China Highlights

We had a great 2 weeks in China, with the highlights in Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Yangshou and Zhangjiajie.
Our guides in each city were great. All had excellent knowledge of the history and culture. The guides took my vacation from a standard foreigners visit to an experience.
I appreciated that each guide warm transferred us onto the next guide and city. We had started to develop the relationship with the next guide even before we arrived.
All logistics went well. It’s an awesome benefit having the personalized touch. I experienced China in the moment as I didn’t need to think ahead on timing or logistics. I’m thankful for Tina, Mervyn, William and Bree. William went well beyond our expectations, he was my favorite guide.

There was a breakdown in communication with Carol and I. In hindsight I should’ve changed specialist as the dissatisfaction was felt immediately.
I would’ve liked to have been presented a wider selection of activities. At times I felt that I was on a ‘vanilla’ packaged tour (Yuk); Hot air balloon flights, motor bike, seats at the front with the 270 degrees view on the Li River cruise are a couple of examples which I would’ve been very happy to spend additional $$$. I was cost focused with Carol so to remove the 5 star hotels. I will always pay extra to for the experience, this wasn’t qualified as a necessity.
I booked 1 activity using GetYourGuide as it wasn’t an option thru KimKim which was weird.
Whilst I signed off on the itinerary, I failed to notice an activity we requested to be removed was still there, caves visit in Guilin. We didn’t do this activity, rather went on the search for antiques. Summer Palace boats activity was included in the itinerary, as it turns out the boats only available in the summer months, our visit was in November.

As I’ve used KimKim previously I know how great it is to have an online catch up with the specialist so the itinerary can be customized. Whilst my wider family and I will continue to use KimKim, I truly understand the criticality of the local specialist relationship. I feel disappointed that we had the plan and simple itinerary rather than something tailored to us. Of course this wasn’t known until we were in each city.

Our guides all made a difference!

We’ll be making the next booking or the next vacation; same time and place as this year.