Zimbabwe Tours

We really enjoyed this trip. I won’t deny that I was a little apprehensive booking it, re overnight train sharing with strangers and EBC accommodation. The train was comfortable and enough space for 4 in our carriage. Western style toilet on board was fine too. You also get amazing scenery from the train!
At EBC they have electric blankets!! We didn’t use them as the bedding was warm enough. The sunrise over Everest was spectacular, we had clear views and it was a great way to mark my birthday.
All the hotel rooms/beds were very comfortable.
We were a group of 15 ranging in age to 70+ and all coped with the altitude, no supplementary oxygen needed. This was down to following the great advice from our National Guide.
A good mix of free time and guided tours with the local guides, who seem to be experts on every Buddhist temple!
Most meals were delicious but could get a bit repetitive and there was always plenty of food but we never knew how many dishes would be served at a lazy Susan which meant full up by the time the best dish was brought out, usually Yak.
There is a lot of walking/steps so a good level of fitness helps. So pleased we did this trip.

Completed the "China Experience" tour with Wendy Wu this May visiting Shanghai, Xi'An, and Beijing. This was led by National Guide, Grace Gao, and local guides Felicity (Shanghai), May (Xi'An) and Lee/Li (Beijing). This was first trip with the company and as a solo-traveller on the tour. Met for the first day in Shanghai, as total strangers, and discovered I was the youngest (Late 30s) of a group of 16, ages on average ranged around 50–70 years old for the others.
The tour was fast-faced with a lot to see, which could make it physically demanding. Up first thing in the morning, back late at night, no real down-time or taking things at a casual pace others may entertain outside a tour company.
The tour guides were very knowledgeable, and it was good to hear their personal perspectives and experiences which shaped things for them and the changes that have advanced in modern China. It gave a very real element to the world beyond the facade of simply seeing what is in front of you. Felicity sharing as she watched the skyscrapers go up as a young girl in Shanghai, Grace's experience of when she first went to Xi'An to study before they redeveloped the city, and Lee coming in from the villages to Beijing.
The thing I found from China was that my perspective of 'big' changed. The country is so populous and so built up, it made everything back home just feeling small. The souvenir 'town' outside the Terracotta Warriors alone felt like it was the size of my hometown. Downside, you had to walk through it to get back to the bus.
That was the downside of China, the tourism felt over-commercialized and this really seemed to take a lot of authenticity away from the experience. You couldn't simply enjoy something without it being 10 trinket stalls around it, and 2 inside of it.
Though the tour allowed for some very good opportunities to witness things like the Tang Dynasty dancing, Chinese Acrobatics, and an optional Xi'an night tour which included dress up, and went to a festival filled with other domestic tourists to have a good time and lots of pictures taken of/with (Highlight event of the trip).
Wendy Wu were clearly very experienced on when and where to go to the different venues. Seeing other Wendy Wu tour groups at the same exact places shows they have a formula on how to deliver this, which is used for their other tours they host. The timings also allowed you to experience things before the crowds hit, so when you are leaving, you turn around to see a mass of people, and think "good thing we came when we did". I think that goes to sum up how these tours work, they have everything packaged in a neat box, and you pay to experience it. Wendy Wu tours are certainly not cheap in price, but it is fully inclusive, so you don't need to worry as everything is taken care for you, and they have a high calibre when it came to quality of the tour guides, hotel rooms, and choices they select. They know what they are doing to deliver the experience, from the start to finish.
I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and the biggest cons were down to the lack of flexibility in format which is to be expected.

Firstly I’d like to commend our National Tour Guide Sophie Jin who was outstanding and couldn’t have been more helpful with our group of 27 travellers from Australia, New Zealand, England and Ireland. Nothing was too much bother for her and she even insisted on getting up to meet us in the hotel lobby at 6.15 on our departure day, even though we told her not to! Sophie really is an asset to Wendy Wu Tours and her dedication is second to none.

Now for the tour itself: SOOOO much is packed in that we (and others in our group) found it quite exhausting. There is little to no down time with early morning starts, and late returns to the hotels meant we often went straight to bed. Our group was mainly people in their 70s, with 7 or 8 of us in our 60s and a couple in their late 50s. Age is not taken into consideration - you book, you do it. And boy do you need stamina!
Also be prepared to do trips in all weathers. There is no contingency plan for bad weather - we were up Tianmen Mountain despite a Gale warning and driving rain. We all ended up freezing and soaking wet. Because of this we (and a few others) decided to opt out of the Old Town and Yu Gardens trip in Shanghai next day, only to find we had to write a letter explaining why.
We also felt the ‘Optional Tours weren’t very optional. The bus is geared towards those paying for these trips and those who choose not to go must find their own way back to the hotel.
There was also a problem with my food. I’m vegetarian and told Wendy Wu this before booking. Unfortunately the Chinese seem to have no concept of vegetarianism and assumed all that I ate was boiled vegetables. Meat eaters had Kung Po Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork etc while I was given boiled cabbage, aubergine and Pak Choi. Basically I had side dishes. I did speak to Sophie about getting dishes without the chicken or pork (Sweet and Sour Veg for example) but she said a lot of restaurants wouldn’t do this. I did have a bowl of Sweet and Sour sauce one night, which was lovely, but the boiled tomatoes and ketchup was not appetising with rice and vegetables! I have been in touch with Wendy Wu about this and am awaiting a response.

All in all it was a fantastic trip, hotels were great, everything was well organised and it is a beautiful, clean and safe country. Maybe fewer things to do and a wee bit of downtime would make it more appealing Wendy Wu!

Keith was brilliant giving his talk and Hanna also with the booking. Problem started when we got the confirmation email. Firstly it was for the wrong date and the ATOLcertificate was for the wrong number of days. When Keith gives his talk he emphasises the tours are inclusive without extra things to pay for, however, when you read the detailed itinary there are loads of extras to pay for if you want to do them.

Our motive for going to China was to visit family, but we also wanted to see the country. Not having visited before, making our own travel arrangements was daunting, and we decided to go on an organised tour.

We chose Wendy Wu’s Gems of China tour as it gave us the opportunity to visit areas such as the Zhangjiajie National Park which weren’t covered by other tours, and we were very happy with our choice.

From the first moment of booking we were very satisfied with the attention to detail and level of support we received from the company. When it was decided (the day after we applied) that British visitors no longer needed a visa, the staff were very helpful, and processed our refund quickly. The information we received before the tour was very comprehensive and answered all our questions.

The quality of the hotels where we stayed, and the transport (including coaches, trains and internal flights) were all excellent.

In an unfamiliar country such as China the quality of the local guides is extremely important, and our main guide, Sophie Jin was fantastic! Her English was great, she was very knowledgeable and friendly, and managed the conflicting demands of a diverse group with tact and kindness. We were very well looked after, and I can’t praise her highly enough. Different guides with more local knowledge were employed in the different places we visited, and they were all excellent.

The tour covered all the main areas of tourist interest, such as Beijing, the Great Wall, Terracotta warriors etc, and included a relaxing Yangtze cruise. We had many opportunities to go on voluntary evening entertainments, and I can honestly say that these were some of the highlights of the tour, and gave us experiences we would never have had elsewhere.

My only (minor) criticism would be that the tour was very fast-paced; it would have been nice to have longer stays in the places visited, and more free time, but this would have added to the cost, which was quite high. All in all the tour was a brilliant introduction to a country little visited by western tourists, and one which challenged previously held ideas. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend Wendy Wu tours highly.