CupKayke

Reading every word! Thanks for spending the time and effort to share!

You are welcome

Thank you very much for the interesting review! It's amazing how totally different your experience was from ours on a different ship.

You are welcome. Yes, our experience was very different from my in-laws too. They, however, paid at least 3 times more for their trip and we saw the same things and we LOVED our trip with Gate 1 Travel and we will probably use them again in the future. To each his own, of course.

Pictures around the boat, continued...

Our bathroom in our cabin... smelly but modern:

Our ship docked/hooked onto an old boat to stop (you walk through this old boat to get off at the first stop):

The "top" deck or deck 6 was a viewing deck. We went up there while we were stopped at a port and we were the only two people there.

Tomorrow is our day in Chongquing, then our flight to Shanghai, and our first night in Shanghai. Chongquing was my second favorite day of the entire tour.

Is anyone reading this or am I boring you all to sleep??

Since we are leaving the boat tomorrow morning, I want to take some time and post a few pictures I took around the boat. I wasn't thinking about a Cruise Critic review on the trip or I would have taken pictures of the beautiful lounge/deck 5/bar area and etc. Here are some pictures, however... I will break this up into two posts as CC only allows me 4 pictures per post.

The Victoria Cruises Sophia balconies ~ this is where my husband spent most of his time as he is a smoker.

My husband and his neighbor buddy on the balcony:

Cruise Day 4 - Fengdu - Continued

We returned to the boat after a long walk along slick and thin, rusty walkways. Nobody fell in the Yangtze but you know I was waiting for the inevitable again. Ha

We had a Gate 1 group talk scheduled onboard at 5:15pm and our tour guide explained everything we are doing tomorrow and there were not one, not two, but THREE big surprises for us! None of these surprises were on the Gate 1 itinerary and they were all arranged by our guide, Jason Liu. We are going to have a great day tomorrow! We are spending the morning in Chongquing, flying to Shanghai, and spending the evening out on the town in Shanghai! Whoot Whoot

At around 6:45pm tonight, while slowly cruising our way to Chongquing, we started passing some INCREDIBLE scenery - It lokoed like we might be just outside of New York City! Everyone was flabbergasted and cameras were going crazy. I did not get a good picture of some of the scenery but others did. I’ve never seen anything like it before from a cruise ship, that is for sure!!

Dinner was long and celebratory tonight. We all ate in the lower dining room 2. We sat down to champagne and ended with spongey-type cake. It was the cruise line saying Thank You and Goodbye. Frankly, I was falling asleep. The food was on spinny tables tonight and it was all authentic Chinese. You know I hated it. I barely ate and that’s okay – there is always a western breakfast before we leave tomorrow! Ha The offerings tonight were fishy-smelling bread with chestnut seeds, red-skinned peanuts, cold Chinese bbq pork, cold black mushrooms, sweet & sour fish, sesame beef (goat) with bones and potatoes, green beans (I liked them), Chinese fried rice (which always includes cut-up pieces of ham by the way – groddo), roasted duck, and more junk. I was ready to get to Shanghai and have some noodles. Beijing is known for rice, Shanghai for noodles. Though, I will say, last night I had noodles for dinner – that was my main entrée – noodles – they were awesome. I even ate them with chop sticks!

Drinks downstairs are always served from 2 liters... Coke or hot tea is your option it seems...

Our waitresses were dressed in costumes tonight. After dinner you had the option to be dressed yourself to take pictures. We opted-out because I wanted to get packed but in hindsite, I wish we would have taken the time to do this but dinner was soooo long. It was after 9pm before we got back to our room from dinner.

One last note: every time (almost) we come back to our room on the cruise they have opened our safe and not locked it behind them. They have never taken anything, they just go through it for some unknown reason. Tonight, they opened both of our perfectly packed suitcases I had almost ready to go tomorrow morning – they didn’t even bother hiding it – they left them open on our beds. What are they looking for? Do they think we might steal a cup from the cruise line or a bottle of water?? Puhleease. You seriously can only come to China if you just accept that you have no privacy. It’s so useless however. They should spend their time fixing the smells in the hallways and bathrooms and not worrying about what is in our suitcases.

And since I'm talking about smells and the cruise is almost over, I must mention this: IF your room has anything wrong with it - REQUEST TO MOVE! I blame this on the cruise line and myself... our bathroom on the boat was disgusting and we should not have been given Room 306. The first night we walked-in the bathroom it smelled so strongly of bleach we couldn't be in there without having the door open. I also smelled a faint sewer odor and told my husband I thought they might be covering-up something. That was the understatement of the year. The smell was so bad by the second day we had to keep the fan running 24/7 and leave the bathroom door completely shut or our entire room would smell like a horrible sewer. I was grossed-out to shower in there and most of the time we went to deck 5 and used the non-smelly, public bathrooms. I thought I might vomit every time I was in there. It had a big sewage drain thing in the floor and smelled terrible all the time. I spray hairspray every time before I had to go in there but it didn't help. Our bathroom was basically unusable for most of our cruise. We complained to housekeeping and we went to the front desk and complained and they did nothing but spray our room. The room next to ours, Room 308, was occupied by two others from Gate 1 Travel and they had the same problem. Sadly, we did not request to move rooms because I'm not the type to "cause problems" and this was a huge mistake on my part. I later learned several people moved rooms not once but twice because their a/c wouldn't turn off or their heat wouldn't turn or for whatever reason. Apparently, it was no big deal to move rooms when the ship wasn't close to being full. Had I taken our Gate 1 tour guide to our room and opened the bathroom door he would have had us a new room in ten minutes so I don't have a lot of room to complain here. I know this now but I hated the idea of moving all our stuff and being complainers. Looking back, it was simply dumb that we did not demand to be moved but I was very irritated that they would even bother giving us this room when clearly they knew there was a HUGE issue which they tried to cover-up with bleach the first night. Also, our balcony was next to our good friends balcony and my husband and his new buddy would sit and talk out there for hours. As for the bathroom smell, I wrote about this on my comment card to Victoria Cruises the last day. I explained this room should not be given to ANYONE until that problem is fixed.

The shower - it looked and smelled terrible but it worked fine (the rest of the bathroom was more modern than the shower):

One last note about today... the daily "newspaper" said to settle your accounts tonight between 7:45pm and 10:15pm. Our Gate 1 guide knew many people would be drinking in the bar tonight so he requested we settle after we had drinks or early in the morning around 8:15am. "Settling" your account meant going to the front desk, them telling you what your room number was (because they know you now) and telling you the charges - you can pay in USD, Yuan/RMB, or with a credit card. Most people spent money on an additional excursion the first day, maybe in the small gift shop, maybe to buy the DVD of the cruise, drinks at the bar which ranged every day but a 9oz long island iced tea was 45 RMB and that was the most expensive drink I saw, and many people signed-up for massages. If you wanted any type of massage you need to sign-up early the first full day on the cruise or you will NOT get a massage. Spots were gone quickly. It was $60 for an hour full massage, I believe. I found it odd that one of the groups onboard wanted their hair washed and fixed instead of massages but to each his own ~ many people in our group got massages and loved them.

Cruise Day 4 - Fengdu

Today was our last full day on the ship and today was FUN! Fengdu is pronounced like fondue, btw. To me, this area is the most beautiful of the river. The plants are more lush, we are sailing closer to the riverbank, the mist is heavy over the tops of the mountains. There is no way a picture or words can describe how amazing the view is from our room – constantly. There was also a slight rain today but it adds to the misty mystery.

