Good but Need Some Improvements
Overall it was a good experience. I would use China Highlights again. 1. Planning: Carol was very flexible, accommodating, and patient with all the changes and requests. We have young children and seniors on this trip so a lot of changes and planning were needed. Communication was good given the time difference so make sure to give yourself plenty of time on the planning part. 2. Hotels: Great hotels and locations. We chose 5-star hotels and all the ones picked were good except for the last hotel in Beijing. It wasn't the best and I'd want to see other options from China Highlights. That hotel was a 4-star (could be less in my opinion) and I had requested 5-stars only. I don't know if that is an oversight or what was available. The location was great though. 3. Activities: This area needs some improvement. Some activities were either not open/available on the day that it was planned or not appropriate for my family. This is where the local tour guides really did a great job at last-minute changes or suggested other activities that would work better for my family. The local tour guides and drivers were truly amazing! 4. Locations: Guilin, Yangshou, Shanghai, Beijing 5. Execution: The final itinerary needs more information that would have helped foreigners. For example, bullet trains don't provide tickets. You use your passport to scan in. The seat location, train number, etc is with the agent and not provided until the last minute or sometimes not provided at all. This was a HUGE issue for us when we took the train from HK to Guilin. We almost missed our train because the information was not clear on how to get through the terminal, boarding information was different than the final itineray provided, many steps/paperwork to get through immigration. Another example is at Disneyland in Shanghai. I was told and confirmed that tickets were purchased but once we were there, tickets were not available. It caused about an hour delay at the ticket area for the agency to resolve the issue. 6. Communication/Emergency Response: Very quick and responsive from Carol and local tour guides but make sure that you have Wechat or local phone line otherwise this would have been very difficult.