What people say about China Odyssey Tours

Hi Leo,

We just arrived safely home in Melbourne, Australia, today. Sorry we missed your calls to us in Xian, a problem with our phone I think.

We would just like to say that we were very happy with everything China Odyssey arranged for us. The drivers and guides, Richard in Beijing and Gloria in Xian were just fantastic.
They were flexible, very helpful and very attentive to our needs. We had a fantastic trip to China and would gladly recommend China Odyssey to any friends who might consider visiting/holidaying in China.

Thanks for all your help in organizing everything to ensure a smooth and enjoyable tour for us.

Kindest Regards
Gary & Lorraine Slate

(May, 26th, 2009)

THI Louisa,

we enjoyed our trip very much. We are now safely at home and have many great memories of our trip. We will be recommending your company to friends and certainly use your companies services next time we travel to China.

Thanks Very Much
Mark Winther and Kelly Duncan

(May, 25th, 2009)

Louisa

My travelling companion and I were both very pleased with the arrangements for our trip to Haungshan mountain; I have only minor suggestions for improvements.
I think that the itinerary that you send to people should include the chinese characters for the correct hotel; then it would be easier to show a taxi driver. you used the term mansion but the hotel paperwork does not say that.

We were very grateful to your employee who helped us to the correct hotel etc. She should be congratulated for helping us at a late hour.

Philip, the guide assigned to us, was a gem - pleasant, knowledgeable, and very considerate of our limitations due to age and arthritis. I very much liked the fact that he was honest. For example, I was not anxious to have both an early walk to see the sunrise and a late flight on the same day; he explained that given the cloudy/foggy weather neither a sunset nor a sunrise were very likely. It is unfortunate that the flight times to and from the area are not more convenient.

Thank you for your work on our behalf.
Rosemary Halford mother of Maureen Spillane.

(May, 20th, 2009)

Hello sinba ,

we have returned from a very memorable trip in China and wish to say to you that your arrangements in every way were exceptional . Thanks to you we feel that we have seen many wonderful things and have a greater understanding of china and its people. We were very impressed with the great engineering feats of the Yangtse (chang jiang) and the museums of Xian.

All of your arrangements were without fault. the drivers and guides very competant and helpful , the hotels comfortable and the cruise wonderful. The company upgraded us to a junior suite and we are sure this was as a result of your good reputation. We may visit you again for EXPO in Shanghai !

Thanks once agin for your care .
John & Sue

(May, 17th, 2009)

Hi Leo

We wish to thank you very much for the organisation of our tour to China.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and managed to see and do all so much in the time in your country.We must compliment the Guides and Drivers in all destinations for their excellent service and consideration to us. We enjoyed their company and hope we were not too hard on them as we wanted to fit in as much as possible whilst in each area.

We have already recommended your company to several of our friends which should be great for you.

Once again thank you very much.

Regards & Best Wishes

Mary & Ross Wilson

(May, 11th, 2009)

My dear Maggie,

Ni hao!

well we are back after a truly wonderful experience in China - Shanghai & Beijing. All thanx to your meticulous planning and well concieved itineraries. i must acknowledge that you had wonderful patience in formulating as many as 6 or 7 itineraries, including all the alterations that i could suggest, as many people who had themselves been to China interacted and shared their views wih me.

thank you very much for including the mag-lev train ride and shopping time at the last minutes! my wife shopped-till-she-dropped, as the cliche goes, in Beijing next to the Pearl Market. she bought half of the entire place till we ran out of money and suit-cases to carry the stuff. bargaining was really fun for her.

i was a bit apprehensive about Jiulong hotel from the internet reviews; but actually it was much better than its 3-star rating. if there was a disappointment it was Harmony in Beijing. they viewed our stay as an impostition on their chit-chat time! but he actual cleanliness etc was excellent - the food was tolerable but it would have helped if the breakfast items had bi-lingual labels, since most of the attendants spoke no english. also ordering a meal through room service proved difficult for the same reason. on 6th the reception-lady stepped in and told the restaurant what we needed - it came well-served at the correct time. but on 8th the girl at reception told us she can do nothing and we should go down to the restaurant to order the meal. i don't think this qualifies as 'room-service'. we had no option however, but to go down and order the meal.

Overall, our trip was really memorable.the acrobatic show in Shanghai was simply spell-binding and the Kung-fu legend ballet was just a shade behind! your guides, drivers etc were just wonderful and made our trip special, particularly Danny - though Richard was no less. he is a very sincere person.

will certainly be recommending my 'friend in China' to all my friends!
Xiexie dear Maggie, i hope we can come again and see the Clay warriors and perhaps fulfill my dream of travelling by train to Lhasa!

Warm regards>Pushpendra
do keep in touch, when you find time and should you ever decide to visit India!

(May, 10th, 2009)

Hello Wanda

I thank you and your team for a great trip. Your tour guides and drivers in both cities were excellent especially Summer in Beijing. I had a great time and will certainly recommend your company to many friends and business associates in the future. In fact I have already have.
Thanks again for providing me with a most memorable experience.

