Gems of China
Another great tour with Wendy Wu from start to finish. The tour shows a lot of the best parts of China from the Great Wall to the mountains of Zhangjiajie and as much in between as possible. The national guide Jacky was on hand 24/7 and delivered an excellent tour with his knowledge and experience. The local guides on the way were also knowledgeable and friendly. Various local cuisine all tasted good, I’m did like the Peking Duck 😊, and the hotels were of a high standard. Nice size group of 18.
The pandas were fun to watch as well.
All in all a great tour, fantastic people and amazing time 😊
Apr 22, 2025
Best of Borneo
Met all our expectations in touring the country and seeing a wide range of animals in their local habitat. Small group (17), excellent tour manager and local guides, very knowledgeable, good transport, ate very well at different restaurants, great local dishes. Although very humid a good time to see Borneo.
Apr 22, 2025
Jewels of Japan
Jewels of Japan is an action packed trip to Japan, taking in most of the iconic sites.
Our guide Madoka was amazing, with a good sense of humour and was very informative about the places we visited.
The hotels were all very good quality as were the coaches used to transport us around.
I liked the fact that the tour introduced us to all the different foods eaten in Japan and the various ways the dishes are served and presented.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience
Apr 22, 2025
Natural Treasures of China
This Wendy Wu trip was a wonderful mix of experiencing both some of the most amazing natural scenery in the World and the hustle and bustle of Chinese city life.
Our prime reason for booking this tour was to visit places like Zhangjiajie and Jiuzhaigou and these places were indeed AMAZING! For us, however, we found that the two weeks were extremely "full-on", action packed with one visit after another after another, with very little opportunity to come up for air. We would have loved a little more down-time, with opportunities for us to opt out of some of the city visits to go and explore a little more for ourselves. For example, squeezing in visits to some of the extremely crowded places like Hongyu Dong in Chongqing after a long day was not a lot of fun.
We have come home with fantastic memories and photos, but also really exhausted, far more so than after our previous Wendy Wu "China Delights" holiday in October 2019.
The highlights:
1) EVERYTHING in Zhangjiajie, from the National Forest Park to the Glass Bridge and especially the visit to Tianmen Mountain - just breathtaking! LJ, our local guide was exemplary, guiding us as best he could through the crowds and queues around for the Qingming Festival. He was so informative, a great communicator and a real "people person", an absolute gem.
2) the visit and walk in the Black Mountain Valley was an unexpected delight. So tranquil and picturesque - a perfect day!
3) The simple breathtaking visit up to the astonishing Huanglong area, so high up in the mountains and just the most amazing sight to behold - and such a sense of achievement ascending to 3500 metres altitude!
4) The Dazu Rock Carvings were so interesting and awe-inspiring! I now need to read up on all the history and origins.
5) Inevitably, the pandas in Chengdu were just a joy to see.
6) All the meals were excellent (except the Farewell HotPot dinner in Chongqing which was arranged for 4:30 pm, far far too early to enjoy, particularly as we had tucked into a good lunch just a few hours before with no knowlege that dinner would be so early! Such a shame, as we would have loved to indulge fully in this special meal).
We also particularly enjoyed the odd occasions where we had time to go off and explore by ourselves, away from the organised schedule and experience the sights and sounds in our own time, in a more relaxed manner. These included:
- travelling on the subway over to Orange Island in Changsha, and then trying some of the street food
- our scheduled free evening in Chengdu after the panda visit, strolling along the riverside and trying food at one of the street food restaurants.
- an early morning hour's stroll around the little city park below our hotel in Chongqing, at Louis' suggestion. Such a peaceful start to the day, watching groups and individuals doing their early morning exercise, inspiring us to do some of our own stretching exercises by the lily ponds!
- The scheduled free evening stroll around Fenghuang, taking in all the beautiful illuminated sights and sounds along the river. A really vibrant and colourful scene.
- it was just great fun interacting with Chinese people, trying to talk some mandarin with them, and enjoying their requests to have photos taken with us westerners! We found them so helpful and friendly when trying to master Alipay, or buy tickets for the metro or select food in the street food restaurants.
The downsides:
We felt that the tour was just a bit too relentless, with too much being squeezed into absolutely every day. There were moments when we were too exhausted to appreciate everything. It would have been preferable to have some of the visits, particularly in the cities, as optional extras that you could either partake in or opt out of. Being jostled by crowds and crowds of people, trying to "follow the flag" and not lose the group were not our idea of fun, or time well spent. Maybe the tour could be a extended by a couple of days to allow for a bit of "recovery time" between places and activities.
Specific suggestions:
- maybe have an opportunity to see the night life of Chongqing from a river boat cruise (rather like the experience in Shanghai), rather than in the thick of the crowds?
- maybe in the Nine Villages Valley have a private shuttle bus for the Wendy Wu Group to take us from lake to lake, rather than having to join the manic jostling for a place on the shuttle buses with everyone else. This was exhausting! A private mini-bus would also give us more flexibility on timings and walks we could do between lakes?
