moondog

During my first several trips to Beijing (when I was in college), I was kind of roped into organized tours with kids my own age, and once with high school students (I was the assistant director of a high school summer program), and all of the tours combined the Forbidden City with Tiantan and Jingshan, but didn't include Beihai/Qianhai/Houhai.

None of us really enjoyed Tiantan (in part because we also visited tons of other temples), but everyone loved the lakes (which, we visited on our own). I will also note that the OP is bringing his young kids, who I'm guessing are not serious history buffs yet.

Furthermore, as you note, Tiantan messes up the logistics of an otherwise foolproof plan. So does Tiananmen Square, for that matter, because crossing the street to Tiananmen itself is remarkably difficult.

You don't need any sort of car or van to execute the plan I outlined up thread, and vehicles can't drop off within ~500 meters of Tiananmen anyway. Wangfujing (where I typically eat lunch) is close enough; Tiananmen East is closer, of course.

After we get started, everything else avails of the "#11 Bus".

mlin32

Now that you mention Tiananmen, would be another recommendation to keep a tour guide so that you won't have last minute surprises on getting admission tickets. Entry to the perimetre around Tiananmen is strictly controlled, you have to have tickets in advance along with a valid form of ID (passport for foreigners) to even access the area and get off at the métro stop.

Note many attractions require advance ticket purchase as well, having a company take care of that for you will make your trip run smoother.

moondog

For the sake of clarity, I was referring to Tiananmen itself (the gate underneath the Mao portrait that you pass through in order to enter the Forbidden City) rather than Tiananmen Square (across the street) when I mentioned cars can't drop off within 500 meters of it. But, of course, the square is also fortified these days.

jplee3

Thanks all for the tips. Still working on locking in the flights. Would you guys suggest sticking with China Airlines or the international flights between LAX (particularly over Air China and China Eastern)?
I'm reading different things about China Airlines that seem conflicting: poor safety record but better service compared to Air China. In terms of service it seems China Airlines > Air China > China Eastern. Not sure on the safety aspect.

mlin32

The safety concerns with CI are unfounded at the moment; there was a period a few decades ago where things weren't so rosy, but I wouldn't base a decision on that.

However as your trip is taking place on the mainland, wouldn't it make sense to just book a direct flight instead of making a correspondance through TPE ? That means either CA or MU. From a service standpoint, I don't think there is a huge difference between the mainland carriers (I flew CZ and MF recently) so book whatever makes your trip quickest.

CI has slightly better service in Y, as well as wifi without any restrictions, but not enough to justify a higher price or longer travel time.

jplee3

The layovers in TPE - are those troublesome when transition through customs and to go to China? The China Airlines TPE layovers range from 1-3hours...

On Air China, we would only be avoiding layovers from LAX to Beijing but going back, if we left from Shanghai/Yantai we would still have to layover in Beijing for at least a few hours or so regardless. So I'm not sure it makes a huge difference either way unless the customs transition between Taiwan and China are difficult and inconvenient


Btw china airlines flights are actually cheaper (under $5k for the four of us) but slightly longer in think around 15-16hours.

Air China the flights to and from Beijing are actually 15hrs to and 13hrs from... So it almost seems like China Airlines is actually a better option

mlin32

As you would be en transit at TPE, there should be no passport contrôle and you're not entering Taiwan. But although it's all part of the same country, HK/Macau/Taiwan flights are considered 3rd-country for classification purposes so it's kind of like adding a step in your journey (like flying US to Canada en route to Europe).

But if CI is much cheaper and the extra flight time doesn't bother you, by all means go for it. Perhaps the time penalty is not so bad for trans-Pacific flights ; for EU to TPE, CI flights have a very significant time penalty and cost more than their mainland counterparts.

jplee3

In our case the CI flight is $4500 vs CA at $5300. The difference in flight time from LAX to PEK is the same. Actually CA is 15hrs where CI going through TPE is 14:55! The return flight is where there's a slightly bigger diff I think 13hrs from Beijing to LAX on CA and something like 16-17hrs with CI with layover in TPE, which doesn't seem unreasonable.

