1. I have never purchase any tours directly from China Online, What are the Procedures for Online Reservation?
(It is very important for you to know) (Please click here to learn more about the Online Reservation Procedures)
TOP
2. What is a package tour?
We provide many elaborately designed China highlights tour packages and some special tour packages. All these are fully escorted packages. When you arrive in each city, our professional tour guide, who will speak your language, and a private air-conditioned car or coach, with driver, will meet you at the airport. They will be at your service for the duration of your tour, and will transfer you to the airport (or train station) when you are leaving for your next destination. For some packages it might be organized for you to take part in a sit-in-coach (SIC) city tour. This will be in an air-conditioned coach and you will have a tour guide who will speak your language.
TOP
3. Are your tour packages customizable (tailor-made)?
Yes, all the packages we offer are customizable to meet your satisfaction. We know every one wants something different, so we don’t mind amending your itinerary as many times as you require.
TOP
4. How long before the tour beginning date do I need to make the reservation?
Late reservations can not be guaranteed for the hotel rooms and tour prices, especially tours during the high season. We usually suggest our clients make reservations at least two months before the departure date. If you come to China in September or October, we recommend you make the reservations three months prior to your departure date.
TOP
5. What is “high season”?
“High season” refers to the part of a year when the weather conditions and other elements for traveling are very good. This means that there are more people traveling than at other times. It is the busiest time for the hotels, airlines, and travel agencies. All hotels are overbooked. If you plan to go traveling during the high season, you need to make the reservation two to three months prior to your departure date. In China, May, September and October are defined as the high season by most of the hotels, airlines and travel agencies.
TOP
6. How can you pay?
Because the Internet infrastructures are not completed yet, we presently can not processing online payment. But with the cooperation of Bank of China, we now can charge your credit card SAFELY. Please check out the easy steps for the payment by reading our Payment Guide.
We proudly announce that we are the first and by far the only travel agency who can provide safe and quick credit card payment.
We also take wire transfer. Guide is also available here.
TOP
7. What guarantee we have if we send our money to your bank by wire transfer?
Actually we understand your worries to book a tour online. Any worries are reasonable. We will inform you once we receive you payment by email or fax. Also we will fax you the receipt of your payment.But we know that is not enough.
In China every travel agent is imposed to deposit a certain amount of money to a guarantee fund at the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA). We deposited RMB1,600,000.00 (about USD200,000) at the account of the China National Tourism Administration as our quality guarantee fund in case of guest complains. So we have to serve our guests as your itinerary states. Otherwise our fund would be deducted and refunded to you if the complain meets any breaches of items of the tourist law. Please keep the receipt your bank gives you if you wire transfer a deposit.
TOP
8. When I will get confirmation letter?
Once we have received the ”Payment Guarantee” Fax from you, we will proceed your booking order immediately and send you confirmation letter when everything confirmed as what we proposed. The process of confirming your tour will take 1 to 10 days depending on how early and how unique your tour is. All of the proposed hotels, flights were available at the time when we were proposing for you, but we are not able to guarantee the availability of the same proposals since booking status are changing fast. If we are not able to book what we have proposed for you, we will give you other alternative options and ask for your approval before securing the booking.
TOP
9. Do we need any e-tickets or any vouchers to board the ship?
You do not need any e-tickets or vouchers except to boarding the Victoria. If your booking is on Victoria, we will fax you a voucher when we get it from the ship company. If your booking is on other ship, our guide will escort you to board and the check in procedure is as the same as that in a hotel.
TOP
10. What is the difference between Private tours and SIC tours?
Usually, we provide a car for 1 to 3 guests, a van for 4 to 9 guests, etc. For guests who purchase our private package, you will never be mixed with other tourists when sightseeing and transferring. For group size bigger than 5 guests, we would recommend you take our private package because the price gets very close to that of SIC. Compare to SIC tour, private tour is more flexible, for instance, you may change your itineraries with your guide directly at the last minutes and make stops at places you did not have in your original itinerary, or you want to spend more time at places you feel like than what has been scheduled.
SIC stands for Seat in Coach. Guests who participate our SIC tour will require to give us your hotel name and your own names. Our stuff will contact our guests the night before to set the next day’s departure time with you. Our coach and guide will go from hotel to hotel to pick up guests who signed up the tour for the day. Usually our SIC tour will have around 15 guests share one coach and one English-Chinese speaking guide, our guide will take you to all the scenic spots as what listed in the Itinerary. Compare to Private tour, SIC tours are usually less expensive than the Private tours and you have chances to meet unknown people on this tour, but SIC tours are not as flexible as Private tours.
Like in Guilin, we have 2 kinds of Li-river Cruise.
Seat in Coach Tour and private car and private guide tour.
SIC tour cost US57$; Private car and private guide tour cost US$141;
Both of the tours will have the same ship, same river, same lunch, the only difference is on the way to the dock (1 hour) and on the way back from Yangshuo(the place you disembark the ship), one is using private car and guide transfer, one is using coach transfer with other guests on coach as well.
TOP
11. What about train travel in China?
To be frank, we received many different feed backs about train travel in China, some said it is much better than what they have expected and on time, some said --> "Hard seat is hell. Soft-seat is limbo. Hard-sleeper is purgatory with a pillow, and soft-sleeper is comparably comfortable even though you still need to share the 4 beds cabin with others and share one "A-hole-on-ground-and-maybe-no-flush-toilet" with the whole cart members."
TOP
12. On your web site, there are different kinds of hotels, deluxe, comfortable and budget, what are the differences? Thanks.
In most circumstances, China Highlights Travel use 5 star hotels for Deluxe Class, 4 star hotels for Comfortable Class, 3 star hotels for Budget Class in places when the relevant star hotels exist.
