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Client: Allison
Nationality: New Zealand
Group Code: TCT-RW-FIT-150102
Pax: 2
Itinerary: Taipei-Guilin-Xian-Harbin-Shanghai
Dear Tina Chan,
Thank you for writing. I am happy to share my experience and thoughts on my tour with Top China Travel.
My overall experience with Top China Travel was quite good. Our tour advisor Rebecca was very helpful and knowledgeable during the planning process, and she made good recommendations for hotels and activities. She responded quickly to my requests and changes, and she alerted me to last-minute changes such as the need to change a flight and a hotel.
During my trip, I had three tour guides. One was excellent and one was very good. Unfortunately the third guide did not meet my expectations, and I would recommend that you do not use her for English-speaking tourists in the future.
More details about the guides are below, as well as my ideas on how TCT could improve its service, and my tour highlights. Most of my comments are positive, but I hope you will read everything and consider my ideas when you plan future trips.
General Ideas for TCT Tours
►Tour guides should provide a bottle of water to each guest when they are picked up for the day's touring. We cannot drink the tap water, and it is not always convenient to purchase bottles before the day's activities. ►All tours should use comfortable, spacious vans, which have room for luggage to/from airport and give guests room to relax during longer drives. Vans are also better than regular cars in avoiding car sickness. (See comments below on my bad experience with the car in Harbin.)
►Tour guides should write down their English and Chinese names, along with their phone number, for guests. It is sometimes difficult to understand their names when spoken (most guides just said their name once, with an accent), so seeing it written would help. Also, it is good to have a phone number in case there is an urgent need to reach them.
►At the end of the Guilin/Yangshuo tour, our guide asked me to complete a form with my comments on the tour, hotels, and restaurants. I thought it was for Top China Travel, but the other two guides did not provide forms. You may want to have each guide do this. It was an easy way to provide feedback on hotels and restaurants. Of course, I would not want to comment on the guides through this form because they could read it.
Tour Highlights
►Biking in Yangshuo. I am not comfortable on bikes, but this was easy and wonderful. Not just a highlight from Guilin/Yangshuo but a highlight of our entire trip!
►The Impressions Liu Sanjie show on the Li River (I believe that Rebecca had suggested the show to me, but she had not described it. Once our guide told me it was created by Zhang Yimou and had such a large cast, I wanted to go. It was wonderful! I suggest that you recommend it to all clients and explain that it is by the director of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony (as everyone knows about that, even if they don't know his films). ►The Terracotta Warriors
►Walls of the Xian Old City (I would have spent more time and would like to have biked around the wall, but we did not have time because of the change in our flight from Guilin.)
►Seeing the Harbin Ice Festival at night
Comments about Tour Guides
"Annie" in Guilin& Yangshuo (I believe she said her Chinese name is Ganling)
Positive Comments:
►She was knowledgeable.
►Her English was very good. She had a good sense of humor and laughed a lot.
►She gave us bottled water for our tour each day.
►She made very good recommendations for (and then organised) additional activities, including the cable car in Guilin and the Impressions Liu Sanjie show in Yangshuo. ►She helped us get SIM cards for our phones.
►The van Annie used was comfortable and spacious, and the driver was good.
What Could Have Been Better:
►She needs to talk less. The only time she stopped talking to us was if she had a phone call! We had no time to relax and enjoy the scenery while driving because she was always talking. It was exhausting.
►When our morning flight from Guilin was cancelled and our schedule re-arranged for a late afternoon flight, Annie decided that we would leave Yangshuo early and have lunch (which was included in the tour cost) at the Guilin airport. This meant we would be at the airport for four hours, which is not acceptable. We did not travel to China to be in an airport. At our insistence, she changed the schedule so we could stay in Yangshuo through lunch and then drive to the airport in Guilin. We should not have to insist on this, though. She was very helpful in getting us a refund from TCT for the lunch, since we ended up buying our own lunch in Yangshuo.
