Organized group, pros and cons
My experience with Sinorama
I have just returned from a group trip organized in China with travel agency Sinorama. It is a trip that is quite affordable for this destination when booking with this agency. But beware! Although I had a very nice trip to China, there is a price to pay for this package so cheap ...
The agencies have group prices in the big hotels of course, which is very beneficial for us. They probably also have great prices in restaurants. I myself tried to book this trip, with the same hotels that Sinorama offers us in their program and I can assure you that with the return flight, the entrances to museums and tourist sites, the rooms 5-star hotel and restaurant meals for 15 days, we are well over $ 1999 or $ 2,299 that Sinorama asks us for! I also heard that the Chinese government subsidized Sinorama to promote tourism in China. In other words, the Chinese government pays part of your trip, which is very good too ... But how good am I complaining?
-The hotels are often far from the city center, very far. Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are so huge that you can ride a bus for 1h30 in a straight line and you will not have left the city yet. Traffic is constant and the subways are overflowing. Yes yes, it's a 5 star, I agree, but as far as I'm concerned, I would have preferred a 4 star hotel but more centered. This would allow you to go for a walk during free time in the evening and not to waste precious hours in the traffic. Because of free time with Sinorama, there is none! All these hours are lost in the traffic between the hotel and the city center.
-There are also restaurants that are not always strategically located ... One night in Hangzhou City, we literally made a three hour drive back and forth during rush hour to eat at a restaurant that Sinorama had chosen us completely at the other end of the city ...
-The tourist catches are omnipresent in the Sinorama program and they are not always included in the program of the day. Local guides seem to perceive a percentage of the purchases that tourists make on the spot. I guess that's another reason why Sinorama packages are not too expensive. I admit that some catch may be interesting if you want to visit a jade factory, a silk factory etc ... But me personally, I would have preferred to have had "timings" less tight and have had more time to visit the cities in depth, coming off the beaten track to know the real Chinathan to lose a morning in an artificial factory to wait until all the members of the group have finished shopping at exorbitant prices ... I remember one day, due to an internal flight canceled, we had only two hours of sleep but our guide still insisted that we wake up at 6:00 in the morning so that we have time to visit one of these famous tourist catches before starting the day ... Ouff, we do not did not find it very funny!
But that said, despite everything, I would say that I still recommend group packages in China with Sinorama. China being a country that was highly communist and closed not so long ago, it is not very suitable for backpackers. The language barrier is huge, few people speak English, the signs are often written in Mandarin, it can be quite difficult to get together and plan an itinerary on the spot. I'm not saying it's impossible, but with the more affordable prices that Sinorama can offer, the more peace of mind to be driven from one place to another without worrying about finding your way, it's worth for something. I'm not a regular organized group
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