Testimonial

Hi, Virginia
 You definitely can use our e-mail address for a contact if someone is interested in using China Highlights.  We had a wonderful time in Beijing.  We felt like celebrities with our own private car and driver, and Jay, our wonderful tour guide.  She was about the age of one of our daughters (30), but she looked out for us like a mother hen.  She has a fabulous sense of humor, and really knew her history.  She would put much of it in story form, which made it all the more interesting.  The restaurants she took us to were so good that I will probably never eat Chinese food that good again.

Jay met us at the port where our cruise ship docked and she and the driver took us to Beijing.  The cost was much less than Princess cruise wanted for their three day tour.  Plus, on their tour you were on a bus with about 40 other people.  With China Highlights it was just my husband and I, our driver and the tour guide.  They had an itinerary for us, but we could change it or add to it as we wanted to.  We could take as much time at one place or as little time as we wanted to.  We spent three weeks on a cruise starting in Bangkok, but I have to say the time we spent in Beijing with Jay as our tour guide was the highlight of our vacation.

Our driver was excellent.  Believe me, as an American, you do  not want to try and drive on your own in Beijing.  It is a bit different than the way we drive, which added to the adventure of it all.

Our favorite attraction was definitely the Great Wall.  We took a gondola up to the wall, where we walked for about two hours.  We could have gone longer, it was up to us.  We decided on the toboggans to ride down from the wall.  That was a lot of fun too.
 
We highly recommend China Highlights.  We were a little worried about booking with a tour company in another country that we knew nothing about, but we are so glad we did.  Your company lived up to everything they said they would do and so much more.  There are times in your life when magic happens.  That is how we felt about our three days in Beijing.
 
P.S. Travel Tip:  There is no toilet paper in public bathrooms - take your own tissue.
 
Janis and Richard  

Dear Virginia:
We really wanted to express our thanks to you and your organization for putting together such a wonderful trip in your Country.
Everything about the trip was FIRST CLASS. The guides were pleasant and knowledgeable, always on time, and fun to be with (especially Eileen in Beijing) We were amused that the drivers were always Mr....and the guides were first name basis. It was so nice to be taken care of in such a big country, we could not have done it on our own!
We are sorry to have missed meeting you in Guilin, but realize you were tied up.  
To sum it up, everything was perfect, the only suggestion we might make was to allow a little more free time to just look around and do a little shopping.
Thanks again to you and all the nice young people on your team.
Kindest regards, 

Fran and Dave

Hi Sunny,
 
The most memorable attraction we visited were Xian/Beijing especially terracotta warrior sites and museums. For Beijing it is the forbidden city/tiananmen square because of historical/cultural importance of it.
 
CHRISTINA at Xian is our best guide. she's major in history so she knows how to tell us the story of its importance in history to make it more interesting. Compared to Allen, who is our Beijing tour guide, he's not strong historically or does not mention historical significance of it. She is flexible when my sister got ill she knows to stop pushing and we went back to the hotel and cut our tour short.
 
I think we would like to recommend your tour company highly. Overall our experiences with all the arrangements are wonderful esp. the wrap up part of the birthday cake was a surprise since it made our day brighter since that day there was alot of travelling. For places to visit I think the terracotta museum was my best vote and restaurant would be the one in yuyuan garden Lau something with all the nice dumplings/soup dumplings got my best test b uds. bizzarre food in bejing we went on our own with regular food stand that has all bizarre food in night time is a do not miss food as well.

YES I am overall very happy with china hightlight (despite the fact we hated the cruise yangtze by president). Overall, I think the coordination was well planned. Enough transit time and no hassle. Yes I would be happy to talk to potential customer since it is hard to get the feel seeing just the webpage. I think I also was scared to pay so much money for our trip to some unknown person in guilin, like a gamble but it worked since the company lived up to its promise. Also nice that sunny called me on the phone to ensure that there's a legitimate company and likely not to cheat.
 
OVERALL, we are very pleased with guides/drivers as a group they are great! They are reliable and trustworthy people and I hope they find their profession interesting and fun. I hope we did tip them enough for their services for the trip. We would go with chinahighlight again next year since my mother really enjoyed the trip!

Cheers for you Sunny

Vilasinee

Hi Michael,

We had a wonderful time in Beijing, thanks in most part to our wonderful guide and driver.