This morning was a relaxing but informative morning. After breakfast my husband took the free Navigational Bridge Tour which he thought was a bit informative. Our Gate 1 Tour Guide had reserved a room for all of us to meet at 10am and have a discussion about the differences between Chinese culture and American culture. This was a great roundtable meeting that he decided to do on his own and another reason why I think Jason Liu is an amazing tour guide. For me, the best part of this trip was the information and the learning about Chinese culture. Our talk was about 90 minutes and incredibly interesting.

This afternoon was one of those days where a couple of people in our group had paid for the Gate 1 tours and took the Chinese tour group instead. It worked-out well for everyone. Gate 1 offered an excursion to see the Ghost City (from the road - we stopped and took pics), to visit the new relocation village (this was soooo fun), and to a home-hosted event for a farmer who had been relocated. This was my favorite excursion of all three offered by Gate 1 and it was crammed-full of fun. About five other super-in-shape people in our group had chosen to do the Victoria Cruises Fengdu Shore Excursion to visit the "City of Spirits" or Ghost City. This was approximately 600 steps to the top. There was previously an excursion offered to ShiBaoZhai (The Red Pagoda) by Victoria Cruises but only a few signed-up so it was cancelled - two in our group wanted to do it but they require a minimum number sign-up before they have the excursion.

For those of us on the Gate 1 Travel Fengdu Shore excursion, we left after lunch at 12:30 in the slow rain. After walking the long maze across shore to get off the ship, we drove through the older relocation area and visited a farmer and his new home and heard his story. We were able to tour his home and grounds and take pictures.

Next we visited the city/village of Fengdu. This was an interesting trip because the locals never see white/western people. They kept staring and had odd looks on their faces. Our tour guide took us through the meat market downstairs to the vegetable market. We had previously been divided into groups on the bus and had to buy something, in Chinese, with 5 Yuan. My group had to buy "wat gen po ya" – which is apparently two pounds of string beans – but they could not understand our accent and sold us lotus root instead. This game was hilarious! Our guide was laughing at everyone as each group had a different pronunciation to buy – some groups bought peppers, others cauliflower, others garlic but in the end, no group bought the correct item! HA The Chinese vegetable market was huge and practically empty so the vendors all enjoyed our visit and our game, too ~ they were laughing with us!

A small part of the vegetable market:

We walked back through the meat market and then down the main shopping street and it was again soooo interesting. They were selling chicken feet on sticks today. We did not try them. We were looking at items to buy and the people were standing-around staring at us. They must have thought we were filthy rich because we tried to buy some room spray (like Febreeze) because the fishy smells here are making us practically vomit and they wanted 280 Yuan for a can of room spray – that’s about 47 US dollars! They only came down to 200 Yuan so we declined. I did buy a scarf a few doors down, however. Seems to be my souvenir of choice this trip.

We had about an hour to shop and take pictures in this amazing area. I loved seeing it all but the prices were inflated for us as I got home with a heavy, winter scarf for 30 Yuan thinking I had made a deal and there was a sticker on it for 20 Yuan. Later, I would find beautiful scarves in Chongquing and Shanghai (surprisingly) for 10 Yuan each.

On our way back to the ship we stopped to take pictures of Ghost City.

Thought I'd throw a piece of info in this review about the boat, excursions, and walking. Prior to leaving I had read you "walk across wooden planks in the mud" to get on and off the boat. Well, that's sorta true but it's not too bad. I wanted to show what getting on and off the boat is like since it is absolutely nothing like a regular cruise ship. Our big river boat usually parks next to a rusty old boat or a pier tied-up to the shore and we have to walk through a maze of rust, wooden/broken planks, the old boat, and other questionable areas to get on and off the ship. We always walk over wooden boards to get on and off the actual cruise ship but then the areas we walk on to get to shore are always rusty and full of holes. Hundreds of us walk across these areas and I can just see one of them snapping and a few cruisers going in that green water. Eh. Everyone was fine, btw and we all made it on and off perfectly well. There was always a long line of staff at every turn waiting to assist you at debarkation and embarkation. I will say, the day you are in Fengdu, walking on and off the ship is a very, very long maze of rusty platforms in the water leading to the other side of the shore. We walked this in the rain. It was fine but it wasn't like you would see on a regular cruise ship. Of course, this was our first river cruise so maybe all river cruises are like this? Since there was previously some discussion about this, here are some pictures of the mazes you walk to get on and off for excursions... and by the way...they are easy walks ~ some with a few steps, some a bit slippery on our rainy days ~ but we never had any problems ~ slow and steady.

Getting off at Three Gorges Dam: (beautiful)

Getting off or on the ferry boat (this is the way most areas were setup):

Here is a picture, taken as I was halfway through the maze in Fengdu, showing how much further we had to walk to get to the ship. We literally walked from one side of the shore to other on rusty, water-platform rails. Noone fell, noone got hurt, etc. It was raining and the platforms were wet and had water puddles but we made it fine. I had just never seen anything like this before so I stopped and took a picture:

Debarkation in Chongquing - my husband calls the Victoria Cruises crew with their umbrellas "The Morton Salt girls" LOL:

Our group of 28 consisted of people of all sizes, shapes, ages, and fitness levels. For the most part, everyone could walk well. I am overweight and was most certainly one of the top five out-of-shape people in our group but I never had a problem walking anywhere (I do walk at home). We had a lady in our group with two hip replacements who has quite a few problems walking and she made it everywhere with NO complaints. I had read you will walk three and five miles per day and that is what our tour guide wrote on our daily notes (every day he wrote us a note and posted in the hotel lobby and every day it would say the average miles we would be walking that day) but it never felt like we were walking 3 or 5 miles even though I'm sure we walked much more than that since we went out on our own after the day's activities. It was an easy tour in my opinion but very long days with lots happening from early to late.

After our ferry ride excursion we returned to have lunch....Diet Coke with ice...FRENCH FRIES – real french fries that were hot and a little crispy and good (no salt though)... and... CHEESEBURGERS!! Lunch was quick and awesome! They had sesame buns, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and some sort of white cheese – probably a white cheese product but it was good. The meat had almost no fat and was very peppery and it tasted good but we were later told it was goat. But seriously... Diet Coke on ice, cheeseburger, french fries – we were in heaven!

This afternoon we missed out on a good opportunity so here is your clue not to do as we did.... We relocated to another dock upstream for the optional shore excursion "White Emperor City" but I don't know of anyone in our group that took that excursion. This shore excursion did not start until 3:30pm and we were intially told we could not get off the boat without an excursion, then we were told you can get off but only for 20 minutes, then about five of our group got off. We decided not too because we only had 20 minutes and only learned about this in the bar, last minute. The group that got off saw the captain in town and he told them to take a full hour shopping. This afternoon stop was THE place to shop, apparently. Our friends that got off said all of the crew and the captain and everyone was shopping in this tiny village where the prices were dirt cheap - they paid 2 Yuan for scarves! They said you didn't even need to bargain with the people, just buy what they were selling and they would throw in something free. One guy bought six beers and they threw in two more. The locals were so excited to see the tourists and apparently they were very friendly and the prices were excellent. We were highly disappointed that it wasn't even mentioned to us at any time previous to 3:30pm that we could get off the boat this afternoon without an excursion and we only learned because we were sitting in the bar with the rest of our group talking.

At the same time, our Gate 1 Tour Guide had arranged a Mahjong Tournament for everyone in the game room next to the bar so everyone was going in and out of the bar ordering drinks in-between playing Mahjong and this is how we learned we were even able to get off if we wanted. If you get a chance and you want to buy souvenirs for at least 10 times less than what you will pay anywhere else, this is the place.