In some remote areas or small towns when there are no star hotels at all or the best hotels exist there are 3 or 4 stars, we will then use the highest star hotels as Deluxe Class which can be 4 or 3 star or even less, and we will use the second class hotels for the Comfortable Class while the third class hotels as Budget hotels.
You may also find that in some remote areas or villages, we use 1 hotel for all classes, which was because that hotel is the only acceptable hotel for China Highlights clients. But clients who choose Deluxe Class or Comfortable class do not misunderstood that we may over charge you for this hotel. We will charge you the same price as we charge those who choose budget class for this hotel.
To get a quick idea of the hotel standard, please read on.
Budged Class: 3 Star Hotel
A 3 star hotel will provide AC room, 24 hours hot water shower, clean bed, desk, drawers and closet, carpet or wood floor, telephones in every room with international direct dial(IDD), mini-bar and refrigerator, color television sets, in-house movies, music, writing materials, western and Chinese dinning rooms with English-speaking attendants, coffee shop, banquet hall or function room, buffet breakfast and bar service foreign exchange, safe deposit boxes, store, camera film developing, fax and telex service, luggage storage, 24-hour laundry and dry-cleaning, wake-up calls, shoe polishing, and taxis, accept major credit cards and medical services
In remote areas or small villages which have no star hotels, the guests’ house or family Inn will always be equipped with clean bed, AC room, private bathroom with hot water shower.
Comfortable Class: 4 star hotel
Based on the equipments of 3 star hotels, 4 star hotels should have luxurious and spacious sound-proof rooms, low-noise toilets, and hair dryers. They should have guests and service elevators, background music, health club, swimming pool, sauna, business center, greenhouse, 24-hour doorman, babysitting services, 24-hour room service available. A guest reception and assistant manager should be available in the lobby 24 hours a day. Laundry should be returned by next day. The restaurants in four-star hotels should provide two kinds of Chinese food. Bar service should be available to one am. There should be a 24-hur coffee shop and a breakfast and dinner buffet. A clinic should be on-site. A business center with photocopying, typing and translation services should be available. (However there are some exceptions in Shanghai and Hong Kong since they have limited space they can not provide swimming pools)
Deluxe Class: 5 star hotel
Five-Star hotels are usually palatial with huge lobbies, their standards not quite matching the best of Paris or New Year, but very close. Service should be better than the four-star hotels described above. There are many hotels of five-star international standard, just as good as hotels in Washington or Ottawa except for the standard of English. Some hotels have their own fleets of Mercedes limousines of Toyota vans that make regular runs to the airport or city center. At least two hotels have Rolls Royce. Many have executive floors with concierges, free continental breakfasts, and fast check-in. Many have magnificent ball rooms and lobbies and cater to foreign business people on expense accounts. They have the best western food and probably the best Chinese food in town, and the most luxurious breakfast buffets. Some leave chocolates on your pillow, or a rubber ducky on your bathtub, nice litter touches that bring a smile.
The Chinese hotel star are determined by China National Tourism Bureau with a very strict standard, to know more differences of 5, 4, or 3 star hotels, please click here. However, please keep in mind that, China Highlights Travel do not choose hotels for our clients only based on hotel stars which was given by China National Tourism Bureau, we choose hotels for our clients based on many other factors as well, for example, feed back from our clients, location of the hotels, management of the hotels, market preference of the hotels (for example, some hotels are very experienced in serving Chinese clients but not Western Guests) and so on.
TOP
13. Why do not we include some of your dinners in your tours?
We China Highlights used to include all meals for our clients traveling in China. But from the previous customers’ responses, we find that most of our clients prefer to leave the dinners open on their own so that they can enjoy some time themselves after a day’s tour with our guide and driver. They can choose either to go to a local restaurant for a little adventure or to have a simple dinner in the hotel where they stay. They may also prefer to choose a unique restaurant which appeals to their own unique interests. We have previous clients saying that they missed western food after 10 days’ lunches and dinners all in Chinese style and at last they decided to skip the Chinese dinner in local restaurant and choose to have a western dinner in hotel.
If you decide to have local meals on your own in local restaurant in different cities, please do ask our guides’recommendations according to your interests.
For some “off-the-beaten-road” destinations, we will take the liberty to include dinners in those places where we think it is better to get meals pre-arranged, because our clients may find it very difficult to communicate with the locals or hard to find a restaurant
TOP
14. Special notes for those going to Longsheng
Longsheng is located in the mountainous region on the northeastern part of Guilin. It takes 3 to 4 hours’ drive for 100km. The natural beauty and the colorful ethnic Chinese cultures and customs attract people from all over the world. But the zigzag road to Longsheng is a bit rough and can be dangerous in rainy day. If you have booked tours to Longsheng and it happens to be a terrible rainy day, we reserve the right to offer you alternative activities and, probably, hotels also (if you have planned to stay there overnight) in case the weather keeps the vehicle from going there.
TOP
15. What is the schedule of the dam? when will the Yangtze river be flooded and the sights can no longer be seen?
Schedule of the Three Gorges (dam) water conservancy project (TGP).
In the second phase, the dam will be built to a height of 87 meters (285 ft). By 2003, the first turbine will have been installed on the southern bank to start generating power. From April 10 to June 1, People can only cruise between Chongqing and the Dam.
When the second phase is complete, 14 turbines and a 135-metre- high (442-ft-high) permanent ship-lock will have been built on the southern bank.
In the final phase, 2003-2009, the dam will be raised to a maximum height of 175 metres (574 ft) and an additional 12 turbines will be installed on the northern bank.
The dam is due to begin generating its own revenue by 2003 and by 2009, when all 26 power generating units are operating, it will have an annual capacity of 85 billion kilowatt hours -- or one- ninth of China's total capacity.
TOP