Without a doubt, The Great Wall was the most memorable attaction. I still am amazed that I actually was on the Great Wall. Even though it was a holiday weekend and there were crowds, once we were on the wall we had plenty of room to walk and take photos. A definite highlight of our entire trip.

Vivian our guide in Beijing, was wonderful. She was charming and always on time. She never stopped smiling and you couldn't help but be happy when she was around. She was able to make minor adjustments when she could see that we were lagging just a bit from all the walking. She spoke great English and even taught us a few Chinese words. I really liked that she would tell us names in Chinese and have us try to repeat her words. We had many laughs and I would highly recommend her for any future tourists. She was also able to work in a couple of extra stops (photo stop at Olympic venues which we really appreciated) and a stop at the silk factory, probably because we had not spent a lot of time hiking the Great Wall. Also, our driver was wonderful. That traffic was amazing yet our driver was always waiting for us and always got us where we needed to go and was also timely. When a car cut him off on one of the streets, he apologized profusely to us, and it wasn't even his fault. He never lost his temper in all that holiday traffic and was amazingly calm.

Yes--all meals were great. Which ones did you enjoy most? Hard to say as we enjoyed all the meals and each had something a little different, even if it was just a different spice. We mentioned to Vivian at our first meal that we really liked the soup and she ordered that for us at another lunch--she really paid attention to what we liked. If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be the restaurant near the Great Wall where we tried the toasted fish and other dishes, but I also liked the little out-of-the way places that tourists would not regularly go to, like the first day when we went to the small restaurant in the hutong area. While we had to try the Peking Duck Dinner, it was good and something we had to do, but I liked the small restaurants best.

Also, Michael, thanks for all your help. I think one of the reasons that I booked with your company is that you were always so prompt with responding to e-mails and very easy to correspond with. I let others on our ship know how pleased we were with your company as a couple of them indicated that they had guides that were not that great. We also have a friend who is a travel agent and I usually forward to him any companies that we use and really like so if he has clients he can recommend them.
 
Thanks once again for all your help! .

Steve and Fran Susman

Hi Karen:

So sorry for the delay in getting back to you. There were so many things to do upon returning! We took 3400 pictures between the two of us and going through all of them along with other duties was quite a task. And, I had a medical emergency which isn’t quite fixed yet… (nothing to do with the trip)

We LOVED the trip. We talk about some aspect of it every day. I ordered a couple of books on China to read more and learn more. 

I have made a slide show and did a trial run of it, showing it to my mother in law, narrating it with the stories we experienced. It is now ready to show to more people (even though it is still about 400 pictures long! – Well, we WERE there for 18 days and saw a LOT of things!!!)

Anyway, here are some random thoughts…

We loved all the guides. We spent the most time with Lola, so we got to know her better than the others, and she was just wonderful.

Our favorite hotel was the one in Guilin (Osmanthus Hotel), mostly because of the beautiful river view from our window. But the city of Yangshuo was gorgeous and we would have liked to spend more time there (if only we didn’t have to go back to our responsibilities back home!)

Everything was great, there were no bad surprises. I think the pre-trip planning had something to do with this. We talked about a lot of things before we decided on what we did.

I think our favorite days were those we spent outside. Such as on the Li River cruise. What stunning scenery! And Lola kept pointing out things of interest (such as the mountain view that is depicted on the 20 Yuan bill) Of course we got our picture taken with that in the background! And also the bike ride was awesome. Lola took us on a different route and there were pretty much no other tourists. We were alone with the farmers, the animals and the scenery. The walk around the Longsheng Terraced Field was also wonderful. Such scenery, and such colorful people (the costumes and shops). Fuli village was also a treat, to be able to see a part of China where most tourists don’t go.

One other traveler commented on the hardness of the beds. Yes, we noticed that, too. But I found that the harder beds actually made my back feel better! 

The Terra Cotta warriors were something everybody should see. It was just amazing. And Ricky, our guide, who had majored in history in college, was just a wealth of knowledge and really made the tours so much more interesting with all the little facts he knew.

For the special offer:

Cooking Class: This was very fun. The walk through the local market was enlightening. We saw some foods that we are not familiar with and it was very interesting to learn about them. We picked out 3 dishes to cook. We noticed with this meal (and all other meals we had in China) that a LOT of food is put in front of people. We cooked 3 dishes when one would have fed us both. So there was some wasted food… We have made some of the recipes a few times since we got home (I have made dumplings several times, and we have experimented with different meat, vegetable, spice combinations cooked in our wok.) What fun.

