I went to the Beijing tour mid April and I thought it was very worth it. The hotels are kinda shitty for supposedly 5-stars (around 3.5 stars with N. American standards)

Usually you start out in the mornings with continental (buffet) breakfast at the hotel, and they take you to tourist attractions (for us it was Tianamen square, Great Wall, etc). After a few hours you go get lunch, and then you go to 'consumer places' for their mandatory walks/introduction speeches. After that, you usually get dinner and then head back to the hotel.

Different groups will go to different places (or in different orders). This also varies from where you book your trip, apparently different travel agencies have different hotel bookings. Prepare to go to places where it is absolutely PACKED.

For us, the consumer stops were for silk, jade, pearls, tea, massages and chinese medicine and the counterfeit good malls :lol

I think if you've never been to Beijing, it would be an excellent first trip because they do take you to popular tourist attractions, and the guide usually goes to get the tickets and does all the work.

@winson604 - actually different countries have the trips offered at different prices. IIRC Australians have to pay more (even tipping they were recommended to pay more than us). I was in a cantonese group, and the guide mentioned it 'should' be $399/person for an english tour group. There were a few people my age that went but had their parents translate because their cantonese was pretty bad.

I had to pay more because my theoretical spending would be more than my that of my parents, I think I had to pay an extra $100cad to cover that. The benefit though, is that I had my own room for the entire trip, even for the hotel at the other city we stayed at.

Oh and what my guide told our group is that you aren't forced to buy anything from the places they bring you, but what is most important is the head count. Take the card/coupon that they give you at the front door, and then feel free to zone out during the tour of the jade factory and stuff :lol

Do you remember some of the hotel names? How much free time did you get?

Hahaha. How can a tour group "fine" you?

i don't know about a " fine" but when i went on this tour, once it was over there was a mandatory tip to the guide and the bus driver ... im not too sure how much it was but i think it was around the 200 mark per person

I don't think there are "fines" to leave the group, but there are tips that you must pay on a daily basis, somewhere between $15-20CAD per day to your tour guide.

Well it's basically in place to ensure people don't just pay $100 and take off from the group doing their own shiet thus having a hotel for $100/week.

The tip thing is nothing new, anybody who has ever been on a tour knows there's the tip thing at the end.

im currently in china with family,
the tour groups i see comming and going from the hotels every day make me laugh, they leave before i roll out of bed, and they get back when me and my brother are down at the nearby KTV places hitting on women who treat you like a god.
its soooo cheap here i cant imagine why anyone would get on one of those godawful tour busses, a day tour for 7 of us in a private van, with a driver and an english speaking tour guide is about 250 RMB ($40CAD) per person for a whole day of sightseeing, they arent as pushy with the sales stuff, because its more important for them that you hire them the next day as well, then whatever kickbacks their cousin that owns the jade shop is giving them to drag some cheap tourists through

the other nice thing about the private tours, is its usually cute girls 21-25 who speek pretty good chinglish and arent uncomfortable around handsome white devils

im super white, well groomed and fit, and being here makes me feel like brad pitt. my advice for people who are thinking of doing china for real, book NICE hotels, because nice by chinese standards can be kinda.... go with someone who speaks mandarin (even better if they are chinese) dont take taxis from the airport, and try and try and be somewhere where theres a car show or home show going on the women you see on the street and in the clubs are so-so, but if you go to a place where theres models they are banging hot and are more than happy to "practice their english, and show you around the town"

^^
Pretty much what we did. I went Beijing for the first time back in April with my gf and another couple. 2 out of the 4 of us can speak Mandarin which helps. We hired a private tour guide who came highly recommended through a friend for 3 days and it was hella dirt cheap per person, yes around $40 or so. We saw at least 3-4 sites each day, no rush no fuss. She even came on her own time without charging us a dime just to walk us around to do other sites and the driver even drove us to a bar to watch the Canucks game on his day off for free. The $100 is definitely cheap but for me I've always hated tours, being rushed, being in a big group etc. Usually it's the parents that love it because they don't want to be lost going around themselves, it's hassle free etc but not for me thanks.

How do you usually find these private tours?
Word of mouth? Or do you just find them...after you arrive locally?

in beijing we just asked the bell-hop to set it up for us haha, and that worked out very well, everyone in the tourism industry has a "cousin" that can get whatever you want really. im sure there is kickbacks for these guys setting you up, the prices from the hotel were outrageous but the staff wasnt shy about getting you set up with another company

then when we hit harbin my older brother and his wife took us around to the cool spots, like the tiger park (fucking awesome, has to be seen to be believed) and some crazy monk mountain with incredible views in a nearby "village" (still had over a million people)

for guilin my brothers wife's "cousin" runs a travel agency in Harbin, so he gave her a number for a tour group to take care of us

and now that we are in xi'an my brothers wife just went on to the chinese ebay and found us a company.
getting the english guide is totally worth it, as there isnt alot of english in the museums etc, so you dont take away alot of the info unless theres someone there to tell you all the stories

when i get home ill post pictures and list out where we went etc, internet is way to gay here to bother

For me it was simply one of those I knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody kind of things. The sweetest part of our 3 days with the tour guide and driver was we started talking to the driver about real local food. Not shiet you can find by going out but the real local village stuff they cook at home. He said you want to try? Hells yea, so on the way back from the Great Wall we took a detour into his village which was pretty ghetto but who gives a fuck. Went to eat with his family and it was pretty fucking awesome.

yeah, you gotta just man up and try some of the scary street food

some of its reallygood,

I wouldn't worry about it. If it's $100 CDN that is actually a lot of money. I know someone that went on a tour that was like 120 dollars HKD..thats like less than$20 dollars CDN to ..INCLUDING food and accommodation..and apparently it was alright..lol...

Anyone else go on this tour?

sorry to bump, but heading to HK in July and looking for tours in China. From what I gather, you either get these "private guides" either from word of mouth or if you're lucky, a good hotel staff.

My question is has anyone done this from HK? Or is this all done from China? For those of you who did this, do you have any contact information lying around for the hotels you stayed at? Just caught this thread after thinking about booking a bus tour, but this private thing seems way better.

Same, doing a bit of a hop across China and Taiwan this year.

Any tips for trying to find private tours in China? I know literally no one in China but I do know a few friends in Taipei.

Some places I plan to stop at; Taipei, HK, Macau, Shanghai, Beijing, Changsha and possibly Zhuhai.

my parents are going on this tour next week. winson gave a pretty good description already but ill update this if my parents tell me anything else.

Ah man I knew I could count on RS to hand me a reality check. This will probably be one of the last times I'll be going on a family vacation anyways...

Apparently 3-4 times of the week we'll have to visit a factory for 3 to 4 hours. Waking up at 6ish to leave by 7 seems brutal for a vacation...@winson604 - you nailed it man, parents and oldies love these tour things haha

Any RSer's going on on this china trip during april-may?

why is the china trip government sponsored? do they have japan trips that are government sponsored.
who qualifies for it