1. Trips - I pre-booked mine in advance but if you book them on tour you can pay for them in cash; the facility to pay by credit card isn't available.

2. Credit card - If you take a credit card it can be used in shops and the silk and pearl factories - if you take a debit card it is also possible to withdraw money from local ATMs. Remember to ring your card company and advise that you may be using your card in China.

3. Cash - you can change English money easily at hotel reception. I would suggest you take a little extra English money with you as there may be extra optional excursions available which are not listed in the itinerary; if you don't spend it you can always bring it back and there are safes in all of the hotel rooms.

4. Clothes - touring in the day means you can get very hot and sticky - laundry facilities are available in the hotels and cruise; think about taking less night time clothes than you expect you will need as often due to traffic etc you may not have time to change for dinner and go directly to eat in your day time clothes.

5. Water - although you are advised the water isn't safe to drink from taps bottled water is readily available, complimentary bottles are available in the room each day to do your teeth - take out with you on trips etc and it is also available to buy on the coaches very cheaply. In the airport there is drinking water available free at water dispensing machines or again bottles can be bought cheaply in the airport shops (18p a bottle).

6. Hotel drinks - as a rough guide in the hotels a bottle of beer is around £5 and a glass of wine £5.50. You get a complimentary drink with your meal each evening. Hotel mini bars have beer and soft drinks in them and are approx £3 - £3.50 a drink.

7. Meals are served on a lazy susan lunch and dinner , although chopsticks are on the table forks are readily available - breakfasts are buffet style.

8. Medication - take precautionary basic over the counter medication with you just in case ie diocalm, headache tablets, throat sweets etc. I didn't have an upset stomach but did get a sore throat and was glad I'd taken the sweets with me.

9. Electronic equipment - in 2 of the 4 hotels there were western sockets but it's useful to take an adapter with you. There are hairdryers in all the hotels including the cruise.

10. Toiletries - save on your luggage weight by using the hotel toiletries. Small shower gel, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion are all provided in the hotel rooms and replenished each day as are toothbrushes and small toothpastes. You would just need to bring razors and deoderant.

11. Tea and coffee - kettles and black tea, green tea, coffee and powdered milk sachets are provided in the hotel rooms.

12. Wifi - is available in all hotels either for free or a nominal daily fee.

13. Luggage make sure your luggage is relatively sturday as the cases do literally get thrown around at the airports. If any damage occurs the airports provide a brand new case there and then.

14. Tipping - normally advised to give the equivalent of £1 per day to the driver and £2 per day to the local guide. Tips are put in envelopes whicih are usually in the hotel rooms. I took a couple of thank you cards with me to put mine in.

15. Cruise - the upgrade gets you 4 items of laundry each day, use of the executive lounge and a la carte meals; free soft drinks available but free alcoholic drinks only available after 6 pm. If you don't upgrade your meals are buffet style in the downstairs restaurant; you are entitled to one a la carte meal but this has to be booked and eaten in the downstairs restaurant also. Drinks wise two cans of beer (coke size) cost £2.50; a glass of wine is £5.50; there is complimentary tea and biscuits at 4 pm each day; - it's more expensive to exchange money on the cruise so do it in the hotel before you leave. Be aware that there are also 3 optional excursions on the cruise approx £26 each. Note that although a £15 service charge is made for tips on the cruise you are also allowed to tip cash to staff directly if you choose to do so but it isn't compulsory.

16. Sun protection - take a high factor suncream; most people wore hats or took umbrellas with them to provide protection from the sun. Some of the ladies had fans with them or bought them there.

Hope these tips are useful, they are just practicalities which I would have appreciated knowing in advance.

Having just returned from the Inspirational China and Yangtze add on cruise from 7th August I thought it might be useful to post some tips for those about to go.

1. Trips - I pre-booked mine in advance but if you book them on tour you can pay for them in cash; the facility to pay by credit card isn't available.

2. Credit card - If you take a credit card it can be used in shops and the silk and pearl factories - if you take a debit card it is also possible to withdraw money from local ATMs. Remember to ring your card company and advise that you may be using your card in China.

3. Cash - you can change English money easily at hotel reception. I would suggest you take a little extra English money with you as there may be extra optional excursions available which are not listed in the itinerary; if you don't spend it you can always bring it back and there are safes in all of the hotel rooms.