This afternoon I noticed something interesting from our balcony. As soon as our boat docked a couple of little boats came up to the balconies - one selling fruits - oranges mainly and another selling fish - to the Chinese individuals on the decks. It was funny to listen to them haggling forever over the price. They would go back and forth and she would inspect the fish and give another price and he would give another price and it went on forever until finally, the fish was bought. This happened at several balconies.

So, a few things I thought I would share about the boat:

* * The boat has terrible customer service. You want a pot of hot tea or some ice in your ice bucket? Call housekeeping and/or the front desk 10 times and they both tell you the other one will do it and after a few hours, no one ever brings you a pot of hot tea or a bucket of ice. You have to go beg for it elsewhere. Odd because we saw the Chinese rooms had 2 and 3 buckets of hot water out by their doors all the time but we could never get one and my husband was always filling the ice bucket at the bar. No biggie but the night of embarkation they brag about always having hot tea available for you but apparently, it's only on deck five.

** The staff know exactly who you are and they can look at you and tell you your room number. Maybe this is because we asked about our smelly bathroom twice (very nicely, I might add) but it wasn't just us - they knew everyone by room number.

** Toilets on the boat are western-style and good. The toilet on the ferry is NOT something you want to use - it is dirty, smelly, and a squatter.

Tonight we had dinner and then there was a cabaret show, talent show, game show mixed. It was hilarious!! They played a variation on the game musical chairs, they had the dragon dances, they had a magician, etc. It really was a lot of fun. Free beer and wine flowed at dinner which made several in our group think it was even funnier and, of course, the bar stayed open late. This has become the booze cruise...

Cruise Day 3 - Shennongxi/White Emperor City

Today started early for many of us! I was awake, showered, dressed and in the main lounge on with a cup of hot tea, waiting for Tai Chi by 5:45am

The rest of our group quickly showed-up and my quiet morning of tea became hilarious as everyone began tattling on each other about the previous night's drunken escapades. Laughter ensued and by the time Tai Chi practice started at 6:30am there was almost 20 of us having hot tea and laughing about the night. This group of travelers was a good, fun group - wish I had time to write about them all and their quirkiness.

Tai Chi uses almost every muscle in your body, makes you look like an idiot but you feel like a swan. It is free and it is offered on Cruise Mornings 3 and Cruise Mornings 4 - no signing-up, just show-up!

Breakfast was at 7am. Note: the times for breakfast, lunch & dinner changed every day based on the boat's schedule that day. It always worked-out somehow. Breakfast was always plentiful and good.

This morning's excursion was one we had prepaid through Gate 1 Travel.

We boarded a small ferry boat which carried us through a picturesque tributary of the Yangzte river. It was beautiful.

We stopped and visited an area the government has built which shows some history of the river. We saw a real hanging coffin - the old Chinese used to put the bodies of the dead in wooden coffins and hang them from the cliffs because they believe the higher you are "buried" the closer you are to heaven. The ferry ride was also interesting because you could see the completely abandoned homes and buildings along the river.

Another thing we saw today is men are still fishing this river. We actually noticed they were selling small fish and crawdad caught from the river – fresh and smelly – at the place we stopped today. They were even selling silver fish – which sounded like "sewer fish" when our guide was talking to us as the Chinese cannot seem to pronounce "R" or "L" – and so he announces this is a sewer fish – and then bites the head off – and everyone grossed-out.

The ride up was fun and our group got some good and funny pics. The ride back was cold. It is cold today on the river, unfortunately. Many of us were forced to sit upstairs where there was no shelter because the downstairs had been taken by the other two groups. I think, in nicer weather, everyone would want to be upstairs the entire time. Either way, this was a great little ferry ride- about one hour up, one hour back and a short visit to the government-built center in-between.

Cruise Day 2, Three Gorges Dam, Continued…

After every tour there is always a market or village to walk through - every day. Our guide always asked us to check out the items for sale after the day's tour and we almost always had time to do so. Today's little village was a good one with lots of interesting items for sale.

They were selling everything from fish to oranges to Smirnoff to purses, maps of China and fans. Everything is negotiable. Everything. If they ask 40 for a doll and you say 10 and they say no 30 and you say 10 and they say 20 is all and then you walk off, they will take 10. I am not a good bargain person but I only had 10 left when I saw the doll so that's how I know that. Others thought the prices were so reasonable they didn't bargain. Others were fantastic at bargaining and got very nice Mahjong sets for 50 Yuan - in cases and everything - big sets. So, there are deals to be had everywhere if you are interested in getting some things to consume or to take home. We saw lots of beautiful Chinese dolls, scarfs, tea sets or tea pots (big and little - I bought a medium-sized set), hats (Communist hats, not baseball-type hats), Mahjong sets, kids toys, etc almost everywhere. One day you would see plastic Smurfs for sale and the next day you would see tupperware-type items. If you saw something you liked, you should buy it because you might not see it again.

Most of the market area was covered:

There were some great picture opportunities today RIGHT AT THE DOCK, as well:

The tour was over before 4pm and was nice and easy, by the way. You took outdoor escalators up to the dam site and the walk down was slow and easy, terraced.

There was a movie listed for your room TV at 4:15pm but we were never able to get our TV to work the entire cruise and neither were our neighbors. This was a not important to us so we never asked - we might have been doing something wrong.

There was a Captain's Reception at 6:15pm on Deck 5. If you read the newspaper you will see it says "Casual or Smart Casual" and that meant nothing to any of us and even our guide laughed about it. He said they post that because that is what Americans requested but everyone, this entire trip, wore leggings or walking pants and jeans. Not one time did I see any Gate 1 woman in dress pants or any man in khakis. This tour did not call for it and I was very glad about that as we did not pack any dressy-type clothes. Actually, come to think of it, this tour was MUCH more laid-back than I had anticipated and I wish I would have packed 3 or 4 pairs of leggings/yoga pants and one pair of jeans instead of vice versa as that is what most people wore every day, including our tour guide. I thought this was a very relaxed, comfortable, appropriate dress for lots of walking & touring. I liked it. Lesson learned.

So, back to the Captain's Reception. My husband was reading and I was fixing my hair and we decided it probably wasn't any big deal so we showed-up for dinner at 7pm and it seemed as though most of the boat was drunk. Apparently, the champagne/wine/beer were all flowing freely (literally) during the Captain's Reception.

Dinner tonight was "fabulous" as it was our first western-style meal since we started the trip - chicken cordon bleu. The chicken had no ham and the cheese was mozarella, not swiss but we all loved it anyway and I had another Diet Coke. They had free wine and beer for our dining room all through dinner, too. The drinking did continue, I assure you.

And since I'm talking about alcohol... you can take all the alcohol onboard you wish. There is no such thing as a luggage check for alcohol. Some people hand carried-on bottles of wine. Every stop you have the opportunity to buy Chinese firewater or Smirnoff or Jack Daniels and wine - EVERY little village is selling some sort of alcohol and cigarettes. There is no problem taking anything onboard at any time.

Tonight we started going through the locks around 6:30pm. We were so close to the wall my husband reached-out from the balcony and touched the wall! Later in the night, as we were all trying to sleep, going through the locks got very noisy with lots of screeching and grinding and it was well after midnight until we were finished. Everyone was kept up very late because of all the noise. Apparently there was a problem with the boat in front of us and we were stuck in the last lock for a long time. Most of the boat was drunk so this didn't really bother too many people...

