Review: Family Trip to China, Beijing, Hong Kong, Xian, Forbidden City, Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, Calligraphy & TaiChi Class

I'd say that a large budget for food is not necessary and the guides don't need to order so much. 

The Tai Chi class would be better if the teacher spent time showing us the individual moves first before having us simply imitate her entire movement. Also, if the Tai Chi teacher wants us to follow her/imitate her, she should not face toward us (which then requires us to face back and not see her). That was very annoying 

I wish we could have spent more time at that reenactment park in Xian. I think it is called Tang Paradise. In fact, a 1/2 day or more could easily be spent there, including getting dressed up and taking pictures, plus see the reenactment show! We just happened to go there for a few hours early one morning on the suggestion of the guide before our trip out of Xian! We did it instead of a history museam and it was a great suggestion. We only wish we could have spent more time there!

Skip the Tea House in Beijing – food was bad and the mini-acts were so-so. Would have rather seen a real Peking Opera!

The morning our motorcycle tour got cancelled, we decided we’d try to go to Tianamen Square on our own and go to a museum there to fill the time. Getting there was OK – we took the subway and that was pretty easy. But once there, the lines were SO long. And finally when we made it past security, we realized that after we were to go to the national museum we’d have to come back through security to cross the square! What? Go through security twice just to navigate around the square? That was crazy. I wish the guide had told us about this. Anyway, it worked out because we decided to go to the modern opera house which was just off the Square instead, which was amazing. We walked around the museum but this made us wish we had seen a real Peking Opera instead!

Travel Company's Comments:

Dear Mrs. T,
 
Thanks very much for your kind review on our service. I would like to apologize for not arranging a perfect tour for you. Please allow me to explain the following.
 
1. For the meals, we usually arrange non-touristy restaurants wherever possible for our travelers. They are better than those restaurants that cater to tour groups. So our meal budget per person is usually more generous than that for normal tour groups. This is to make sure that our travelers will have good meals. And the tour guides will order as much food as possible within the meal budget to let travelers enjoy more food and varieties. In the future, we will be more flexible on the meal budgets.
 
2. The Tea House offers a series of performances, all in short snippets, including Peking Opera, face changing, Acrobatic Show, etc. This allows travelers to watch different types of performances in one show. Based on our experience, many travelers, especially families with children, like this show. And we usually do not recommend families with children to watch Peking Opera show only. It is because Peking Opera show lasts for 1 hour 20 minutes. Many children may find it interesting for the first 20 minutes. Then it might become boring as it is hard to understand what the performers are singing about. So generally, I think Kungfu show is a better choice than Peking Opera. So we either recommend Kungfu show or the performances in the Tea House to families with children. It is such a pity that the performances in the Tea House and the food there didn't meet your expectation. If you come to China again in the future, we will definitely include Peking Opera show.
 
3. For the Taichi class, we will talk with the teacher about the issues mentioned. We will make sure she improves her teaching skills.
 
Thanks again for your detailed comments, which will help us to improve our service. We will more attentive to details and hope we can see you in China again.