"Jean" in Xian (She did not share her Chinese name)
Positive Comments:
►Her English was excellent.
►She knows a lot about history and was eager to share information and answer questions.
►Although she provided a lot of information, when we were in the car she often was quiet and let us enjoy the scenery and relax.
►I really enjoyed talking with her. I felt like I learned a lot about Chinese culture through her. I highly recommend her for other tourists.
►She bought us persimmon cakes in the Muslim Quarter so we could try one of her favorite treats. This was very nice of her, and the cake was so good!►She was very organised and thoughtful. She gave the hotel her phone number in case we needed to reach her. Also, she checked us into our flight the night before we left, so it made our time at the airport much faster.
►The van Jean used was comfortable and spacious, and the driver was good.
What Could Have Been Better:
►There were bottles of water in the car, but she didn't offer them to us so we didn't know if they were for us. We finally asked if we could have the water, and she gave it to us, but she still never told us if they were meant for us!
"Geri" in Harbin (She did not share her Chinese name)
Positive Comments:
►She was very nice. She was a bit like a mother or aunt, holding my arm and making sure I did not fall on the ice!
►She was helpful, especially at places where the staff did not speak much English. She ordered us a humidifier at the hotel, and ordered vegetarian food at a restaurant.
►Her spoken English was reasonable for explaining the basic details that she normally explains to tourists.
►She was good at engaging use when we went to St Sofia Church: She asked us questions about some of the photos on display, and she convinced me to feed to the pigeons (which turned out to be fun!).
What Could Have Been Better:
►Both Geri and the driver were disorganized and unprepared. They did not seem to know where anything was located. (I think they stopped to ask someone for directions to our hotel!) Also, unlike the previous guides, Geri did not know that Michael was a vegetarian. It was as if they were hired to guide us only a few minutes before we arrived.
►Geri's English abilities were limited. She clearly did not understand many of the questions we asked, and thus could not answer.
►She did not explain the tour schedule. We never knew what we were doing next. When we arrived in Harbin, she brought us directly from the airport to tour a snow sculpture park. We thought we were going to the hotel and would have a chance to put on warm clothing before going out. If she had told us when she met us at the airport, we could have changed there. Instead, we were trying to find our warm clothing in our suitcases while stopped on the street by the park. ►She never offered us any water, even though we spent a lot of time in the car.
►The ice show on our schedule was cancelled, so as an alternative she bought us tickets for a "dog sled ride". This was a one-minute ride for children. It was so stupid! This is not an alternative to seeing a show. It would have been better to buy us tickets for a ride down the ice slide, which she knew we wanted to do.
►During our drive to an activity, she said she needed make a stop to pick up our tickets, but she and the driver clearly did not know where to go. We drive in circles for 30 – 45 minutes until they could find the location. It seemed to be someone's house rather than a place to get tickets, so I am not sure we really stopped for any reason related to our tour.
►On our way to the airport for our flight out, Geri told us that we had to stop to pick up one of her students to give her a ride to the airport. This was a surprise! We expected to go straight to the airport. Instead, we drove in circles until they found the location to meet the student, and then we waited 15 minutes because she was late. We had rushed through our breakfast to leave for the airport on time, only to sit in a car and wait, while worrying that we might not get to the airport in time for our flight. This was not professional.
►The car was small and uncomfortable. We had two large suitcases (we were away from home for a month). When Geri met us as the airport, only one suitcase fit in the trunk so the one other went in the back seat with us. It blocked our view and gave us no space to move. When we returned to the airport for our flight out, the driver had cleared out the trunk so both our bags fit – but of course that was only because they needed the extra space to give Geri's student a ride.
China Travel Advisor
Life is a journey with an unknown destination,which is the most attractive factor of travel.You will never know what happen next. Life full fills with surprise and adventure, so does travel. The tour is that raod of knowlege.So,I am Rebecca,who is always smiling and outgoing, take all your romantic and adventure spirit, and I will get the rest ready for your trip. Follow me, follow your heart, the world is at your feet.