Hot-air Balloon free flight ride: Awesome. Stunning scenery seen from above. Absolutely gorgeous.

Cormorant Fishing: This one turned out to be wonderful, but it didn’t start out that way. I think if I knew what to expect I would have felt different at the beginning. I didn’t realize the viewing would be at night (so I couldn’t get any pictures of the actual fishing), and if you were not on the right side of the boat (I was on the left side) you really couldn’t see what was going on anyway. Since I am all about taking pictures of my experiences, I was disappointed. But then we docked and got out and talked to the fisherman and got some photos on the shore and my attitude did a turn-around. Much better. I think if I had known what was going to happen (don’t freak out about not being able to get pictures during the boat ride because it will be dark and you won’t be able to…) I could have relaxed and looked forward to the “on shore” part of it. Perhaps the write-up on your website (which I can’t find now…) should say something to that effect. The “on shore” part of it was great. We got to ask the fisherman questions (like where do they get their birds—turns out the birds are raised in captivity just for the purpose of fishing—and how long do they live, how much fish can they catch, and we found that the ring around their necks only prevents them from swallowing the bigger fish, they can still swallow smaller fish, so they don’t starve :-) It was fascinating.

We also did 2 things not on the schedule – visited a tea farm (informative and fun-we were treated to a tea ceremony and bought some tea along with instructions on how to prepare it) and the Light show in Yangshuo (directed by one of the gentlemen who did the ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics---stunning.)

Thanks again!
Theressa

Dear Karen,

We have returned home and thank you for an exquisite holiday, backed by a sate of the art organization.
We have enjoyed all of the visiting, and impressed by all of the local guides. Specially Mr. He in Lijiang, he is great guy, non-intrusive, discreet, honest and vertical person, full of interesting (and sought for) cultural details.

We are ok for all of the meals.I would replace the spicy lunch in XiAn (a nearby village, actually) with one with traditional XiAn muslim food (mutton soup with shredded pancakes etc). It would make the experience more place-related, I guess. However, the spicy lunch was very tasty and we enjoyed a lot the restaurant’s genuine and merry atmosphere. 

Here i would like to share one information (probabaly it is useful for you)--The Foreign Books Book Store on JiuJiang Lu (?) Street. A street full of bookstores, a huge library and this so precious foreign language bookstore. I found here, at a very good price and in a conveniently small format, in English, the complete versions of Chinese classics I was looking for - Journey to the West, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Dream of the Red Mansion.

For shopping, at Shanghai, i have bought complete set of bed sheets and some blouses in the factory, but i think they were overprice when i saw similar production at anther shop. We made this exception and we were sorry for the uncomfortable feelings we got.

Over all, it was nice trip, thanks!

Alina

Dear Jean,

The most memorable attraction we visited was the Great Wall Jinshaling to Simatai hike which was absolutely fabulous.  It was strenuous and tiring but well worth the time.

Both guides were very good and very well versed in the history of the country.  Jay was outstanding in our minds as she was very funny and didn’t take herself seriously.

For the hotels, we chose the them ourselves and they were all very good.  The food at the restaurants in Beijing was very good at all restaurants.  The Quanjude restaurant felt a bit rushed.  Our favorite was the meal in the man’s home in the hutong area.  The Xian restaurants food was fairly salty and while good in some cases , was not up to the same standards as what we had in Beijing.

For those who are going to China, please be aware of fake money (we ended up with some, not sure how)  and Jay was great in showing us how to tell the difference.  The acrobat show was awesome in Beijing and the biking on the wall in Xian is not to be missed.

Hi Virginia,
 
I just wanted to thank you so very much!!  We all had an absolutely wonderful time on the tour.  Jane was a joy, and her energy kept us all going, even when ours was down to the last.  Her knowledge about the area and all the sights we went to was phenomenal, and her sense of humor was fabulous.  In addition, we all felt as safe as babies with Mr. Hao behind the wheel of the tour bus.  We could not have asked for better escorts or a more entertaining and informative trip.  We will all remember this as one of the best vacations we have ever had, largely as a result of the efforts put forth by Jane, Mr. Hao, and yourself as well.  We sincerely appreciate everything you and your group did to make sure we had a great trip.  I wish you could have joined us - again, we had a terrific time!
 
