jplee3

Hi there,

We are considering a trip through TravelChinaGuide and the current itinerary (supposed "no shopping") we are looking at is this:

Day 1 (Mar 25, Mon), 2024: Arrival in Beijing
*Accommodation: Beijing New World Centre Tongpai Hotel (4 stars)
-Upon your arrival at Beijing airport, our guide will be waiting for you outside the customs of Beijing Airport, and we will transfer you to the hotel. Relax during the remainder of the day.

Day 2 (Mar 26, Tue): Beijing
*Accommodation: Beijing New World Centre Tongpai Hotel (4 stars)
"-Visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City this morning. Lunch is arranged on your own. In the afternoon, visit the Mutianyu Great Wall. The round-trip cable car is included.
-On the way back to downtown, drive by the Bird's Nest (Olympic National Stadium). You will see its appearance at a distance. (B)"

Friendly Tips: This tour includes the round-way cable car fees at Mutianyu Great Wall. However, if you are interested in taking the chairlift up and toboggan down the wall, we can also arrange that for you.

Day 3 (Mar 27, Wed): Beijing - Xi'an (second class high speed train: 4.5 hours)
*Accommodation: Holiday Inn Xi'an Big Goose Pagoda (4 stars)
-In the morning, visit the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. After that, take a high speed train to Xi'an and check in at the hotel. (B)

Day 4 (Mar 28, Thu): Xi'an
*Accommodation: Holiday Inn Xi'an Big Goose Pagoda (4 stars)
Visit the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum in the morning. Then make your own mini clay warrior. Get back downtown, visit the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda and the Great Tang All Day Mall. (B)

Day 5 (Mar 29, Fri): Xi'an - Chengdu (second class high speed train: 4 hours)
*Accommodation: Holiday Inn Chengdu Oriental Plaza (4 stars)
"-In the morning, visit the City Wall Park, the ancient City Wall, and the Great Mosque. Have a local flavor lunch at the Muslim bazaar.
-In the afternoon, take a high speed train to Chengdu and we will transfer you to the hotel. (B+L)"

Day 6 (Mar 30, Sat): Chengdu
*Accommodation: Holiday Inn Chengdu Oriental Plaza (4 stars)
"-An exciting day comes as you visit Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. You will have enough time there to observe the cute creatures.
-Then explore the Broad and Narrow Alleys, where you may have your own lunch to taste the popular Sichuan food. (B)"

Day 7 (Mar 31, Sun): Chengdu - Shanghai (economy class flight: 3 hours)
*Accommodation: Sunrise On The Bund (4 stars)
Our driver (without guide) will transfer you to the airport to take a flight to Shanghai. Our guide will pick you up and transfer you to the hotel. The rest time of the day is free for you to explore the city. (B)

Day 8 (Apr 01, Mon): Shanghai
*Accommodation: Sunrise On The Bund (4 stars)
"-This morning, visit Shanghai Museum, Yuyuan Garden and explore its nearby traditional bazaar. An a la carte farewell lunch (valued at CNY150 per person and included in our price) will be served at an elegant restaurant.
-After that, enjoy a panorama of the city at Duo Yun Bookstore on the 52nd floor of Shanghai Tower. And then go to the thriving Bund area, where you will take a one-hour cruise tour on the Huangpu River.
-Enjoy some free time on the Bund. Upon returning to the hotel our guide will see you into the lobby to say bon voyage. (B+L)"


Any suggestions on things to avoid from the list? Or things to request to change/alter (like to avoid the majorly touristy/tourist-trap areas)?

It is a bit pricey for this private guided whirlwind tour but figure we're paying for the convenience vs dealing with booking all the hotels and transportation. We are a family of four (my wife, myself and two kids who will be ages 8 and 7 at the time we plan to go). My wife can speak conversational Mandarin and our kids are learning in their immersion school (I know jack-squat hahaha).

I was thinking how it would be nice to save money by using the itinerary as a baseline and creating our own independent of it. The thing is, my wife is the one who is really gung-ho about this trip (way more than I am) and I don't really want to get in the weeds of planning for something I'm not that interested in. She doesn't really want to deal with the planning/logistics of the hotels and trains either unless there's a really compelling reason to (like saving a ton of money vs going through a tour agency)

Any other tips or recommendations? We are planning to do this tour first then meet up with/visit family in Yantai.

narvik

"She doesn't really want to deal with the planning/logistics of the hotels and trains either unless there's a really compelling reason to..."

I think that answers your question.

I am not one that's particularly keen on organized tours like this, but the alternative is either:
1) lots of time spent organizing/booking/researching, or
2) winging it

#2 can either be amazingly GREAT, or go terribly wrong, and anything in-between; and all that is amplified by having travel companions.

From a rudimentary glance at your itinerary, it all 'seems' okay; the hotels are all nice and have good reviews.
The whole trip might need some tweaking to accommodate the kids a bit more: "An a la carte farewell lunch <snip> at an elegant restaurant." might not be the ideal grand finale for the kids, having just spent quite a few nights already in fancy hotels.

jplee3

Yea, I was wondering how "easy" it is to plan the logistics with travel. I think what compounds this is the fact that we have 2 kids. "Winging it" seems risky with two little ones... if it were just my wife and I, I think we'd be a lot more open to "winging it" or even spending the time to organize/research/book.

