Excellent company and excellent tour.
We (a group of 6 friends) have just returned from a tour of China organised by Nora of China Culture Tours. Below is our response to the company's questionnaire. We visited Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Guilin, Hangzhou and Shanghai. The tour was well organised, the guides were very knowledgeable and spoke really good English, the hotels we used were really good and the food throughout was plentiful and tasty. 1. We have decided that the WOW on our tour included, The Great Wall, Reed Flute Cave and the visit to the family/dumpling making. The Karst scenery around Guilin was quite spectacular. It was also good to meet you. 2. It is very difficult to pick out one outstanding guide. Each of the guides had there own way of interacting with the group and all were knowledgeable. If we have to list the best, then perhaps we would have scored Cory, Clark and Jin slightly higher than the others, but this maybe because we spent more time with them. 3. We were all delighted with the food, both in the quality and amount. In all cases, there was always plenty for us all to eat. Breakfasts were varied, with both western and Chinese foods on offer and in general were very good. The only disappointing breakfast was at the Mountain Retreat, where we thought it was a little limited. As far as hotels are concerned, they were all very good and were in really good locations. It is very difficult to pick out one above others, as the city hotels were so different from the more boutique style hotels. The Aroma Tea House in Guilin was particularly nice and had lovely views from the window. 4. Tell the guides what you like to eat and leave them to order the food for you. They always know best and introduce you to local delicacies and don't forget to ask for the local beers, they all vary in colour and tastes. 5. The train travel was really good and is an efficient way to get between cities. Our suggestion is to take plenty of food and drink onboard with you for the journey. Additionally, it is our suggestion that you should not travel on the trains with aerosol sprays, knives, scissors or any bottles of shaving foam/deodorant/perfumes etc over 120ml in size. We were stopped at Hangzhou going to Shanghai and had lots of things confiscated from our bags. Maybe you could issue a warning to future passengers not to take any of the above. 6.We found your company on the internet and finally decided to use you on price, content of the tour, inclusions of travel/hotels/food/guides and most important to us was no free time during the daytime. We wanted to be busy at all times during the day, with free time during the evenings only. 7. We would be delighted to provide references to any potential customers and you have our contact details.