Chengdu Holidays

Excellent tour with Wendy Wu. Saw so much and went to so many places. Was busy!!! Fabulous trip, especially pandas at Chengdu and Zhangjiajie
Tour guide was excellent too, well organised , fun and looked after us all from start to finish.
Looking forward to my next trip

This Wendy Wu trip was a wonderful mix of experiencing both some of the most amazing natural scenery in the World and the hustle and bustle of Chinese city life.

Our prime reason for booking this tour was to visit places like Zhangjiajie and Jiuzhaigou and these places were indeed AMAZING! For us, however, we found that the two weeks were extremely "full-on", action packed with one visit after another after another, with very little opportunity to come up for air. We would have loved a little more down-time, with opportunities for us to opt out of some of the city visits to go and explore a little more for ourselves. For example, squeezing in visits to some of the extremely crowded places like Hongyu Dong in Chongqing after a long day was not a lot of fun.

We have come home with fantastic memories and photos, but also really exhausted, far more so than after our previous Wendy Wu "China Delights" holiday in October 2019.

The highlights:
1) EVERYTHING in Zhangjiajie, from the National Forest Park to the Glass Bridge and especially the visit to Tianmen Mountain - just breathtaking! LJ, our local guide was exemplary, guiding us as best he could through the crowds and queues around for the Qingming Festival. He was so informative, a great communicator and a real "people person", an absolute gem.
2) the visit and walk in the Black Mountain Valley was an unexpected delight. So tranquil and picturesque - a perfect day!
3) The simple breathtaking visit up to the astonishing Huanglong area, so high up in the mountains and just the most amazing sight to behold - and such a sense of achievement ascending to 3500 metres altitude!
4) The Dazu Rock Carvings were so interesting and awe-inspiring! I now need to read up on all the history and origins.
5) Inevitably, the pandas in Chengdu were just a joy to see.
6) All the meals were excellent (except the Farewell HotPot dinner in Chongqing which was arranged for 4:30 pm, far far too early to enjoy, particularly as we had tucked into a good lunch just a few hours before with no knowlege that dinner would be so early! Such a shame, as we would have loved to indulge fully in this special meal).

We also particularly enjoyed the odd occasions where we had time to go off and explore by ourselves, away from the organised schedule and experience the sights and sounds in our own time, in a more relaxed manner. These included:
- travelling on the subway over to Orange Island in Changsha, and then trying some of the street food
- our scheduled free evening in Chengdu after the panda visit, strolling along the riverside and trying food at one of the street food restaurants.
- an early morning hour's stroll around the little city park below our hotel in Chongqing, at Louis' suggestion. Such a peaceful start to the day, watching groups and individuals doing their early morning exercise, inspiring us to do some of our own stretching exercises by the lily ponds!
- The scheduled free evening stroll around Fenghuang, taking in all the beautiful illuminated sights and sounds along the river. A really vibrant and colourful scene.
- it was just great fun interacting with Chinese people, trying to talk some mandarin with them, and enjoying their requests to have photos taken with us westerners! We found them so helpful and friendly when trying to master Alipay, or buy tickets for the metro or select food in the street food restaurants.

The downsides:
We felt that the tour was just a bit too relentless, with too much being squeezed into absolutely every day. There were moments when we were too exhausted to appreciate everything. It would have been preferable to have some of the visits, particularly in the cities, as optional extras that you could either partake in or opt out of. Being jostled by crowds and crowds of people, trying to "follow the flag" and not lose the group were not our idea of fun, or time well spent. Maybe the tour could be a extended by a couple of days to allow for a bit of "recovery time" between places and activities.

Specific suggestions:
- maybe have an opportunity to see the night life of Chongqing from a river boat cruise (rather like the experience in Shanghai), rather than in the thick of the crowds?
- maybe in the Nine Villages Valley have a private shuttle bus for the Wendy Wu Group to take us from lake to lake, rather than having to join the manic jostling for a place on the shuttle buses with everyone else. This was exhausting! A private mini-bus would also give us more flexibility on timings and walks we could do between lakes?

Finally, a word for Louis, our Wendy Wu national ******. He was wonderful, quietly efficient and friendly and patient and very very knowledgeable. Our group of travelling companions were great fun. A group of strong and very individual personalities who all gelled very well together right from the start.

Thank you Wendy Wu for such a wonderful trip. Now the task of sorting through all the photos ....

Service rating : The tour was well planned and organised. Booking was easy and all the documents arrived early, There was a lot of useful tips and information for the trip. The Chinese phases were helpful. The local tour guides were excellent especially Effie in Guilin, Lee in Beijing and Alex in Shanghai. They were all friendly and informative. Our tour guide Micheal was good espy ferromagnetic place to place without loosing anyone
Product : This is a fabulous tour giving you good taste of China and seeing the major sites. It is very full on with early starts and some late finishes. The food is generally good but in some places we tended to get the same things for every meal. I think the Yangtze cruise could be a day shorter and it would have been useful to be offered the up grades when booking. I would have liked to experience the bullet train and had one less flight. All the in flight meals were terrible. The adds were good and could have been included in the price of the tour. China is truely amazing and came up to all my expectations. I feel we could have seen more in Chengdu as we had a day free before an evening flight. I will definitely be booking again with Wendy Wu and returning to China.

Service rating : Hotels were first rate, food was amazing, tour guide, (Hoffman Hua), went above and beyond when required; local Beijing guide, (Mick), knew his stuff and kept the tour group well informed, as did our Chengdu guide, (Susan). I have nothing but praise for this company and the whole tour!!
Product : Booked through Hays Travel (Durham), and had full contact at all times, whether it was with the staff at Hays, or with the Wendy Wu London office.

Service rating : We were very pleased with our holiday. Our guide Kate Guo was excellent and an asset to Wendy Wu Tours.
Product : The holiday was well planned and very enjoyable. Our group was friendly and everyone mixed well. The visit to the Great Wall was our favourite, but the pandas at Chengdu were cute and fun to watch.

Service rating : Almost perfect.
Product : Everything ran very smoothly. Guides were really friendly and knowledgeable, hotel in Beijing excellent, those in Xian and Chengdu not quite as good but perfectly acceptable. Had an amazing holiday

Service rating : Brilliant. Very good tour manager - Michael
Product : Fantastic: good quiet guide Emily.

Service rating : The national guide, Ryan, was very good, listening to the views of the group and sorted out any problems that occurred (There weren't many)
Product : A lot of travelling which was tiring, but that was expected. Everything went smoothly but at times too quickly. More time should be spent at certain highlights such as The Forbidden City, Terracotta Warriors and Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

Meals are now served in local restaurants instead of 'tourist' restaurants and is much better, but the local guides, who select the restaurants and menu should listen more to the wishes of the tour group, especially when selecting the menu. We got the impression that the local guide in Shanghai, Steven, was selecting the cheaper items from the menu. This was sorted by Ryan.

Service rating : Very well organised, friendly and knowledgeable staff, felt very safe and well looked after, food was fantastic and well presented, any problems were sorted out immediately
Product : A bit of everything, visited 3 remarkable cities with the Panda Sanctuary as a big highlight, would suggest to spend less time on commercial trips and a bit longer on historical sights. The hotel in Chengdu is in need of refurbishment, another choice would make the experience even better.