4. Clothes - touring in the day means you can get very hot and sticky - laundry facilities are available in the hotels and cruise; think about taking less night time clothes than you expect you will need as often due to traffic etc you may not have time to change for dinner and go directly to eat in your day time clothes.

5. Water - although you are advised the water isn't safe to drink from taps bottled water is readily available, complimentary bottles are available in the room each day to do your teeth - take out with you on trips etc and it is also available to buy on the coaches very cheaply. In the airport there is drinking water available free at water dispensing machines or again bottles can be bought cheaply in the airport shops (18p a bottle).

6. Hotel drinks - as a rough guide in the hotels a bottle of beer is around £5 and a glass of wine £5.50. You get a complimentary drink with your meal each evening. Hotel mini bars have beer and soft drinks in them and are approx £3 - £3.50 a drink.

7. Meals are served on a lazy susan lunch and dinner , although chopsticks are on the table forks are readily available - breakfasts are buffet style.

8. Medication - take precautionary basic over the counter medication with you just in case ie diocalm, headache tablets, throat sweets etc. I didn't have an upset stomach but did get a sore throat and was glad I'd taken the sweets with me.

9. Electronic equipment - in 2 of the 4 hotels there were western sockets but it's useful to take an adapter with you. There are hairdryers in all the hotels including the cruise.

10. Toiletries - save on your luggage weight by using the hotel toiletries. Small shower gel, shampoo, conditioner and body lotion are all provided in the hotel rooms and replenished each day as are toothbrushes and small toothpastes. You would just need to bring razors and deoderant.

11. Tea and coffee - kettles and black tea, green tea, coffee and powdered milk sachets are provided in the hotel rooms.

12. Wifi - is available in all hotels either for free or a nominal daily fee.

13. Luggage make sure your luggage is relatively sturday as the cases do literally get thrown around at the airports. If any damage occurs the airports provide a brand new case there and then.

14. Tipping - normally advised to give the equivalent of £1 per day to the driver and £2 per day to the local guide. Tips are put in envelopes whicih are usually in the hotel rooms. I took a couple of thank you cards with me to put mine in.

15. Cruise - the upgrade gets you 4 items of laundry each day, use of the executive lounge and a la carte meals; free soft drinks available but free alcoholic drinks only available after 6 pm. If you don't upgrade your meals are buffet style in the downstairs restaurant; you are entitled to one a la carte meal but this has to be booked and eaten in the downstairs restaurant also. Drinks wise two cans of beer (coke size) cost £2.50; a glass of wine is £5.50; there is complimentary tea and biscuits at 4 pm each day; - it's more expensive to exchange money on the cruise so do it in the hotel before you leave. Be aware that there are also 3 optional excursions on the cruise approx £26 each. Note that although a £15 service charge is made for tips on the cruise you are also allowed to tip cash to staff directly if you choose to do so but it isn't compulsory.

16. Sun protection - take a high factor suncream; most people wore hats or took umbrellas with them to provide protection from the sun. Some of the ladies had fans with them or bought them there.

Hope these tips are useful, they are just practicalities which I would have appreciated knowing in advance.

Thank you so much for all this very useful info, I am going on this tour on 18th September and all the above tips will be a great help.

Julia, would this be better in the "Share your travel tips" forum?

Marie, I just have one question - were the non-western sockets US/Aus in style (i.e. flat pins) or European (two round pins) or different again?

Thanks again,

Bob

That's very useful information. I'm off next week on the 4th and you've answered a number of the questions I had.

Kevin

All the best,

Bob

All the best,

Bob

All the best,

Bob

PS Now all I have to do is see if they'll deliver them to Ireland; their own stock they do but a lot of the third party sellers don't!!

Fantastic list of tips for China.

Hope you don't mind me offering one more thing........

Make sure you have 'hand gel' and (possibly more for the ladies!) take lots of tissues when you go out for the day. In most of the 'conveniences' there is no toilet paper or soap to wash your hands afterwards.

Having said that, it was a wonderful trip and the Tour Manager and Local Guides were attentive, informative, well organised and we were really looked after from the minute we arrived at the airport at the start to when we arrived back in the UK.

The other hotels had unversal plugs that accepted almost anything including standard UK plugs.

The Chinese adaptors I bought had two slanted pins that did not fit in the three pin sockets.

This is the socket in the Marriott Courtyard in Shanghai.

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• Primarily, and on top of that tiny carry-on limit, be warned of the checked-in baggage allowance too. JY do make the point in their final documentation but it is very easy to not make the connection.