The other current factor now is figuring out which credit card to book with. All of these logistics are burning me out really badly... It's frustrating trying to find a card that we currently have that offers trip cancellation/interruption insurance but it seems Chase may be the best bet here - capital one venture visa signature, Amex Hilton honors, Citi custom cash, Citi Costco all don't have anything surprisingly... Unless I'm missing something. Checking prices through the chase travel site doesn't seem very fruitful either.

Seems the best thing to do is book with the chase freedom unlimited at 1.5% on all purchases and get their more robust trip cancellation/interruption insurance

mlin32

Geographically, this isn't possible. With the arc in which flight plans are laid out, northern destinations generally take less time as the world is round.

LAX => TPE alone takes over 14h. Add transit time (allow 2h). TPE to PEK is 3h (I have flown this, in opposite direction). Total travel time would be closer to 20h westbound on CI if I would wager a guess.

moondog

You started a dedicated thread on flights for your trip just 8 days ago:

Travel planning to China - flights

While it arguably makes sense to include the flight stuff here, since you already created the separate thread, bringing the topic up again is confusing and splits the discussion.

But, fwiw my opinion hasn't materially changed during the course of the past week:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35946202-post4.html

jplee3

Oh yes you're right... My apologies. I have lost track with all of this

jplee3

One thing I wanted to ask but is it worth paying the extra for the hotel breakfasts over there? Or better just to get our own? I'm planning to stay at the Hilton Wangfujing in Beijing, Holiday Inn @ Big Goose Pagoda in Xi'an, and not sure yet with Shanghai. Anyone have any suggestions for Shanghai and Yantai hotels? For Shanghai my wife wants to stay near the river to do the cruise - I was looking at the Holiday Inn Expo Centre but the city is so huge I'm not sure if there are better places. Yantai the hotel options are a bit more limited but I was thinking prob just a HIlton or Hilton sub-brand there since we have a rewards card with them and the prices are more affordable than the IHGs (Crowne Plaza there is pricey)

YariGuy

Breakfasts in the chain hotels in China (or most of Asia for that matter) are big productions with a huge spread including western and Chinese selections. Breakfasts are a big draw for me. That said, I wouldn't pay for them.

I suggest you look into credit card offers that get you to the minimum status required for free breakfast, and concentrate your hotel reservations on that chain. You can even cancel right after your trip. For Hilton, that would be the Amex Surpass, which gets you gold status right away. Heck, if you put all your hotel charges on that card you'll probably spend at least $3k and trigger the 160,000 bonus points.

narvik

(bolding mine)
This is pretty much a huge YMMV in my experience.
I stayed at a few big chain hotels in Langfang, Hebei recently, and whereas the Chinese breakfast selections were adequate, the Western selections were horrendous and inedible (processed, salty bacon substitute with painted-on fake 'stripes', plastic sausages, red colored sweetened baked beans, and scrambled eggs out of a bottle, etc.)

I think when they opened these hotels likely all had great offerings, but as time went on, and hardly any Westerners stayed at these hotels, and only a few locals chose the Western breakfast options, they reduced quality over time to where it's now best to avoid it at all costs.
(Coffee was also hit-'n-miss, although mostly okay.)

mlin32

I didn't bother with the hotel breakfasts unless it was already inclus in the room price. Don't expect the western options, if present, to be edible. Which is completely fine by my book, because the so-called Chinese food in some western countries is also inedible so it works both ways. I find the café in Asia to be médiocre in general (China no exception), so I usually opted for juices. But in Europe, we have real café so your expectations may vary (US café is also undrinkable).

Honestly, I enjoyed just going around finding a local authentic breakfast place with local chinese food and customers. That was both far tastier and very easy on the wallet.