Regards
Steve

(May, 9th, 2009)

Dear Vera

I wanted to thank you very much for arranging our tour to Chengdu and Guilin and especially for dealing so calmly with my mistake over dates!

We had a wonderful time. Our tour guides were extremely nice and helpful and we enjoyed everything they suggested. The organisation was perfect and we were very impressed with the service that you provided.

We would be very happy to recommend China Odyssey Tours!

Best wishes
Miranda Brooman-White

(May, 4th, 2009)

Reinself

Thank you so much for the pictures. We had such a wonderful trip throughout China thanks to your great efforts to put together every aspect of the trip. We really appreciated all your work especially getting us into Tibet. Each place we went was more wonderful than the last and everything went smothly at all of our locations with a few exceptions like missing the cable car at Mt. Emei, but that just added more to the adventure! All of your local guides were just wonderful and helpful people. I will certainly highly recommend China Odyssey and you in particular to anyone seeking to travel in China. Yes Michael did get his pictures from the Fed Ex so thank you as well for getting through to the Fed Ex office for us. We are still recovering from the wonderful trip but as soon as we do Michael's first job will be to put togehter a slide show from our many pictures and once we have that we will certainly send it to you as well.

Thank you again for all of your help to make our trip a wonderful memory for a lifetime.

(May, 1st, 2009)

Dear Louisa,

thank you very much for this email with the pictures. It has been very nice to see you in your office together with your colleagues! The trip to China has been amazing, and I hope to be able to come back very soon. I'll let you know.

Take care
Valentina

(April, 28th, 2009)

Dear Leo

Here we are safely home again after a long and tiring journey.It has taken us a few days to recover from the jet lag.
We want to thank you and your company for organising such an amazing trip for us.
At each destination we were met by your faithful guides and drivers. All were extremely courteous and helpful and did their best to enhance our visit to China and make it memorable.The hotels were most comfortable and the food excellent. I will certainly be recommending your company to all my friends and family.

I am attaching a few of my best photographs for your perusal. The first ones show us with Larry in Beijing. He was my favourite guide, so kind and considerate to me.
You are free to use any of these as you see fit. I hope you like them

Best wishes and thank you once again for a wonderful adventure in China.

Sincerely,

Betty and Michael Cochran

(April, 26th, 2009)

Dear Karen,

Thanks for helping to organise the trip to Hangzhou. You have been a great help and have been very patient with my inquiries regarding several tour packages I was interested in before deciding on Hangzhou.

The pickup transfer to the train station in Shanghai was smooth sailing. Tony, our tour guide in Hangzhou is great. He speaks good English and was very helpful and informative. The itinerary and places of interests covered was sufficient within the time frame provided. The Lakeview Hotel that we stayed at was also satisfactory and conveniently located near the lake and shopping areas. The only disappointment was the food that was provided with the tour package. As breakfast is provided by the hotel, I was expecting that at least either lunch or dinner we will have the opportunity of trying out some famous authentic Hangzhou cuisine such as Beggar's Chicken, Dongpo Rou, Westlake Sweet & Sour Fish, Madame Song's Fish Soup. Unfortunately, we did not have the chance to try out any as we did not have the time on our own. Perhaps, in future you can arrange for this to be included into one of the meals or as an option in the tour packages to Hangzhou. There are so many delicious food in Hangzhou, it's a pity not to have the chance to try them at all.

Thanks once again for your help. I will consider using China Odyssey as one of the travel option for future travel to China.

Regards,
Sharon Ying

(April, 25th, 2009)

Dear Sophie,

Our trip to China was a great success, although the girls prefer to live in Malaysia. They did, however, very much enjoy their visit. The Chengdu trip went off without any problems and it was really great to visit the panda sanctuary in Bifengxia - we have some very special memories. Some friends of ours have asked for the details of the trip, so they may contact you.

I hope that you have received the comment form I filled in. On the whole we were extremely happy with the service provided, with one or two very minor suggestions.

Please could you advise how much the Beijing-Chengdu return flights cost, as we are able to claim for any flights we take.

With thanks and regards
Anne

(April, 24th, 2009)

Thank you for your email.

We had a great trip to China, thank you for the organisation in each place we stayed.
We enjoyed Guangzhou, going to the temple and hall, even though the hotel was very basic and the breakfast was not that nice, but then again we did go 3 star and not 4. The location of the hotel was excellent though, great for shopping in the evening.

Guilin was beautiful, everything went really well even though the weather was not so good. The hotel on the first night, the osmathus hotel, we had to ask Paul the tourist guide to change our rooms as there was damp visible on the walls and the rooms smelt really bad. Once the rooms were swapped over everything was fine.Paul was our favourite tourist guide out of the 3 that we had, he made the children laugh with his jokes and was always recommending other/extra things for us to do.

