Laurus Travel www.laurustravel.com

We recently came back from a trip to China organized by Laurus Travel,

a tour company out of Vancouver that specializes in China tours. They have a number of different tours - the only hard part is deciding how long you want to be in China and what you want to see.

My husband and I picked the China Panorama trip, and added a day on in

Beijing upfront and 2 days in Shanghai at the end.

What a wonderful, wonderful trip it was! We had, shall I say it again,

a wonderful time! Everything went smoothly: each of the guides we had

met us at his/her respective airports, we never felt abandoned, they

clearly loved their cities and each one clearly wanted us to love

them, too. They were full of information, were happy to share it and

they picked very good restaurants, always ordering local dishes so we

could taste them, and listened if we said, "Not too spicy". The sites

to see in China were really very interesting, and the hotels were

excellent, even better than I had expected. As a matter of fact, we

jokingly talked about canceling the rest of our trip just to stay in

our hotel in Lijiang longer! :)

We traveled with others at the beginning of our trip and, as no one

else signed up for our trip, traveled solo with a private guide,

private car, and private driver for about 10 days, and then met up

with other travelers towards the end. It worked out very well and was

very well organized.

We went on Laurus Travel 18-day China Odyssey tour in 2004 and that fantastic experience made us decide to book another tour to China with the company for 2010. This was what I wrote to Laurus Travel as soon as I came back from that first tour:

"The hotels were all first rate, the transportation and bag handling were handled with absolutely no problems, the food was excellent - varied and interesting but always delicious. It was a good thing that I struggled a bit with chopsticks, otherwise I would have eaten far too much.

The tour was very well planned to let us see as much as we possibly could in the time we had. I'm not used to such an active level of sightseeing, but I can't think of a single thing I would have been willing to miss.

It was certainly a pleasure for us to have such a small group. We were always able to sit at the same table for lunch and dinner, and there was a nice amount of space on the small busses we used. I think it is worth a small premium to travel with such a small group, as I am sure the experience is very different when the group size is over 20 or so.

One of the best features of our tour was in having our guide. I cannot imagine having anyone better suited for that strenuous job. She has an excellent knowledge of all the places we visited, a good sense of humour, lots of energy, and great dedication to making the tour a complete success. I felt that she took special care of me as I was by far the slowest and most out-of-shape of the group - but I guess everyone felt that they got lots of care and attention from her. In addition, her willingness to talk about her personal life, her family and her education gave this tour a dimension far beyond just looking at the sights".