My husband, touching the locks from our balcony:

After our first morning on the boat, considered cruise day #2 because embarkation was last night, we had a choice of morning and afternoon activities. Today's "newspaper" from Victoria Cruises is the only one that did not make it home with me but I do have a semi-bad picture of it that I took when it was posted on deck 5:

This morning your choice of activity was:

- Dr. Hu lecture on Chinese Medicine at 9am in Deck 5 lounge or

- Victoria Cruises optional excursion to "Tribe of the Gorges" - this was 280 RMB, you signed-up at the front desk, and I heard this tour involved a lot of steps, they took a member of our group and a member of the Chinese group, dressed them in traditional Tujia tribe costumes, and performed a marriage ceremony plus they saw some nice scenery.

We signed-up for the "one excursion per day" package ahead of time with Gate 1 Travel and I didn't really want to do any more than that so I think my husband and I may have been the only couple from Gate 1 that opted out of the optional excursion this morning ~ which surprised me when I realized this.

I loved my morning, however. I sat in the Deck 5 Lounge/Bar area (lots of seating with big windows all around) and used the Internet while also listening in the background to the Dr. Hu Chinese medicine lecture. It was a calm, relaxing, good morning for us. Now that I remember correctly, there were a couple of other people from our Gate 1 group that I believe showed-up in the lounge that morning for tea or coffee so we might not have been the only ones but several people did opt for the Victoria Cruises morning option excursion. Several were also a tad bit disappointed (too many steps, etc) and they came back, ate lunch, and went back out on another excursion. I think it was too much for some. After that, no one from our group signed-up for anymore additional Victoria Cruises excursions. LOL

The Dr. Hu presentation was okay. He was using some sort of lotion to do a massage on someone up front and it smelled wonderful - like Bath & Body works brown sugar vanilla.

Internet, by the way, is only available on Deck 5 in the lounge. It is wireless. It works slow but well - but only when the ship is docked somewhere. I had no problem sending a brief message and picture to my parents each day and they received it, each day.

Today ended-up being a beautiful day! The sun came out and warmed-up and it was upper-50s today - warm and beautiful. I took a one hour nap after the Dr. Hu lecture and my Internet time, we had a small lunch, and this afternoon we had an excursion - part of our 3-excursion package with Gate 1 Travel. We went to see the famous Three Gorges Dam.

This is the second largest dam in the world (now) as Brazil built a larger one. My husband loved this excursion and I thought it was so-so. I liked the small village where we debarked and our guide for the day was a local village resident, Teddy, who was HILARIOUS and I really, really liked him and his stories. We also toured some gardens next to the dam site which I enjoyed as I love gardening and plants, in general. We met downstairs in the lobby (deck 2) at 1:15pm and we were back on the boat by 4:00pm. The excursions were never too long or too short - just perfect, IMHO!

Teddy, our hilarious dam guide for the day:

We were all asked to tip him $1 to $2 for the day - USD - and envelope was sent around the bus and everyone put money in and it was handed to him at the end of the tour. This is how they handled the daily river/tour guides. Also, for the daily bus drivers we were asked to give them $1 USD. And yes, USD were taken pretty much everywhere we went but the local grocery stores and side stores in Beijing and Shanghai. The villages, however, would take US dollars and Yuan. You always got a better deal if you had your Yuan/RMB, IMHO. We carried small bills of both constantly. Since I'm writing about it, the boat will exchange US dollars for Yuan in seconds, no fees, no questions asked, quick-quick-quick - just go at the cashier on the 2nd level/lobby area. They gave us 6.8 Yuan for each $1 USD. You could hand them a $20 US bill and they would give you 136 Yuan/RMB, for example. No problem. This was the best exchange rate we got anywhere and our tour guide recommended we use them. The hotel in Shanghai did the same thing but their rate was 6.2.

enjoying your review and wonderful pictures. also have looked at your European trip, excellent. great to travel along with you albeit at home. thanks.

Thank You and you are welcome. :)

I loved today on the ship!! I was wide awake at 4am this morning and by 6:15am I had showered and my husband was in the shower when the PA announcements started in the room. They "warned" us the evening prior that they would have PA announcements in the room at 6:15am when we started entering the gorges. You cannot turn the PA announcements off, btw, but you can turn them down. We were fine with them as they were usually short and helpful during the cruise.

This morning we were sailing and entering the gorgeous gorges. Words and pictures cannot describe the beauty of this river cruise. We went to the main deck 5 and watched as we sailed into the mist, into the gorges. Pictures were being taken, announcements were being made about where we were and what we were seeing, and everyone was having a wonderful time. It was early in the morning, cold and windy out on the deck but we all kept sneaking inside the lounge to get the hot tea or coffee they were serving. It was a glorious morning.

I regret not taking the time to buy some of those cups in the gift area.

Breakfast was at 8am and after not eating dinner again last night we were happy to see a full western-style breakfast with french toast, eggs two ways (no fishy taste), Chinese bacon (I can't explain it but it's good), toast, juices, etc. Wonderful breakfast choices. We always fill-up on breakfast so we aren't really hungry ever but we have not had dinner three nights thus far on this trip. Strange really ~ you'd think we could get a cup a' noodle or something at midnight somewhere but nope.

I will go into detail about this day's activities later. I plan to completely finish this review this weekend. I returned to work today. It was almost impossible to stay awake after 2pm. I have never had jet lag like I have with this trip. When we returned from Italy last year we flew-in on a Saturday and I was at work Monday morning, no problem. It is somehow different with Asia.

Our Ship - the Victoria Sophia

Just a few pictures tonight of various items and tomorrow I will begin a daily review of tours and post each day's "newspaper" given to us in our cabin.

Laundry Prices (now that I look at it, prices are in Yuan/RMB so not bad):

Main Dining Room on 2nd floor (my apologies to my fellow cruisemates who are in this picture however I wanted everyone to see how nice the main areas of the ship are ~ just like any Carnival or Royal Caribbean ship):

And lastly, I suppose I will explain the excursions. The ship had three groups of passengers - Gate 1 Travel group of 28, another travel group of about the same size (I am not going to discuss them because they were terribly embarrassing Americans and several from our group plan to write or phone their leaders here in the U.S. over some situations that happened with them ~ they were supposed to be a humanitarian group and they were nothing but self-righteous pigs but I digress..), and the third group was a Chinese group. All three groups had a group leader. All three groups had their own tours arranged by their own companies. For example, Gate 1 Travel had our own bus to the Three Gorges Dam and our own guide taking us through everything ~ so did the Chinese group. This happened at most stops however many stops we never saw the other group as maybe their tour was in the morning and ours was in the evening or vice versa.

With Gate 1 you can buy all three excursions they offer or you can not. You can't buy individual excursions. The ship also offers other excursions as seen below. Please note: sometimes someone would have paid Gate 1 for the afternoon shore excursion (in Shennongxi, for example) but instead they chose to do the White Emperor City excursion listed on the newspaper. They did not have to pay to do White Emperor City since they were at the same time, we had a choice. About 5 of our group decided to hike White Emperor City so they went with the Chinese guide to see this instead of with us and our Gate 1 Travel guide to our excursion... if that makes ANY sense at all?? I will be more descriptive as I write about each day in detail.

Additional/optional excursions listed on the Victoria Cruises newspaper:

As another note which I find interesting now that I think about it... the 2nd and 3rd decks had the Chinese passengers - who were all very kind and smiled at us in the hallways - however, they all ate in the 2nd floor dining room, they never attended any of the talent shows or costume shows or Karoake or anything and so we never saw them. We spent a lot of time in the 5th floor lounge/bar area, just watching the view, using the Internet, drinking the hot tea and coffee, etc and never once did I see any Chinese passengers up there. Since I ate 90% of my meals in the small dining room on the 5th floor, I would never have seen them had there not been several in my hallway. Strange, when I think about it now. Victoria Cruises holds a maximium of just over 200 passengers and for this cruise we were at 121 as it is the low season. There were several empty rooms on my deck. I found that they tried to keep all the groups together - rooms side by side and such.