When we got to Hong Kong,after our 11 hour journey on the train overnight, we were all obviously very tired and needed showers and to freshen up. The tourist guide took us straight on our tour and i had to tell her later that we needed to have lunch and that we wanted western food, she then took us to a hainanese chicken rice place which was awful, not our idea of western food at all. Personally i was not impressed with the tourist guide in Hong Kong at all. She took us to the train station to get our train back to Guangzhou and just waved us goodbye without making sure we were on the right train or not, very poor, even though the others gave her a tip because we felt like we should.

Overall we have fond memories of our trip to China and if coming again would definately send you an email to get a quote from you.

(April, 21st, 2009)

hi karen,
I got back yesterday evening from china and i wanted to tell what a fine time i had. you had everything planned perfectly. the guides were very nice people as well. if i meet anyone interested in visiting china i will direct them to you without hesitation.
thanks for everything,
steven conrath

(April, 17th, 2009)

Hi Karen
We were really very pleased with the way in which you had arranged our itinerary in China. The guides were first class. They were friendly, and helpful and considerate and in particular their English was so good that one would easily believe that it was their native tongue.
Always they were waiting for us when we arrived at the ship or airport terminals and they checked us in for the subsequent flights. Equally we were very happy with our drivers.
Overall we could not offer any advice as to how the tour could have been improved further as we found no cause for any criticism.
We hope to return to see some more of China in the furure and if so, we would certainly arrange the visit with your company again. Equally we shall recommend you to any of our friends who intend to head your way.
With regard to providing our email to other clients I am happy to agree to providing my email address to no more than three clients but I would like you to let me know to whom you give my address so that I know that you have referred them. Otherwise I tend to delete emails from those whom I do not know without opening the email.
If there are any other aspects that you want to ask me about do not hesitate to email me.
Kevin Kennedy

(April, 17th, 2009)

Hi Lois!
I'm happy to hear from you!
Our come back was ok, even if we would have preferred to stay around for some more days! Next time maybe!

I am actually planning to write something about our trip, but in Italian, on my personal blog. Would it be ok for you if I send you the link afterwards?
In the meantime we published some pictures on facebook. If you have a profile there, you can send me a friendship request and you will be able to see my photo album. You can also pick the ones you like the most and upload them on your website.

We are completely satisfied with our tour, as we wrote on the form that William gave us. Everything was perfect and unforgettable (the only thing that could be better was the breakfast at Eva Inn, but nevermind!) William was an awesome guide, a true experienced professional with a great passion for his job. He was always open to change something in the planned itinerary to match perfectly our wishes and needs. Really, a great guide!

And what could we say about you? You were the greatest tour operator ever, and if we decided to go to Guilin it's all thanks to you! We stressed you with a lot of emails and changes of mind, but you were always there to help with patience and brilliant suggestions. Thank you!

Waiting to hear from you soon,
Best!
Ari :)

(April, 14th, 2009)

Hello Leo
I just wanted to say, thank you very much for organising the Yangtze cruise for my mother in law and her friend. They really enjoyed themselves. And now I have seen the DVD of their trip, I really want to go myself sometime. So I will email you in the future, you can arrange a trip for me. But first I need to find some time!
Thanks again
Janet
(April, 9th, 2009)

Hello Leo,

I recently accompanied Ruth Mamunes on tour through Shanghai, Wuxi, Suzhou and Hangzhou which you arranged. I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it. It was perfectly paced. I especially enjoyed the gardens and found the Buddha in Wuxi awesome. The tour guides were excellent and personable; we enjoyed meeting them and learning from them.

Thank you so much for a wonderful experience.

Mary Ann Stangil
(April, 5th, 2009)

Hi Sophie,

Yes we had a great time in China and have some great memories and photos. Our guide, Belinda and driver were excellent, also our trip to Xian went well and again tour guide and driver were very good. All were punctual and informative. The hotel was quite dated and needed some upgrading with worn, old carpets and broken units in the bathroom along with mould in the corners which could have been regrouted. Overall, we were very satisfied with your prompt handling of our holiday request and the services given by your company. We will be recommending your company to our friends and would contact you again if we ever return to China.

Regards
Sandra
(April, 3rd, 2009)

Hi Sophie,
We truly enjoyed our trip to China. I haven't been able to stop talking about it to our friends. I also passing along your website. There are two things that we were not really thrilled about--the western dinner and the Peking opera. We loved the Chinese food better. As for the opera, it was very boring for the kids. The acrobatic show will be better for the kids. Also, I think the Lama Temple tour is a must see in Beijing. It is such a beautiful place.
Our tour guide, Michael Hu, is wonderful. He is very nice and accomodating....we enjoyed having him as a guide.
We were very satisfied with you and your company. We will use you again if we ever decide to go to China again.
Thanks for a wonderful vacation!
Mrs DeLuna
(April, 3rd, 2009)

Dear Reinself.,
Many thanks your reply and we really feel so happy with your service and will not hesitate to recommend relatives and friends to join your firm tour group in the near future.
Many thanks once again and have a nice day,
KINDEST REGARDS
MR & Mr John Ng
(April, 1st, 2009)