Recs for tour company or private guide in China?

[caden]

My family is going there in a few months. We had a tour booked, or so we thought, but got scammed by a bad travel agent, so now we are starting from scratch. Except we have non-refundable airline tickets booked. We have an idea of what we want to do, we just don't want to go there totally on our own b/c we've never been and we have 2 people with health concerns (one is 90 yrs old, the other is hearing impaired). The 90 yr old is the one planning this trip and she insists on having a guide (either in a big tour group or private). The problem with booking with a bigger tour group is that we can't find one that fits the dates we have plane tickets for. We can change the ticket dates if we have to, but we'd rather just get a private tour guide/interpreter and do a custom itinerary. There are 6 of us total if that matters. Does anyone know anything about Access China or China Odyssey tours? Those seem to be able to do private tours for small groups but I don't know anything about them so I'm wary. Or can you recommend another tour company? Any advice you can give is welcome

[wanderlustfoodie]

We did most of China on our own but we did use a company for 3 days in Xi'an/Luoyang. We only had a few days there and our travel wish list was so tight that if we were delayed somehow it would've really screwed up our plans. We used Travel China Guide and had a very positive experience. They can create a fully custom itinerary for your entire time there or they can just work with you a la carte so to speak if you want to use a guide in some cities or on some days but not on the entire trip. The email is [e-mail] and I was very pleased with their responsiveness before the trip as well as the service during the trip.

[Deleted]

We went though China Tour.

www.chinatour.com/

We did a private tour with them and it was nice being able to see/do things on our own schedule. Having a private driver really helped too. The only thing that I didn't like is that you still have to go to those tourist trap type stores (silk factories, tea farms, etc...) 

They arranged these cities for us:

Beijing/Xi’an/Shanghai +Suzhou/Hangzhou/Yangtze River Extension 

[Deleted]

I don't have recommendations for a tour guide (we've done all our domestic travel independently so far) but I wanted to throw out a couple tips.

1. Pick up masks to bring with you for the pollution which has been extremely bad lately. The elderly and children are most affected by the air pollution and while a mask is not necessarily comfortable, it is better than having upper respiratory problems while traveling. You want the N95 type (Amazon has a lot available). Ones with valves are generally better than ones without.
2. Be prepared for squat toilets - in airports there will usually be at least one or two regular toilets, but in some places squat toilets are all that is available. They might be an issue for a 90 year old. And bring the individual packs of tissue and hand sanitizer with you as many bathrooms have neither TP nor hand soap.
3. Taking the train can be much more efficient than traveling domestically by air depending on where you are traveling to and from. The trains have far fewer delays than flights and if you get a fast train they can be just as fast as a flight when you add in time to and from airport and checking in, etc. Trains can be hard to book but if you go through a tour company they should be able to take care of it for you.

And I'm sorry about the scam travel guide, was it a company or an individual? Also, if your comfortable I'd be happy to know the name so I can avoid them should we decide to use any travel guides while we're here

If you will be coming through Shanghai and want recs I'm happy to help, good luck with your planning!

[caden]

Thank you @juliash! Very helpful. I will buy masks and TP and look into trains. I think we will be doing: Beijing-Xian-chonqing (River cruise to)-yichang-Shanghai. WDYT about trains vs airlines for those cities?

The tour group we were scheduled with was Ritz Tours but they were good. It was our American travel agent who screwed us. She gave us the impression we had a private tour booked with Ritz, deposit paid and everything, so we bought our flights. Then a few family members backed out and we found out there was a 10-person minimum for the tour, which we now didn't meet, and she had never booked it anyway. We were just going to join another large group ritz tour, but that required changing the dates. she was supposed to book that and let us know so we could change the flights when she disappeared. We haven't heard from her in 2.5 weeks. She is (or was) my grandma's friend and was coming with us on this trip. It's a mess. So now we are keeping the original dates and getting either China odyssey or mandarin journeys to set it up and give us a guide. If you've heard either of those companies are scammy please let me know!

[Deleted]

I would do a train from Beijing to Xi'an - there is a G train that takes 5-6 hours and they leave every hour from 7am to 5pm.
Xi'an to Chongqing I think you need to fly, the only train I could find is not a fast one and takes 11-12 hours.
Yichang to Shanghai is another longer one (8+ hours) so you probably want to fly that leg as well.

If you want cheap flights check Juneyao Airlines and Spring Airlines - they are budget Chinese airlines and often have really really good deals. They are not the most comfortable seats and on Spring there is no free meal service. You can also check the website www.ctrip.com and www.cits.net for flights and trains.

For the legs that you need to fly just be aware that you will probably not leave on time. I don't think I've ever had a flight in China leave on time and have had everything from 30 minutes delays to 5+ hour delays. Beijing is one of the worst (something like 18% of flights leave on time) so if you can avoid flying out of there and taking the train to Xi'an that is ideal.

I checked trip advisor and China Odyssey seems to have a lot of positive reviews for their tours, Mandarin journeys didn't have anything really. I haven't used or really heard of either, but we use and generally trust trip advisor.

What an awful experience with the travel agent. Shady shady shady.

Not sure if you need hotel recs, but Shichahai Shadow Art Performance Hotel in Beijing is fantastic. The rooms are small but clean and it is in a really neat area - a hutong very close to a group of lakes. If I remember correctly they had an elevator. The beds weren't super soft, but fairly comfortable. It is a little difficult to get to by taxi, but a driver should be fine with it (the hutong streets are very narrow and often one wayish).