I am amazed that several tours were optional. Do you remember how much you paid for the extras?

This trip to China was the LEAST expensive trip we have ever taken internationally and much less expensive than several of our US trips. Gate 1 charges a flat fee for your air, cruise, rooms, and basic tours. For this 11-day tour with 4-night cruise they offered a cabin upgrade and five additional tours you could sign-up for at the time of booking, anytime prior to the trip leaving, or on the trip. We signed-up for everything offered but one tour and our grand total for this trip was $4,052. The base price of our trip without any upgrades or extra excursions was $3,418. That is total for two people including taxes and fees. You can also get a cash discount if you do not pay by credit card. We paid $634 for two people for all additional tours (but one). Again, several well-traveled couples on our trip did not pay for any additional excursions or only added them at the last minute because they took taxis to do their own thing or they wanted to see the Summer Palace on their own, for example. The entire trip you do not pay for any fees to get into any sites or anything of that sort - Gate 1 handles it all. Some people in our group (like myself) prepaid for most everything. Other people added tours as they felt like doing them (usually the day before) and paid for all their add-ons at the end of the trip.

For the trip we took, we think it was well worth the money as their were many, many extras added that were not on our itinerary and there was no cost to it. Also, once you are on the trip, it seemed like there was nowhere to spend money unless you wanted souvenirs or drinks. We didn't even spend 3,000 Yuan or $500 for this trip from the time we left until the time we returned including tips for drivers and guides! THAT is shocking because for most of our international trips we spend at least a thousand US dollars somehow. We were very pleased with our trip and did not feel like we were put in bad hotels or that any costs had been spared for us at anytime - our hotels were beautiful and our motorcoaches/bus were very nice.

Just to back-up a tiny bit, at check-in we were handed our room keys from our tour guide and the cashier/controller came to a table and we all individually gave him the one-time tipping fee for the cruise before going to our rooms - 150 Yuan per person or approximately 25 USD per person. You could pay with Yuan, USD, or credit card. This was between you and Victoria Cruises and was not handled by Gate 1 Travel. This is the only place in China I used my credit card and the total charged to me was 150 Yuan for 2 people and my account shows 47 USD withdrawn.

As a tip: I used my Paypal card which is connected to my checking account and incurred NO fees for using my Paypal card in China. I had called them ahead of time and setup my international dates online under settings prior to leaving so they would approve any transactions.

So, now about the rooms. I think this is very important if you are taking this cruise with Victoria Cruises. If you are familiar with Gate 1 Travel in China then you know you are automatically given a Cabin C - which is Deck 2. For $60 more per person - TOTAL - you can upgrade to Cabin B - which should be Deck 3 or 4 or for $100 more person you can upgrade to Cabin A - which should be Deck 4 or 5.

The ship only has 5 decks.

Deck 1 is crew.

Deck 2 and 3 is passenger cabins. Deck 2 also has the main large dining room.

Deck 4 is passenger cabins.

Deck 5 is a small amount of passenger cabins, the main/big club and bar area on one end plus a massage room, extra bathrooms, Mahjong Rooms and a smaller, executive dining room on the other end.

The Gate 1 Travel website tonight says: "Please note, all decks on your Victoria Cruise ship have similar standard rooms. Plan B Promenade Deck and Plan A Bridge Deck cabins feature an additional onboard amenity package. Please visit the Victoria Cruise ship profiles for further details."

We did not know what the amenity package was but I am fairly certain I had researched it on Victoria Cruises website prior to leaving and it said a fruit basket and a higher deck cabin. Nothing else was mentioned on their website that I remember. My in-laws cruised the Yangtze River a few years back and told us the river was terribly smelly and we should get the highest cabin possible. (By the way, this was not true - the river never smelled for us). We paid $60 extra per person at the time of booking and upgraded to Cabin B thinking we would be on a higher deck. This is the ONLY reason we paid for the upgrade - to get away from the supposedly smelly river. No biggie.

What we actually got was well worth the 60 USD - we got four pieces of laundry done each day for free (anything), we got free Internet for the entire cruise, we got a free happy hour three days (white wine, red wine and beer only), we got free drinks (sodas, wine, etc) at lunch and dinner, and we were able to eat in the executive dining room for all our meals and dinner was a la carte - you ordered dinner every morning from a list given to you at breakfast. Laundry was very expensive on the boat so that in itself paid for the 60 USD per person fee for the upgrade, Internet was 150 Yuan for the cruise so that was a savings of approximately 25 USD, free wine, free Diet Cokes with ice, and better food. It was all worth it. In the end, the location of the cabin was inconsequential because the ship is tiny and you are either going to be on Deck 2, 3, 4 or 5 and if you can't walk those four decks up and down, you can't take this trip anyway.

Here is a picture of the Amenity Package paper we were given at check-in:

Here is the fruit basket (we did not each anything from it):

Regardless, only eight people on our tour signed-up for this package which I again find odd. You were given the option to sign-up at check-in for 79 USD per person and some did consider it but passed. This was a bit of a sore spot with me for the cruise only because our Gate 1 tour guide encouraged everyone to eat dinner together on deck 2 together instead of the 8 of us eating in our assigned, smaller dining room on deck 5 - but why in the world would we want to go downstairs and eat Chinese food on a spinny table when we could order chicken cordon bleu and have free sodas and ice in our small dining room?! There was a teeny bit of pressure put on us about this for not being "part of the group" and I did not appreciate that and we did not succumb to this ridiculousness. Who cares where we eat? Silly, really. If we were to take this cruise again, we would again pay for a Cabin B upgrade as we made-up our money with the laundry service and Internet alone. Also, we were given a wide array of food - mainly all western - and our dining room was very small compared to the large dining room and it was much easier to eat there than in the large dining room - we know this because the last night and the last morning we ate in the large dining room in order to accommodate the cruise staff and our waiter (long story, no big deal).

So, it is my recommendation to pay for the Cabin B upgrade. Maybe in the hot summer the river is smelly? Maybe you want free/clean laundry and Internet? Maybe the free wine and sodas all day is appealing? The food upstairs is a bonus. Also, you are only dining with about 30 to 35 people upstairs. The remainder of the ship dines downstairs which would normally be about 185 more people in the large dining room but their buffet setup was just as big as ours. If you like western food, this may also be something you want to consider. This is just my opinion...

After our Hutong tour we were taken to our hotel and had approximately one hour before check-out. Check-out consisted of taking the front desk our room key. If anyone incurred any charges, I didn't hear about it.

Our checked luggage was taken by Gate 1 directly to the airport. We never had to worry about our suitcases. Our carry-ons were kept with us on the tour bus today. My husband and I had one regular-size backpack each as our carry-ons for this tour.

After check-out we were taken to a more "hip" restaurant in the newer area of Beijing (so it seemed) and we had a fantastic spicy noodle, spicy chicken, spicy everything lunch! I loved it! It was my favorite spinny table lunch.

We were taken to the airport and by the way, Jason Liu, our tour guide, flew with us and cruised with us and stayed with us the entire tour. Amazing, I thought. He handed us our boarding passes and our luggage tags and all we had to do at the airports was go through security and go to the gate. Talk about smooth. Major kudos to Gate 1 for how easy everything was handled the entire trip.

