks of hotel and airline status.

---I sent off an email to Peony/Ritz already and would love personal referrals from FT!

Thanks again...sis and everyone else!

"If in your posts you had said the raison d'etre of taking the tour was to save money, that would be fine. But you said it was because you didn't want the hassle of travelling in a country where you don't speak the language, and preferred to pay $20 for a $5 scarf instead of haggling (your words)."

I think you misunderstood me representing others' decisions to take tours for their own reasons.
My reasons are ALWAYS about the money. Not only would I not pay $20 for a $5 scarf, I would not pay $5 for a $20 scarf! But if someone wants to avoid the haggling and the unknown, and they like that sort of thing (shopping stops), fine.

However, in our case, we jumped on an opportunity to see a bit of China at a terrific price, and visit our daughter:), knowing that we would be blowing off 1/3 of the tours. Would not have done it else.
(Haven't seen a price like that again, either.)

A second trip would be wonderful, but I would eschew a tour (unless the price was killer).