What‘s Included

Reviews

• Excellent

  MARCOANTONIO D,

  May 30, 2025

  - Viator

  5.00

  Excelent experience. The touristic guide Jenny, was very educated. She helps me with my photografic cam. Congratulations Jenny!

• Acceptable but poorly organized

  Mark J,

  May 29, 2025

  - Viator

  2.00

  This tour was basically acceptable for visiting these three key destinations - the Great Wall, Tianamen Square, and the Forbidden City, but the organization could have been MUCH better. First, we had no idea when they were picking us up for the tour. We reached out about 20 hours in advance to confirm, and they promised to phone the hotel the evening before to say what time pickup was to be. They never called. The tour was listed as starting at 7:30am, so we decided to be in the hotel lobby for 7am, just in case they came early. We got a phone call from the front desk at 6:55am, saying the driver was already here. That was irritating, but thankfully we were ready. We had booked this tour for April 30, but due to our flight out of Beijing being late (21:10) on May 1, we decided to switch it to May 1, since we had to check out of the hotel anyway and the tour would end by 17:30, giving us ample time to get to the airport for a 21:10 flight. We made sure the tour company was aware of the flight and our need to be back on time. Imagine our panic when they only delivered us back to the hotel at 19:05! Yes, there was traffic, but a) they should probably have known in advance that May 1 was a holiday there, and planned accordingly, and b) even though we were picked up first, and therefore should have been dropped off first, they dropped us off LAST! That was extremely frustrating. Their excuse was that the other tourists' hotels were "on the way". Except they weren't – we were monitoring our trajectory throughout on Google Maps. But we didn't dare point out that they were lying, for fear of them deliberately delaying our drop-off even more. Our hotel was just outside of the second ring, so they could easily have taken the ring road to drop us off first, and then headed into the city centre, where the other hotels were. But no, they drove into horrific traffic in the city centre straight away, and then had to inch their way out to get to our hotel. We thankfully made the flight, but only because Mongolian Airlines was generous and waived their requirement of checked baggage being received at least 90 minutes prior to departure. Anyway, the tour guide was friendly enough, though we often had trouble keeping up with him (there were many, many tour guides around, often holding similar flags). We were disappointed that we didn't get more time at Tiananmen Square – it was less than five minutes. A bit less time at the Great Wall would have been fine, and the time allotted for lunch was much too long. As well, we definitely could have done without the Jade Factory visit, which was just a high-pressure sales pitch. Same for the Tea House, which wasn't even on the itinerary, and was also just a sales push. The tour guide acknowledged early in the day that the traffic would be bad, yet added this Tea House "ceremony" to our itinerary, causing us to be even later returning than necessary. While I did appreciate that the tour guide took allowances to respect my dietary restrictions at the lunch, we heard from others that the food was pretty bad. In particular, the "hot" meat dishes were all cold. Not sure how many hours the food had been sitting out. There were concerns about getting sick. We still overall enjoyed the tour, apart from the immense stress at the end. Do NOT book this tour if you need it to end after 9 hours. It could be 10 or 11 or 12, depending on when they find themselves back at your hotel and how many extra additions they decide to add to the itinerary.

• Fabulous day!

  Nicole T,

  May 26, 2025

  - Viator

  5.00

  An amazing trip our tour guide Lee was fantastic! We had the best experience !! Thank you would recommend to others !!

• Uninspired, unorganized, glad it's over

  Christopher,

  May 23, 2025

  - Viator

  1.00

  The tour started via a WhatsApp message the night before the tour, saying "be ready for tour tomorrow 7:35”, the email said 7:30. I arrived at the lobby (the pickup location) 15 min early, and I started to panic when the tours that were waiting outside said I wasn't on their list. At 7:45, calling back this vague Whatsapp messenger, got me an answer from a strange man who seemed to only speak Mandarin. This was in fact, our tour guide Michael or Lee as he likes to be known by. He told me we'd be leaving soon. His handshake revealed a wet hand, still drying after taking a number 2 in my hotel lobby during the critical pickup time. He made a warning to "have passport ready, very important.". Then proceed to smoke and stand confidently by the road to await the van. Besides offering a water and some very dull trivia, Lee was hard to understand, even as a native English speaker, I had to concentrate to hear through his accent. And when I did understand him, it seemed like it wasn't worth the effort to learn about Tai chi and other irrelevant facts. My brain finally put a block on his voice and I tried to recover from the initial stress the late tour had caused in me. My group had 6 visitors and the other 5 were not native English speakers. I never asked Lee to clarify or expand on details he shared because I found his explanations and facts extremely dull and unhelpful. He waved his flag thru the Forbidden City and shouted "picture here." It was as if a child was directing us through his favorite spots on the playground. Lee said take 10 min and I'll be over there waiting. Other guides were spending the time giving explanations of the various buildings and walking with their tour. Lee didn't even bother to know anyone's name, and he referred to one tourist as the man from India. Important to him was waving that tour flag and calling after us like lost children at a fair. He even had one member of our group by the tickets to the Forbidden City alone and at the risk of incriminating himself sinceee told him he was to say that the purchased tickets were for his family. The tea ceremony was a very professional presentation by a young lady with excellent English. Unfortunately they pressured us after to buy after and the tea is greatly over priced. I do not recommend buying more than the smallest sizes. The jade store before lunch was dull and we felt pressured to buy something. We did make a purchase, but they pushed for further purchases and did not make us feel comfortable. As part of the tour, Lee took us to a horrible Chinese buffet. One of the worst I've ever experienced. The lady of the restaurant did not speak English, and refused all requests for more food or refills on water. "Meo, meo!". The food was not tasty or reflective of traditional Chinese food and was barely enough to feed our little group with only 5 partaking (one was a vegetarian). There was literally one coke given to quench the thirst of 6 adults. An additional coke was provided after I requested it and pointed and begged like a caveman to the lady. Finally, the highlight of our experience, The Great Wall. After a drive of at least 45 min it was at 2:15. Lee lead us to the start and suggested we walk and be back by 3:40, declaring we'd need to leave the wall at 3:25 to make it back in time. I had been zoning out this man out the entire trip, but I paid attention to the times. A few members of our group were older and it seemed impossible to walk up the path to get to wall, even for a younger man, so we jointly agreed to buy a cable car which Lee demanded reimbursement for. Giving us vague directions to find an ATM, he took my passport along with a few others, and bought the cable tickets. Thank goodness my passport was returned, and Lee gave us our tickets and left on the tour bus. After a short cable car drop off, the hike on the Wall was more challenging than we expected, leaving one person on the tour to stay near the cable car drop off, while the rest struggled onward, trying to self manage their hiking, timing and balance with many people pushing past them impatiently. Our group split up for a time, and I barely managed to get the the end of the first part of the Wall. This would be impossible to do without the cable car as though I'm relatively young, I am not an Olympic athlete and would not have been able to walk on the lower parts of the wall with so little time. We waited for each group member at the cable car point, and went down together, after finding an ATM to reimburse and avoid the wrath of Lee who could only accept cash or Alipay for the cable car tickets. Seeing the Wall was a good experience, but Lee deserves no credit for this experience with his lazy and uninspired approach to the tour. I would not recommend this tour and I'm relieved to be free of Lee and his tedious exposition. Book with another tour or plan alone would be my suggestion.

• Exceptional tour with...

  Melvin D,

  May 22, 2025

  - Viator

  5.00

  Exceptional tour with Jenny L she was a true professional in all ways in guiding the tour the only way to see important sites in a limited stay thank you again Jinny!