We had a 5:05pm flight from Beijing to Yichang tonight to embark on our cruise. There was air traffic congestion and we sat on the runway at least 30 minutes watching other planes coming and going before we were allowed to taxi and fly out. A quick note about the three intra-China flights we had on this tour:

- We did not get any say in our seat assignments. It was always me in the middle and my husband by the window or vice versa with a Chinese person in the aisle seat. At least we were always together. If you are flying with someone with the same last name, they will try to keep you two together.

- All three intra-China flights were 2 hrs 25 min or 2 hrs 40 min and they served a meal on all three flights. The meal was like pork noodle or chicken rice but it was a full meal. We never ate this meal on any of the three flights. The first flight we were asleep and did not wake-up to even be offered a meal, the second flight I was sick of Chinese food and was grossed-out by the offerings, and the third flight I just wasn't interested in another rice/chicken type of meal.

- There is NO water available to purchase. They offer you a small glass of water, Coke, Sprite, orange juice, whatever each flight. If you keep an EMPTY water bottle on you and go through security, all of the airports offer free, cold water stations every few feet for you to fill-up your water bottles after security. We all learned this quickly!

We arrived in Yichang and it was dark, obviously. We were bused to the cruise port but could not see anything along the way. I did notice we took two toll roads and it took about 45 minutes. We were shown two other cruise ships docked for the winter but we could barely see them. Upon arrival we were immediately greeted by many staff members lined-up waiting for us and a band playing. We were escorted into the dining room, given a rather long welcome speech (it was 9pm by now) and a slight sales pitch about their excursions, and then soon our tour guide gave us room keys. Our suitcases were already sitting outside our rooms when we got to them.

We were given Cabin 306:

ALL of the rooms on the ship had two twin beds. Someone in our group labeled this "The Platonic Cruise" and we all had a good laugh.

Here is another view of our room:

Do you see that white, square-looking thing up in the top right corner of the room? That is a smoke detector that is connected to the bridge. They receive alerts if anyone is caught smoking in their room and we were told the fee was ~ 650 Yuan if your room was detected. Room 421 was detected one night while we were there, btw.

More to come later...

Today was our final day in Beijing. We signed-up for the optional excursion which was the Hutong Tour with Rickshaw Ride. Again, only about 10 of us signed-up for this tour which again, surprised me. I'm not for sure why anyone would want to miss this opportunity as there was nothing like it again for the remainder of the tour. Jason Liu, our tour guide, and his family lived in a Hutong until the early 90s. He grew-up in a Hutong and was very detailed about the old lifestyle in Hutongs versus today's lifestyle. This tour was very interesting and informative.

We were given a rickety Rickshaw ride down the alleyways and then we walked through several more alleyways stopping along the way for Jason to explain the door decorations, etc at various Hutongs.

This is a sign for double happiness... someone in this Hutong just got married:

We then we did a home visit with a local man who is approved by the government to host visitors. He was a very kind man and he was informative and honest. I genuinely enjoyed our visit to this man's Hutong.

Me with our host:

At the end of our visit we then walked a very short distance and Jason had a surprise for us ~ a visit to a Chinese pharmacy!

This tour was a bit smelly as there are obvious trash and sewer issues but this is something you will find pretty-much throughout China. The information shared and the home-hosted visit along with a visit to the Chinese pharmacy was well worth our time and we both enjoyed this additonal tour.

Your review is off to a great start! Can't wait to read more.

 

Norris

Thank you :)

Today was the day we had prepaid for additional full day of touring to the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, etc. - 11 hours of touring is what is written on the Gate 1 website. I was most looking forward to Tiananmen Square.

Unfortunately, my husband got a very bad cold and thought he was getting sick after our full day out in the freezing cold weather yesterday. Our tour guide (and others on Cruise Critic boards) had warned to not push yourself and if you need a day off from touring, take it. My husband told me he did not want to take the tour today. He sounded pretty bad and of course I agreed. A couple of other couples also skipped today's tour. Actually, while I'm thinking about it, I will just say there were several couples on our tour who did not sign-up for any of the additional excursions prior to the trip. They either wanted that time to do their own thing or they took taxis to see other things or etc. I was surprised by this. Many people made the decision to purchase the excursions the day before as everyone was given the option the day before to add the additional excursions. The way it worked was our tour guide kept a list of anything you added and at the end of the tour you could pay for all your additional excursions at once with credit card, cash or Yuan. Several people did it this way. I, however, had prepaid for all the excursions ahead of time through the Gate 1 website. The only excursion we did not pay for was the Chinese Acrobatic Show with dinner and this is because we live near Branson and have seen this type of show several times. Needless to say, we did lose our money for this Summer Palace/Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City touring day but that was irrelevant ~ my husband feeling better for the rest of the trip was much more important.

Hotel lobby:

So, we went to breakfast at 7am, told our tour guide we would not be touring today due to my husband not feeling up to it, and we went back to bed after breakfast and slept for another two hours! :o We then showered, got ready, and walked around our neighborhood in the daylight. This was a real treat for us as we felt more comfortable in the daylight. We also found a large grocery store with extremely cheap prices just a very short walk from the hotel. We bought some Sprite, water, liquor, and candy souvenirs for coworkers. You could get a large tea pot - a beautiful one - for 45 Yuan. We also got 10 chopsticks - not the souvenir kind - the kind we will actually use at home - for 9 Yuan. Later, at a store in Shanghai (surprisingly), we bought a giant bag of 25 good & beautiful useful chopsticks for 10 Yuan. Rare find for expensive Shanghai. We also bought 10 "souvenir" chopsticks in little covers for friends who requested "something" from China for 1 USD during the Hutong tour the next day but I'll move on now...

Chips for sale at the grocery store:

We were on our own for lunch & dinner today since we skipped the tour so so we went to a place across from our hotel that had what looked like KFC - but it turned-out to to be Chinese Fried Chicken, as my husband called it. They advertised a chicken sandwich for 8 Yuan and a big chicken for 13 Yuan. I ordered the sandwich which looked and smelled amazing. My husband also ordered the big chicken which also looked and smelled amazing. We got to our room to eat and it was a letdown. The chicken had been coated in sugar and then fried. It was sweet. The chicken was dark meat and stringy. Probably not even chicken. It was disappointing. It was the closest thing to western food we had since arriving. It's odd because you see or buy things and then you taste them and they are nothing like our food at home. I expected this but I have to say, I didn't like it.

Lunch (across from our hotel - we could see this from our room window):

We walked around the neighborhood for about three hours exploring and taking pictures and then returned to our room before dark. China was still new to us at this point and we weren't entirely on the right time zone or comfortable being out and about at night just yet. This would end by Shanghai and we would be out every night, btw.

I still am sad when I think about missing this touring day but I try to focus on what we DID see instead of on what we missed. I was told they took a group photo today but there were a few people missing. I do regret missing this day also because our tour guide also apparently shared a lot more information about China which he later referred to on several occasions but I was in the dark. Oh Well.

Was the cruise ship nice? The few things I've read about the food on the boats sound like it can be hit or miss. What do you do on the cruise besides enjoy that amazing scenery?

Surprisingly to me.. the cruise ship was nice! I was impressed. I think I had really low expectations of the ship.

The food is a hit or miss on the boat but I am going to write IN DETAIL why you should DEFINITELY pay to upgrade to a Cabin B or Cabin A from the standard Cabin C - but basically, you get to order dinner from a menu every night. Also, for me, the food on the cruise was much better than the food we had in the hotels and at the restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai because it was both options all the time - Western and Eastern - and the Western was done correctly!

