this is a rip-off. do not book a china tour with this outfit. we booked through jane chen.
We were promised 4-5 star hotels: what we got was a nightmare hotel called "hot spring leisure city" or something like that; difficult to tell since there is no english translation.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294212-d1123963-Reviews-Hot_Spring_Leisure_City_Huwan_Hotel-Beijing.html
this is a low class chinese hotel trying to pass as a water park. disgusting floors, carpets, bathrooms, poor service, leaking roof, and bad smell. Need to wear sandals in the showers because they are so filthy and disgusting. The beds feel like cardboard on top of wood. At night, the hall way lights are turned completely off so that you cannot see. the rooms are not vacuumed at night; owners are chinese, and trying to save money. the people at the hotel are horrible. probably way underpaid, and abused which they take out on the hotel customers. the location of the hotel is very far from the city of beijing, in basically a slum. you would not feel safe walking around the hotel. Oh, and there were used condoms in the room when we first got there.
the shopping tours which they divert you to take up more than half the day; complete waste of time with rip off prices. Very little time spent at legitimate tourist sites; 30 - 45 minutes only at sites such as the Great Wall and Olympic Village. What a joke. this is a complete fraud.
you are not getting what you pay for, you are getting ripped off. driving to the places takes up hours of the day; you then spend hours there at the shopping rip offs; and hours driving back to the lousy hotel. If you have children, like we did, they especially single you out for bad treatment. That's because children don't buy anything, and occupy their parents who could otherwise be buying something.
this is not government sponsored. there is no such thing. the government in fact frowns on these tours as rip offs and banned these types of outfits from claiming they are government sponsored.
They promise 4-5 star hotels. In reality, they did not give us an itinerary until the day before we left. Presumably so you cannot look up the hotels where you are staying. What kind of business does this?? The hotels you ultimately end up staying at are not 4-5 star; more like 1-2 stars, and typically very far away from the City centers.
Typically, you would wake up very early, eat a crappy breakfast, and then on the bus. Go to a site for a very short time, 45 minutes, then drive for a very long time to a shopping excursing; the drive to the shopping and shopping excursion would then take hours; they would then drive to another site for another brief period, then to another shopping excursion for hours on end. Rinse, repeat.
Get the hotel very late, eat the slop they pass for food, bedtime, and same thing the next morning. Its like shopping boot camp.
The meals included are basically slop, without any variety. This is not good Chinese food; what they feed you is what the local eat as a maintenance diet. Bony fish, watered down sauted vegetable dish, etc., etc. One day, they raved about the Peking Duck we were going to have for dinner. The piece of duck was smaller than your pinky, and you got one piece.
young child had an accident on the bus because of the unhygienic food. parents cleaned up the bus for 3 hours, and they wanted to charge them for a new airconditioning unit!!!!! this is typical of the 'tour'; everywhere you turn, they have their hand out demanding money.
they entice you with the low price and promise of 5 star accommodations, which is a complete lie. avoid avoid avoid!!!!! contemplating legal action against these crooks.
you can do so much better booking by yourself. this is a nightmare.
Oh, and we were promised bilingual English speaking tour guides, but the guides only speak Chinese.
Actually, the guides spoke English, but refused to speak and interpret in English. One guide actually introduced himself initially as a part time English interpreter; however, on the tours, he refused to translate anything into English.
This was supposed to be a tour to show our children China and to give them pride in being Chinese. They now hate China, and never want to return.
How to improve?? Don't lie to people about the tour. Tell them they will be staying at cheap low class hotels, and most of your time will be spent traveling to and at various rip off shopping excursions, and not actually seeing legitimate tourist sites. If that's your idea of a bargain vacation, go for it. Otherwise avoid this and any other type of shopping vacation.
Oh, and don't believe the schills who are criticizing my review. I'm pretty sure its the owner.
This review is limited to China travel shopping tours booked through this agency.
I don't know if they can get you cheap airline tickets or whatever, but they have to take responsibility. read more