We can request for more kid-friendly activities but what are some examples of things you might request from the travel agency to make this more "kid friendly"? At the end of the day, they certainly do appreciate delicious food but "elegant restaurant" doesn't always mean "delicious food" either hahahaha

m.y

It's a very jam packed trip. Forbidden city and Mutianyu on the same day? (Mutianyu is 70km north of downtown Beijing)
Temple of Heaven and Summer palace in half a day? (one is south and one is in the northwest)
It's doable but you'd need to wake up very early and I can't imagine you'd spend much time at each attraction.

If this is once in a life trip, then I think it's fine. But I would stick to 2 cities if you do have plans to visit in the future and spend a little more time.

narvik

Like m.y posted, it's a pretty hectic 8 days.
In years to come, the only thing the kids might remember is the hotel's pool, and how much fun they had there!

jplee3

As far as I'm concerned, I'm looking at this as a once in a lifetime trip and so is my wife. I think she just wants to check it off her "bucket list" and at least say that she's been there. At the same time, it would be nice for the kids to remember as well haha

jplee3

Would you say 1 day should be dedicated each to Forbidden City and Mutianyu?

And for Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace - is there one place you'd just skip or cut out completely (like Temple of Heaven) because of the potential of being an over-visited tourist-trap? It's stuff like that, where I'm looking to see if we can make amendments to the itinerary. E.g. if Temple of Heaven isn't really a big deal, then could we split out Forbidden City, Mutianyu and Summer Palace in two days (3 things instead of 4)?

Great Wall is a huge priority for my wife to do but I don't want for us to be entirely exhausted either... my wife is concerned about the kids being tired from walking around too much - I don't know if that'll be as much of a factor as just being jet-lagged in general and traveling to a TON of different places whether by car, rail, plane, bus, etc...

889

You can easily spend much of a day at the Summer Palace. I love it, but the long walk around the lake might bore some not into Chinese landscapes.

The Temple of Heaven doesn't really compare and can be dropped on a short visit.

jplee3

Not sure I made this clear or how much of a difference it makes but this is a private tour where it's literally just the tour guide and my family. No other parties involved (well, besides the driver presumably)

narvik

That's good. It means the tour guide is probably flexible enough to modify the tour to suit the needs-of-the-day. Most likely you can just ask them if there is something they can suggest for the kids, and they will accommodate.

jplee3

Ah ok... Yea I'm estimate that the cost of DIYing vs using the tour company would likely save a couple thousand (factoring in accommodations and travel)

narvik

Is that in reply to my latest comment? Because if yes, you may have misunderstood.
I'm suggesting to still use the tour company and the tour guide as planned, but just establish a personal relationship whereby you can ask to 'slightly' modify the day[s] to suit your needs.

jplee3

Sort of.... I had started down the rabbit hole of DIY/self-planning after looking at the travel agency's itinerary, and wondering, aside from having more flexibility, what the cost-savings would be just figuring everything out ourselves versus paying for the preset itinerary/plan. The further I look into it, the more I think to myself "we may as well just plan all this stuff out ourselves..." hahaha

moondog

Before there was a dedicated China forum, a lot of people came to FT to ask opinions about (and often follow up with their own post-trip) junkets.

​​​​​​These were definitely a different breed than the bespoke tour you're contemplating, but we often advised the prospective travelers to just dive in even though most of us were DIY types because the value was remarkable (e.g. $1000 pp, all-in).

Most of the negative comments pertained to shopping stops, and being woken by guides at 6a just to eat a disgusting breakfast and jump on a bus. Then, there was a general complaint about the overly full schedules making the experience seem too much like work.

The thing is, all of those issues were easily addressable, even within the rigid constraints of subsidized junkets.

So, in your case, it seems like you have very little to worry about. That having been said, before committing, you might want to message the company with a bit more info about your specific likes/dislikes (e.g. strike TOH, combine forbidden city with somewhere near there instead of mutianyu, restaurants you want to slot in, kid stuff). Presumably, your guides will have had previous experience with tourists like yourself (in addition to those who expect to be fully occupied from sunrise to sunset), so they'll probably be able to accommodate nicely, but if you don't ask, you might not receive (at least during the first day or two).

​​​​

mlin32

I will echo the opinions about it being too rushed, trying to see too much in little time. China is a big country, distances are big; it takes 90mn to simply leave the Beijing métropôle from the city centre, without traffic ! There are finer points and details you will miss. To put things into perspective, I spent 12 days in Beijing and Harbin alone just last month (actually did a short write up on this forum), having self-arranged everything as a first-time solo traveller.

I mean, if it's a sight-seeing tour, then it's fine, I guess. But you will miss the essence and history of such a beautiful country, which in my opinion, defeats the purpose of such a trip. But that's my 0,02 €.

I would go with the tour, but perhaps remove some of the items off the list so you can actually see and learn about the places, instead of just taking a picture and moving on.