There is ALWAYS something to do on the cruise. Gate 1 offers an excursion package but that is the GATE 1 excursions - the cruise offers different excursions every day too plus Gate 1 arranges lots of extras for you that you have no idea about until you are on the tour - frankly, I was blown away by everything they arranged for us - a roundtable discussion with our tour guide about Chinese culture (fascinating), a Mahjong tournament, a talent/game show, morning tea and Tai Chi, etc You will be SHOCKED at everything that is available to you at no cost. The cruise was my favorite part of the trip except for that first day in Beijing touring The Great Wall. As I get further in my review, I will get more specific. I saved the daily "papers" from the cruise and will post those for you, too.

Just so you know, I wasn't really impressed with Gate 1 Travels customer service prior to the trip - it always seemed like the 3 or 4 times I called I got a smart-mouthed kid that called me by my first name and they fibbed to me about the flight seats. But, when it came to the actual tour, I was BLOWN AWAY by how smoothly everything went and how everything was handled by our tour guide who is an employee for Gate 1. So, in the end, we would definitely use them again. I suppose the young kids answering the phones in Pennsylvania are probably just that... young kids.

Beijing continued...

A young couple from Atlanta in our group walked up the great wall - higher than we did - and he gave his video camera to another group member (secretly) - and he proposed today!! She said yes!! It was so sweet! He said he had the ring in his carry-on bag all day yesterday on our plane, sweating bullets. We all toasted them at dinner and our tour guide played them a love song on the bus. HA It was pretty amazing and really sweet. They both seem real nice and she is just lovely, too!

After the amazing time at The Great Wall we were bused to a restaurant where we all sat at spinny tables and ate. They asked everyone if they wanted beer, Coke or Sprite. The beer was warm today. There is hot tea available at all meals. You have lots of dishes around you ~ a tea cup, soup dish, chopsticks, beer cup, a small saucer for your food, and even a fork for us Americans. They bring out dish after dish and place on the spinny table and everyone moves the table around and takes a little of what they might like. I was able to eat some sticky rice (plain white rice) with a bit of Soy Sauce (very strong over here), some sweet-and-sour like Chicken, and that is all I liked today. I tasted a tiny bit of this and that. My husband ate everything. Cleaned his plate and tried every dish. The man is a garbage disposal.

After lunch we took about a 45 minute walk through the sacred gardens. This was peaceful and at times a bit humorous with all of us taking pictures in front of the marble "guardians" ~ carved animals that protect the gardens and the former emperors. We then went to the Ming Tombs. This was an interesting site where a former emperor is buried. Emperors are buried with Jade, silks, their cocubines are poisoned and buried near them, etc. The burial grounds are elaborate and what they contain is mindboggling. This specific emperors' tomb is actually completely encased in marble - the floors of the site were marble but they were getting so damaged by tourists they recently covered most of the marble with laminate flooring to protect the marble. This site was interesting and we learned many Chinese superstition lessons today. Which reminds me, that is one of the great things about our tour guide, Jason Liu, he is constantly telling you stories. I learned lots of interesting information on this trip.

It was 5:30pm before we left our last site. It was freezing cold today - literally - and we were sooooo cold - even on the bus. I was wearing a turtleneck, gloves, scarf and my warm gloves but could not get warm. Beijing is a very dry cold ~ very, very dry. It is hard to explain. We have been told to wear two sets of pants tomorrow because tomorrow we will be outside almost all day.

For dinner tonight, we had an experience ~ a Peking Duck dinner at a fine restaurant in China. There were nine of us that had paid and signed-up for this optional excursion on the tour. It was so much fun! I would HIGHLY recommend this if you think you might like duck at all. We had unlimited wine, beer, and "firewater" which we all said "Gom-bay" before drinking more and more ~ maybe that is why it was so fun? I am not a fan of duck but my husband is and he had wanted to sign-up for this meal. They treated us like royalty in a special area of the restaurant. Tonight we had another array of utensils and platters and even a warm wet cloth at our seat to wash our hands before eating. All very different but very interesting. I did try the duck pancake and the regular duck. It was okay. My husband and most others loved everything. They also had roasted pork (okay), garlic bamboo shoots, ham fried rice, some sort of slimey-seeming beef, sweet and sour tilapia with the head on, soup, apple fried dumplings, custard, and watermelon. I ate a tiny bit of this or that. The apple dumpling was good, the custard pie was okay, the watermelon was perfect. Ha The atmosphere at dinner tonight was fun and joyful! Drinks were unlimited - including the alcohol - and everyone really started talking and we got to know each other well tonight. Even though I do not like duck, I am very glad we paid for this optional dinner.

The sweet & sour tilapia (which everyone liked):

A quick picture of our very nice tour bus:

To end this day, we got back to our hotel room around 9pm. We walked to a neighborhood store and bought extra water as we seem to be always thirsty and forget to get extra water from our tour guide. Water is very cheap here - we paid 2 Yuan per bottle tonight.

So excited to read your review! I am doing this tour in September and have been having a hard time finding info about it.

:D So excited someone will benefit from my review! I too had a terrible time finding any information on this tour. You are in for a real treat ~ our trip went smoothly and we had a wonderful time! We would use Gate 1 Travel in the future and are even considering Iceland right now. Feel free to ask any questions at any time. As I get more into the trip I am going to be more detailed about some things I wish I would have known or etc.

Today was a wonderful day! We woke-up around 5:30am and we were starving from skipping dinner last night. The hotel offers a "western-style mixed with eastern-style" buffet breakfast every morning which is included for all of us on the tour. Breakfast began at 7am each day. The selection ranged from dim sum, corn on the cob, and steamed greens to scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, jelly. I had the eggs, bacon & eggs toast - and even though the eggs have a fishy taste - they maybe were cooked in the same grease or skillet as something else - breakfast was good and we were happy.

After breakfast we had a one hour tour meeting in a conference room here in the hotel. Our tour manager, Jason Liu, gave us headsets, debriefing on the overall schedule, discussed tips due various individuals, etc. If you read all your paperwork or read online prior to this trip, nothing was a surprise to you. It was still a very informative talk. It was interesting to meet the other 11 individuals which flew-in from New York last night. They had a harrowing time apparently ~ their Air China flight was delayed 3 hours and then upon debarkation four of them setoff temperature alarms and one was quarantined for over an hour. One funny guy, Mark, said every time they waived the temperature wand at him he would panic a bit and his temperature would rise. The guy that was quarantined was immediately stripped of his passport and three other people were questioned and taken aside for approximately an hour - all Americans from our tour group. It was hilarious to hear the stories but thank goodness nothing like that happened to our group flying-in yesterday. We laughed and laughed at them today. The original group from LA has 17 people that are all our age (early 40s) or younger - much younger. We were surprised. The new group is a large group mainly in their late 60s, early 70s. There are some real characters with us and I can tell this is going to be a fun trip!

Today (and tonight) we went to the Olympic Village. China built this village for the 2008 Olympics - they completely tore-down apartment complexes and etc - by leaving big, white paper notices on the buildings to the residences with their move-out dates - no other notice was given. Each residence was compensated "X" amount of money by the Communist government - no negotations. It was not enough money for them to buy the same style of apartment in the same area or close to town so many had to move farther out of Beijing. This is not something our tour guide reports as the people being upset about, simply as a fact of life. The people in Beijing are very, very proud of the Olympic village which is approximately 15 to 16,000 acres of landscaped, manicured, lawns and amazing buildings all built in <5 years. We saw the famous Birds Nest, the Water Cube where Phelps won 8 gold medals in 2008, the Olympic Village, the five buildings creating the dragon, etc. It was neat but even neater last night around 7pm when we drove back by and saw everything lit-up for night. Awesome

The bird's nest:

We also went to a Jade factory today. The Chinese believe you cannot buy Jade for yourself, it is bad luck. You must have it purchased for you as a gift. There was a sculptor doing work through a glass-enclosed area so you could watch how things are made on-site. We were given a brief talk and then were left to roam and view the large amount of items for sale ranging from $480,000 USD (or or more) to lots of items less than $99 USD if you were interested. I realize this was a "selling" stop but it was beautiful to see everything and take pictures ~ I was even fascinated with their beautiful fish tank. I liked seeing the Jade Factory.

