Yangtze or Li River/Guilin?

We are planning a trip to China but won%26#39;t have time to do both the Yangtze Cruise and/or Guilin/Yangshuo Li River. Appreciate as many comments as possible on which one to prefer over there other. Thanks in advance.

Yangtze or Li River/Guilin?

On the Lonely Planet ThornTree forum it%26#39;s said that the 3 Gorges cruise is the most overrated cruise in China, and the Li River cruise the 2nd most overrated.

Yangtze or Li River/Guilin?

Ellyse, I appreciate your view but as we will be booking an organised tour I%26#39;m looking for an %26#39;either/or%26#39; response....

Zan

we are just about at the point of booking our holiday to China - after over a week of full-time research of websites for tour Operators and also views of places.

We were 100% sure we wanted to do the Yangzte Cruise before the dam completion next year.

However, after reading lots of personal viewpoints, we have had a total reverse of that idea.

As I understand it, the river level has already been raised by 150 metres and the completion of the dam will only raise it another 25 metres more.

Try using the %26#39;search%26#39; facility for %26#39;Yangzte Cruise%26#39; on here and it will bring up pages of threads.

I read through all of them (whilst bearing in mind that individual views are subjective, rather than objective) and decided that we WON%26#39;T do the Yangzte cruise.

Instead we are going to Guilin %26amp; Yangshuo.

Also, 4 days (for the Yangzte cruise) out of a 2 or 3 week holiday is quite a long time.

We may regret it later but we do feel that we%26#39;ve weighed all the pro %26amp; cons and made what feels like the right decision for us.

regards

Polly

Hi Polly,

This is most helpful, I%26#39;ve done the same by going through all the threads but you hit my sentiments exactly. I did read that the Monsoon is about to start in the guilin area but april should be early enough. I%26#39;m sure my mum would have quite enjoyed 3/4 days of relaxation on a boat but I%26#39;m just too worried that there won%26#39;t be much to see.

May I ask you which touroperator you have booked with ?

Many thanks

Hi Zan

We intend to book tomorrow with CTS Horizons, the UK branch of CTS which was (from what I%26#39;ve read) established in 1928.

They sent me their brochure which reads well.

Their website is good too.

We finally chose the 27 day (25 night) China Panorama.

Wendy Wu Tours does a very similar itinerary for the same length of time called China Highlights.

As it%26#39;s a group tour, our only concern is if they don%26#39;t get the minimum number of pax and decide to cancel.

They havce 3 dates towards the end of this year and any would be OK with us, so fingers crossed.

Polly

Well, I thought you would%26#39;ve inferred that I would prefer to take the less overrated one out of the two.

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