Finally, a word for Louis, our Wendy Wu national ******. He was wonderful, quietly efficient and friendly and patient and very very knowledgeable. Our group of travelling companions were great fun. A group of strong and very individual personalities who all gelled very well together right from the start.
Thank you Wendy Wu for such a wonderful trip. Now the task of sorting through all the photos ....
Apr 22, 2025
Angkor to the Bay
The tour was arranged really well with excellent hotels and two very good guides, one in Cambodia one in Vietnam, it was pretty intense with a lot of travel, but all the time there were visits to some wonderful places, the veitnam guide in particular giving an insight into the history of the country.
Apr 22, 2025
Natural Treasures of China
An excellent itinerary packed with breathtaking scenery and magical places. Our national ******, Louis and the local guides, LJ, Viola and David were all fantastic to run the tour, very knowledge and well organised.
A huge thank you to Louis who went extra miles to show us more beautiful landmarks in his home city, Chongqing.
Hotels were all excellent except the ones in Fenghuang and Nine Villages Valley. Our farewell dinner Hot pot was so much fun!
Food was mostly very good.
Physical level for this tour should be 5 not 2! Most days involve walking 4-5 hours. In Nine Villages Valley the public shuttle buses should be replaced by private mini buses. The days are long enough and involve lots of long hours walking so waiting in long queues for public buses make days more tiring....
In Zhangjiajie, VIP services should be used all the way to avoid waiting in long queues.....
Dazu Rock Carvings on the last day of the tour should be an optional excursion to give chance for some to have free time to spend in Chongqing.
Airchina was not aware of our special meal request.
The optional show in Zhangjiaije was an amazing performance. Must see!
I highly recommend this tour. Every day of this tour was a highlight from the spectacular national parks to vibrant cities and of course adorable panda. All superbly organised!!
Thank you so much Wendy Wu and the team for giving us such a memorable fabulous holiday!🥰
Apr 21, 2025
Japan Uncovered
This was an extremely expensive holiday for what we got. We paid over £16,000 for 2 people for 15 days. Accommodation in Japan is not expensive and although the hotels were 3-4 stars and very nice, they did not have a bar or social lounge to relax in for us and chat to the others on our trip that we had met. None of the hotels were located in the centre of the towns that you could walk to a bar or explore either. Therefore we were off to our rooms at 8pm because the hotel restaurant would close at 8 or 9pm. In particular, the Hotel in Tokyo was badly located, very disappointing when we had 3 nights here and a free day! We chose Wendy Wu as we travelled with them in 2010 to China and had a fantastic trip and they were the only tour company that covered ALL meals. Not knowing the language we didn't want to try finding restaurants to eat and try to work out what the local food was. Having been to all the main towns many places are written in an English version or you can use a translater app. Having 3 meals a day was too much. The food was very similar, raw fish, 1 tempura prawn 2 veg tempura, rice, not many noodle dishes Ramen style. miso soup, some beef in a hot pot you cooked yourself. We wanted to experience Japanese meals, but 30 meals was just too much! If they cut out the lunch meal it would have been perfect as most of us left a lot of it, this would then allow more time at the temples, shrines, shops etc. Most of us just fancied a coffee and cake for lunch or even a burger!
Our guide was trully lovely, Chiyami, she was fun, knowledgeable and looked after our every need. If you have a food allergy you will struggle, not many restaurants cater. So a tour with less meals would be your option. We all thought the cherry blossom was a disappointment after all the hype in advertising. We were there in the height of blossom but the tours do not take you to the famous sights and most of it is white blossom. The UK have far more blossom!
Japan is a wonderful, safe country and the people have to be the nicest nation in the world. So care free, relaxed and all so friendly and helpful, despite the issues above we enjoyed the sights and the people we met.
Apr 21, 2025
Japan Uncovered
The guide that was with us was excellent. Some of the temples, shrines and castles were similar just in a different location which became a little repetitious at times. Perhaps a visit to a Saki brewery and Sumo bout or training would improve the experience. Some of the hotels were excellent some could have been better. Food was sometimes excellent other times poor as some days the meals at lunchtime and evening were the same no variety
Apr 20, 2025
Taj, Temples and Tigers
This tour was a fantastic insight into India. A really enjoyable experience despite the extreme heat and long distances travelled. The hotels were all of a goid standard and our guide was very attentive to the difering needs of our group. There were many highlights but the absolutely best experience was observing 5 tigers in their natural habitat - absolutely priceless!
Apr 19, 2025
Taj, Temples and Tigers
Very enjoyable tour, lots of interesting sights to see ; Taj Mahal, Amber fort, The Tigers at Rathambore national park.
Hotels of a good standard.
Be prepared to see lots of poverty and to be approached by hawkers & beggars.
Only downside was being ripped off by the Park Hotel re the cost of alcoholic drinks.
Apr 19, 2025
