Even it was very hot when we visited, it was a great experience. Our tour guide Jackie is very knowledgeable and experience. He is funny and patient
Review by: vanderlooe, June 2018
The tour itself was amazing. The Great Wall and Ming Tombs did not disappoint. We found 2 hours to be plenty long enough for the Great Wall. It was very hot and I felt a bit sick climbing. Some of the stairs are very small and others are big and the railing is quite low. However, I was able to sit down and drink water in the shade of the watch towers before continuing my climb there is even a bar if you get far enough on the climb!. We even had extra time to buy a drink when we got back down and a couple souvenirs we did not get bothered by anyone. The bus ride was short from Beijing on an air-conditioned bus, and our tour guide Cathy was very friendly and she pumped us full of interesting history about the ancient Dynasties. It was so neat to walk in the same footsteps as people from the years BC._br/_ The only thing we were not huge fans of were the tea house and jade factory. While the demonstrations were interesting, you finish the tours by exiting into gift shops where employees follow you around persistently and use high-pressure sales tactics. However, I think we got a fair deal at the Jade factory as my sister and I both bought beautiful Jade necklaces for only 100. There was also a delicious free lunch provided at the Jade factory. As for the tea house, we love tea, don't get us wrong! But initially we did not even want to buy any tea, and finally agreed to buy one flavour, but were told you have to combine it with another flavour to get a certain taste, and then when you buy 3, you get 1 free or something like that. So in the end, we ended up with every flavour of tea they offered. Once we left and did the math conversion, we had spent over 150 Canadian on tea which we would never do at home. We should have just said no and walked away because you cannot even freely look around without being hounded by staff. No one likes to be bothered when looking around a shop - if we have questions, we will ask. I assume the tour guides get some kind of kick-back for taking tour groups to these places, as I saw several people from different tour groups that I recognized from the Great Wall at the jade factory. That was disappointing to us as the tour was already paid for but then somehow we ended up spending another 300 that we didn't even plan on spending. I know in the end it was our choice and we should have been more firm but we also didn't appreciate being taken to these places. I was also cornered leaving the Ming Tombs and everyone left me and boarded the bus and I could not get this lady to leave me alone. I finally bought a magnet off her._br/_ It is a bit of a mixed review, but all in all, I do recommend this tour. You will thoroughly enjoy the Great Wall and Ming Tombs! My word of advice - if you do not want to buy anything, just say NO and walk away. Don't engage!!! I read these reviews before I went but somehow I still got swindled.
Review by: Sunil D, May 2018
Beautiful views, only thing missing was the part of the wall where you can walk straight for some time, as you see in many pictures. I guess that's on another entrance of the wall.
Review by: John J, May 2018
Great guide. Picked us up on time and dropped us off at our hotel. Lunch was great and we had a super time. I highly recommend this trip and tour.
Review by: Michael M, May 2018
Perfect
Review by: John, April 2018
Amazing tour! We would definitely recommend.
Review by: Crystal B, April 2018
Things I liked:_br/_ It was a little cold but it was amazing. The tour company had a message waiting for me at my hotel to call them for details on pick up the next morning which was very nice. My guide for the day was Alice and she was well spoken and really knowledgeable about the history. It was a nice small group of 9 people so we were not always standing around waiting for others. _br/_ Things I didn't like:_br/_ We stopped twice at different little places. One was the Jade factory and the other was a Tea tasting. It was fun to see these things but I felt obligated to buy something and hounded by the sales associates. That was a turnoff for me. The other was the food. We stopped at a restaurant and were served a pre planned menu. All the tour companies must go to these same locations. It was bland, westernized and over cooked. You could tell that the must make massive amounts of the same 6 dishes. It would have been nice to try some local Beijing specialty dishes.
Review by: Elissa T, April 2018
There truly are no words to describe the excitement I felt walking The Great Wall of China. Even though it was a foggy day, the experience was beyond words. I highly recommend it!!!
Review by: James S, April 2018
Great tour guide with good English language skills. Cherry our guide was very well informed and we really appreciated the information learned about the great wall and the emperor tombs. Without a guide like this, you are missing out on just how big a feat it was to build all this.
Review by: ROTEM S, March 2018
Beautiful day, beautiful attractions, great guide.
Review by: Jeffery K, March 2018
This was a great day trip to the Great Wall. The Ming Tombs are OK, but the Great Wall was a phenomenal trip. There were two side trips to a Jade factory and a Chinese Tea store. The tour guide did a great job on the tour.
Review by: William B, March 2018
Awesome tour. Friendly guide. Perfect clear views of the great wall. only thing I didn't like was I felt rushed. other than that everything was perfect.
Review by: Leifinge, March 2018
Nice guide
Review by: Shannon J. H, March 2018
Worst place to visit the wall .about 2 miles down better view less people.bad guide was only interested in selling his stuff no knowledge of the wall.
Review by: Helen S, March 2018
Great Wall of China and Ming Tombs were great - both of the things I had signed up for! I would have liked longer at both, rather than being forced to go to Jade factory and Tea House, which no one in the tour group had signed up for or wanted to go. The food was awful, so bring a packed lunch!
Review by: Kari Merete K, March 2018
I have been there before, so knew what to expect. For my colleague it was a first time experience.Thanks to tour guide William, who was so fun to spend the day with, we had a great trip His English was very good, and he was well informed about history and culture..
Review by: tcrain, February 2018
Carly was an excellent guide, very knowledgeable and professional. Be sure to take the cable car ride up the Great Wall. It costs 140 yuan per person so have cash available. Also we had a good lunch at the jade factory.
Review by: Lili, February 2018
Climb the left side of the wall, path less traveled. Well worth extra steepness! Truly impressive Wonder of the World! I gave this tour 4 stars because the guide was not very engaging. Seemed bored
Review by: crazylabs2, February 2018
We were picked up on time. The car van was clean and newer. Our tour guides English wasn't great and he was hard to understand. That being said, he went out of his way to ensure we saw and did everything we were promised._br/_ If our tour guide spoke better English we would rate this tour 5 stars.
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