Thank you again, and the next trip we take in China, rest assured that I will be sending you an email!  I will make sure to forward you some pictures as soon as I have them all organized - we sure did take a lot of them!
 
Thank you, thank you!!
 
Shannon

Dear Michael,

We were thought that the Great Wall of China was the most memorable attraction we have visited. Ielleen our tour guides in Beijing was very personable and Jing in Xi’an was very informative.  I really enjoyed Ielleen and my girlfriend really enjoyed Jing.  Both were great.

Both hotels were fantastic, Days Inn in Beijing was in a great location. However, be sure to recommend to your travelers not to visit China during National Day.  It was very busy.

Regards,

Yours Theo.

Dear Virginia,
 
We arrived home Tuesday morning very early with an extremely long flight behind us.  It is wonderful being back home but Edward and I are suffering from jet lag.  We are still on China time.  
 
Our trip was absolutely wonderful.  You made it even better.  We really appreciated the upgrades on our rooms, the little box of candy, the cake from the hotel and the roses at the hotel.  We are so extremely impressed with China Highlights, which is why we have traveled using you 3 times in the past.  You know that we wanted to bring our little neice this past time but it just didn't work out so I know we will eventually be coming back to China again.  You can bet that we will be using China Hightlights for our next trip as well.
 
This trip the most memorable attraction was the Panda Breeding Research Center, primarily because that is the first time we have been there.  Everything about China is so wonderful to us, that as you can tell, by us coming back so many times, we love it!!
 
We were very pleased with mostly all our tour guides.  Kevin was our guide in Shanghai, although we didn't really do any touring since we had already been there before and done our touring then.  But even as we came and went to the airport, he was good about pointing out the stadium or center you would be using for the Expo in 2010 and numerous other sights around Shanghai. 

Mark was our guide in Guillin/Yangshou.  This is the second time that he has been our guide.  I am sorry to say that I was not impressed with him and he still need improvements compared to the above ones.

Jane was our guide in Chengdu.  She was very kind, especially since Edward caught a flu bug, most likely from eating too spicy of food for the day.  He still went on the  tour of the Big Buddha as well as the breeding center but he wasn't really feeling so good.  She was understanding of him.  She also was very knowledgeable about the area and the many sights to see.  She stayed with us at the airport until we got on the plane since our plane was delayed a couple of hours.  We really appreciated that since we don't speak Chinese and she could guide us through the waiting process at the airport.
 
Ying was our guide in Xian.  She was very nice, spoke exceptional English and was very knowledgeable about the city.  We enjoyed her stories and had no problem understanding her at all.
 
Linda was our guide in Beijing.  We thoroughly enjoyed her.  She was extremely kind about giving us her phone number to call her anytime.  We only really needed her the one day for the Great Wall but since we have been to Beijing 3 times previously, we could manage pretty much on our own.  She still made it quite clear that she was available if we needed her.  She was a joy!
 
Breakfasts were fantastic.  I loved the fact that we could mix our western food and still eat Chinese food every morning.  My husband absolutely loved the noodles, dumplings, fried rice and more.  Lunches were a little spicy for me.  I was a little afraid of getting a flu bug so I tried to stay away from the real spicy food.  Our guides were wonderful about ordering us food that wasn't too spicy.
 
The hotels were absolutely wonderful.  We were upgraded a  couple of times and appreciate that very much.  Park Plaze is the hotel we stayed at in Beijing.  I would highly reccommend it to any of your clients.  They are top notch and the location is phenominal.  The staff there is extremely nice and friendly. This is the second time we have stayed there.  I would definintely recommend that to your clients to make their stay in China as wonderful as ours was.  The beds were a little hard for us in a couple of the places but the silk bedspreads or comforters were wonderful.  I think I am mad at myself for not purchasing one of those to bring home with me.  They were soft and felt very good next to our skin.
 
As for recommending China Highlights to our friends;  we have done that already.  All our our friends and coworkers have inquired about our vacation and we just can't say enough good stuff about China Highlights.  Your company is so accomodating to our schedules.  It is very nice to travel with you.
 
I have no problem with you using us as a reference.  Please feel free to send my email off to your potential clients.
 
Thank you, again, for all your hard work and for making our stay in China another wonderful vacation!!!
 
Sincerely,
 
Melanie