An family from USA had a very good trip to Guilin and Yangshuo in early May, 2010

Fisher:
I remembered that we never sent you comments on Guilin and Yangshuo.
1. Luna, the guide, was excellent. She spoke very good English and did a good job overall including helping us out on the day that we had a free day but had a problem with the bicycles from the hotel. She did a good job with food, especially lunch in Yangshuo.
2. Guilin.
The Sheraton Hotel was excellent. We would advise you to use this hotel again for Western tourists. The rooms were good and breakfast was very good. We also ate dinner there one night and it was good.
I think we had the right amount of time in Guilin. Thank you again for dinner. We especially enjoyed the evening cruise after we had dinner with you and the chairlift to Mt. Yaoshan. The Reed Flute cave was worthwhile, as was the Mansion of the Jingjiang Prince and the Solitary Beauty Peak. So all we saw in Guilin was worthwhile and we thought we were able to see a lot in a short amount of time.
3. To and from Yangshuo.
We really enjoyed the Li River trip. It was just the right amount of time and the scenery was beautiful. I love travelling on the water but the rest of the family enjoyed it too. One thing you might pass along to your Western guests – as you told us, the lunch on the boat was not too good for us but we got box lunches from the Sheraton that were excellent. I think we got 2 lunches for the 5 of us (so a couple could definitely share one lunch) and it was very good and plenty of food. When we went to breakfast we asked the hotel to make the lunches and they were ready by the time we finished breakfast. You might suggest that to other guests, especially Westerners.
I was really surprised how much we enjoyed Yuzi Paradise on the way back to Guilin. I would not ordinarily be excited by modern art but I thought the park was beautiful and very peaceful and I really enjoyed much of the art. This was a good stop to break up the trip back and a pleasant surprise.
4. Yangshuo.
Hotels. Both hotels were fine, although not quite as Western as the Sheraton.
Green Lotus Hotel – good rooms. We had a little language trouble getting a converter so we could plug in a laptop computer but Luna was eventually able to help us. The breakfast at the Green Lotus was not that good. Some Western food but not great. They had a chef there to make omelettes, etc. but they did not do a good job and they didn’t have any cheese which is the number 1 ingredient in making an omelette.
So very nice hotel, good location in city but some language issues and just an OK breakfast, not really good.
I would send your guests here again, especially if they wanted to be in the city but I would not compare this hotel to a 5 star Western hotel like the Sheraton or the hotel in Kunming.
Yangshuo Resort was a beautiful location and the rooms were very nice.
We had dinner right on the river one night and it was beautiful and good food, although the menu was limited – not a lot of choice.
The breakfast was better than the Green Lotus, although not as good as the Sheraton.
You told us we might have language problems and we did a little but not too bad. Everytime we called on the phone to the front desk, the call went to housekeeping and no one spoke English so they would have to transfer us to the front desk anyway. We always found someone at the front desk who spoke good enough English.
The hotel provided free bikes but we would tell your guests if they are at all serious bikers to rent their own bikes from the rental companies in town. The hotel had no map or other information and their bikes were not as good quality as the bikes Luna rented for us. We actually had a problem when we went out and one of the pedals on the bikes broke. We had to call Luna who called the hotel to come and get us. They did so and were very nice but charged us 200 RMB. I didn’t protest too much because the children were exhausted by then (because the hotel told us it was 1.5-2.0 hours to the place we went when it was actually 3.5 hours) and didn’t want to ride back anyway.
We also had a problem in that the air conditioning did not work in one room but they finally moved us to another room which was fine. When we went up to the front desk, other guests there were having the same problem and maybe also some problems with hot water.
This is a new hotel and maybe they need to work out problems and train the staff a little better. I would continue to recommend this hotel to your guests, especially the ones who would like a little quiet outside of the city. But I would follow up and make sure they improve their service. I would have the guide call a couple of hours after check in to make sure everything was ok, especially since the language issues make it hard for your guests to get the hotel to fix problems.
If we were to go back, we would stay at this hotel. We found the city and West Street a little hectic and touristy for us (although we found good food and stores there). The shuttle from the hotel into the city worked well, so we would rather stay in this peaceful place and go into the city to eat or shop in the evening.
The itinerary in Yangshuo was fantastic. We loved the bike ride through the country and the bamboo rafting. As I said, we took another bike ride on our free day. We could have spent 3 or 4 days there just riding bikes through the countryside.
We liked the ancient Huangyao town, especially Lynda. This was a bit of a drive but worth it.
One thing we would say for your other guests was that the big light show on the river (forgot the name) was fantastic!!!! This was a little expensive and we weren’t sure if we wanted to do it or not (especially since the kids get tired by the end of the day). We were so glad that we did it. One thing is that it was hard to follow the story. Luna explained afterwards a little of the story and that was helpful.
All in all, a very good trip and we were glad we made that one of our long trips in China. Thank you for your help in Guilin and in Yunnan as well. I gave your name to Mr. Ron Diner who may come to China this fall and we will also pass your name on to anyone else looking for a tour guide in China.
Brad M. Tomtishen