The regular limit is 23Kg, common with many other airlines. But, domestic carriers in China, with which we travel three times, impose a 20Kg limit. So that must be the maximum for the Air China flights as well.

• A comment that has stuck in the back of my mind ever since reading it was that some places don’t provide toilet-paper and even suggested that you take your own supply, helpfully pointing out that Tesco, amongst others, do provide flat packets. True, they do, but they’re two-ply!! :-(

However, unable to believe JustYou’s choices of any hotel anywhere could possibly not provide such a basic, I mentioned it yesterday and was, of course, assured that they all would!

• He confirmed that they do not provide bathrobes, nor Kleenex-type tissues.

• Important to me was the provision, preferably free, of wifi. I have checked personally and only two do. Please see my additional info on that in the list of hotels below.

• I discovered late in the day from the airline’s website that prescriptions are required at Security to confirm all prescribed drugs you’re carrying with you. Reluctant to go through the palaver of obtaining it from my local GP, I suggested yesterday that the boxes in which the tablets come have a pharmacist’s label affixed with shows all the detail Security could possibly want.

The rep agreed somewhat reluctantly. But this morning I was inspired to ring my pharmacist in case they had a simple solution themselves and sure enough they did. All they had to do was to print out an existing page that confirms that what pills I’m taking are bona fide prescribed ones.

• JustYou Tour Guides do not carry any First Aid equipment whatsoever, like plasters, throat pastilles etc. (Why should they, but worth asking, I thought!)

• Another thing new to me is that Air China require checked-in baggage to be padlocked! Many of you will know of the warnings we are given that doing so in the US risks damage to your case as the officers are liable to hack any such lock off, unless it is one of those that they can unlock.

It seems they are not too confident of passengers’ belongings being protected from theft. Whether this means that officers will therefore not even inspect one’s case/s, I don’t know.

That’s about the end of my Tips, but I thought my fellow-travellers on this trip might like to check out the hotels we’re booked into. A friend told me on Wednesday that China’s hotels “are fabulous” as is the food.

So to save you entering all the details, you may care to copy and paste the four individual ones I’ve provided below, along with ratings from tripAdvisor and the aforementioned wifi availability details:

Traders Hotel Beijing – Ranked 86% on TripAdvisor and 190th out of 4657 hotels in Beijing:

http://www.shangri-la.com/beijing/traders/ 

Grand Park Hotel, Xian – Ranked 83% and 53rd out of 1686 hotels in Xian:

http://www.parkhotelgroup.com/xian/ 

Tianfu Sunshine Hotel, Chengdu – doesn’t seem to have its own website; TripAdvisor’s top Google’s search. Ranked 89% and 19th out of 1645 hotels in Chengdu:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g297463-d308237-Reviews-Tianfu_Sunshine_Hotel-Chengdu_Sichuan.html 

Courtyard Shanghai Puxi Hotel, Shanghai – Ranked 89% and 30th out of 3203 hotels in Shanghai:

http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/travel/shapx-courtyard-shanghai-puxi/ 

• Only two have free wifi or high-speed internet. The Grand Park Xian and the Courtyard by Marriott Shanghai Puxi both make a surcharge. (So should be struck off until they provide it free, IMO!)

All Bathrooms in the rooms were of a top European standard (including decent toilet tissue)

All had Robes

All had Wi-FI - only the Marriott charged for in room wifi - it was still free in reception

All hotels were good with the Marriott being the best. But really with the hectic schedule, you will hardly notice - be prepared for full days with early starts and late finishes - long days but 100% worth it.

I'm pretty sure most, if not all, did have kleenex type tissues too

Out and about the toilets varied greatly - some only offering eastern style squat toilets, but in the main, most, at the places we visited, had a mix of western and eastern style and were of acceptable to good standard. The local guide will give you a star rating so you don't have to discover the worst ones for yourself. More often or not you hear them say something like "The ones by the entrance a 5 star but the ones by the temple are only 3 star" Basically there are bad ones, but it is never long until the next good ones. Toilet paper was available in the public toilets, but as is usual there, it is only one big roll, out side of the cubicle, so some forward planning is needed!

The carry on limit looks limiting (1 piece/5Kg) and there are signs at the check-in that said it would be weighed at the gate - in my experience, this was not enforced with many people carrying more than one item and clearly over the weight limit.

I was a couple of Kg over the 20kg on at least one of the internal flights, but there was no problem at check-in

Best wishes,

Bob