Us at the Jade Factory:

So, we went to the Great Wall of China today! It was awesome! Due to recent winds we had blue skies, no fog, and a cold but sunny day to walk two parts of the wall. We were given approximately two hours to explore The Great Wall. We explored both sides of the wall and liked the left side best. We were not at the "Badaling" section that many tour groups go to but another section which I believe starts with a "J" and due to being at this section, the cold weather, and it being December, the walls were practically empty! This may sound like a cliche but today was my favorite day of the entire trip!! Climbing The Great Wall was sorta steep but easy. Coming down was sooooo scarey ~ especially if you have short legs like me ~ grab the railing and slowly make it down. One girl in our group scooted down on her butt. Another guy in our group determined to get some great pictures crawled up on his hands and feet... and then couldn't get down in time to meet our bus... and we couldn't find him. The group and bus driver left him there and went to a late lunch but the tour guide stayed and waited for him and they took a taxi to our lunch place about 20 minutes later.

The Great Wall is excellent and I cannot say enough how much fun we had while visiting!

Our flight arrived a few minutes early into Beijing and then we were directed through immigration which was a slow, long wait. We then took a train to our luggage, we were waived through security (no check for us), and as we were leaving the airport we saw a red and yellow Gate 1 flag waiving. We soon learned there were 17 individuals on our flight for this tour. Later in the evening, the New York flight arrived with 11 more for a group total of 28 people.

We were all taken to a small van where we left our checked luggage and then loaded on a nice bus with our carry-ons and we were given a small debriefing from our Tour Guide for the entire trip – Jason Liu. Jason, by the way, was absolutely wonderful. I could not imagine another person doing as well as he did for us during this entire trip. Everything on this trip went smoothly and I attribue that to him. Jason was personable, calm, understanding, and spoke very good English. He was born and raised in Beijing and has a degree in English Literature and has been a tour guide for various organizations for about 10 years. He is a gem.

Here is a picture of Jason:

We were soon on our way to our hotel in Beijing which took at least an hour because Beijing traffic is always congested. Our first three nights in Beijing were at the Xizhao Temple Hotel formerly known as the King Temple Hotel. This hotel was wonderful. I felt at home here. This hotel is a former temple that is now a hotel, conference center, and a small area still reserved for the monks whom you will see at breakfast or throughout your stay at the hotel. There is a peaceful feeling in this hotel.

View of our hotel from the side road:

The hotel room was big, had two seating chairs, a great view of the side streets/restaurants surrounding our hotel, was quiet, had plenty of English TV stations, easy and free wi-fi and great bathroom with amenities - everything was western-style.

Check-in was super quick and easy. Each person or couple had to give the front desk attendants their passports which they quickly copied and returned to you and then handed you your room keys. I find it interesting to note that throughout the tour we were never asked for a cash or credit card deposit at any time. Very nice handling by Gate 1 in my opinion.

We were on our own for dinner tonight and had been told if we walk out the front of our hotel and turn left there would be plenty of restaurants and even though this was true we learned the next day... well....it was dark, it was probably close to 7pm or 8pm by the time we got to our room, and we were tired and in a country we knew nothing about. We had ate one good meal and half of another meal on the plane, also. We skipped dinner tonight. We had packed lots of snacks in our suitcases and they came in handy this trip. We had beef jerky, peanut butter & cheese crackers, and my husband even had some small chef-boyardee cups of pasta.

Water in our room was free and plus tour guide had already given us a bottle each on the bus prior to leaving the airport - we had plenty to drink and to brush our teeth. We were good for the night...

We flew from our home to Los Angeles the day before the actual tour began. We chose Gate 1’s air-inclusive option from Los Angeles to Beijing and back. You can also choose the air-inclusive option from New York to Beijing and back for an additional $300. We spent the pre-tour night at the Hilton LAX (and the post-tour night). We love this hotel and have stayed here before. Prices range each time we have stayed. This time around we paid a AAA rate of $120 and a state government employee rate of $179 – rates are a hit or miss there but sometimes Expedia has rooms for $99/night. We love this hotel because the airport shuttle runs frequently, the hotel is beautiful, there is a decent (but expensive) restaurant in the lobby, there is a deli/mini-Starbucks on the other side of the lobby, and there is a Carl’s Jr. next door – a safe, easy walk in three minutes that many people were making with us when we went there for sodas. The main reason we like this hotel is for their third floor smoking rooms which have sliding glass doors that open-up to an outdoor smoking plaza with tables, chairs & ashtrays. This works wonderfully for us because my husband is a smoker and I am not so I don’t like him to smoke in the hotel room. We usually sit outside and eat our evening meal there, too.

The morning of our tour our flights with Air China were scheduled to leave from LAX to PEK (Beijing, China) at 11:50am. We were given a flight confirmation number from Gate 1 to use at the check-in counter. We arrived at Terminal 2 for Air China around 8:15am worried we may be too early but we were nowhere near the first people already checking-in. Even though we did not know it at the time, there were two other couples on our tour already in line when we got there. There was also a long line of other individuals. The main thing I don’t like about Gate 1 is how they handle their air – it is blocked air with Air China and regardless of what anyone tells you or when you pay your trip in full, you can never select your seat assignments ahead with Gate 1 or by calling Air China. Getting in line early paid-off very well for us and we were able to get great seats for the flight. Air China has a 3-3-3 configuration in economy however they have 3 rows of 2-3-2 and we were able to secure one of those rows so my husband had an aisle and I had a window seat – this gave us much more room and our flights were very comfortable. We were able to get these same seats on the return flight home. We got very lucky. In all the time I’ve ever flown internationally, the 13 hour flight to Beijing and the 12 hour flight returning to the U.S. were my two most comfortable flights EVER. Strange and wonderful how that worked-out.

Air China’s record for being on-time is bad however, during this entire tour, they began boarding early for every flight and we had five total flights with Air China during this trip. I would say they did excellent overall. Seatback entertainment options were good and I was impressed. They had at least 20-30 movies in multiple categories – drama, romance, comedy, action, etc. They had numerous full music albums you could listen too – country, rock, pop, classical, oldies, etc. They had games, the 3-D route maps, etc. My husband got fascinated with one of the games they offer and spent most of the long flight trying to beat it and didn’t turn-on his Kindle one time which is out of character for him. Also, many people did not realize they had a little symbol sorta like a postscript at the end of each row of options and when you pushed that symbol, you were given many more options. I watched Maleficent today and it was good.

About two hours into today’s flight they came around and offered drinks and then came back around about 15 minutes later and offered you a meal choice of chicken with rice or beef with rice. I chose the beef with rice option and it was good – the only real beef we had the entire tour. All other “beef” options given to you throughout China will actually be goat or something else – no cow, btw.

About two or three hours prior to landing they offered a second meal – you could have pork noodle or fried rice. They did not mention the fried rice was actually shrimp fried rice – full of small shrimp. Either way, you were full with two meals on this long flight.