Hi Middlesman07

Thanks for taking the time to write your review - info is quite scare at the moment.

Can I ask you did you book your trip to Beijing at home or in the resort?

Do you know the prices of the trips to Beijing from the resort?

Many thanks

Kate

Sorry (sp) scarce!!

You came to China and ate American food "quite often"?

"We tended to order several dishes and try each others (four of us)." I would say that in China, usually dishes are meant to be shared anyway. Nothing is ever considered "mine", they're all "ours".

"You can barter in most shops, all markets but not Dept stores." I think you meant bargain, not barter.

This is a reply to Katie247 - we booked our Beijing trip when we booked the holiday via Going Places, so I don't know how much it would be if you booked it separately when you get there. It seems that everybody paid different prices for the whole package, depending on when they booked and where/how. The offer in the window of Going Places was for two weeks B&B at Hainan Island for around £675, with Beijing it came to just under £1,000, so that is an indicate of how much we paid on top.

And a reply to Ellyse from Shanghai - I think you have missed the point of TripAdvisor and you are probably in the wrong job - did you want to be some kind of literary critic? We are trying to give an account of how we, as English people, experienced China. All of the Chinese people we met were lovely, so we were glad we didn't meet you as it may have altered our opinion.

Barter is the English word for haggling over the price of something. And Yes, we ate American food as in an American diner. As for trying each other's food, that is another quaint English custom. It is so easy to be critical. Our review is trying to help people, so hopefully others will let us know if it has.

Hi there,

Thanks from me too for your useful review which is extremely helpful for us planning our trip.

I was wondering if you had any advice on visas. I heard you can buy your visa in Hainan if you are staying for 15 days or less... is this true? Did anyone on your trip take this option? I'm a bit confused as the brochure states the visa needs to be bought in this country, but the travel agent (direct hols) told me I could buy it when I arrived. I am aware that if I go to Hong Kong that I need a double visa but do not think I will go as I have been there before. Also if I am able to buy the visa there is this ok to go to the mainland too as I'd like to do the Beijing trip?

Thanks again for sharing your experiences

Seren

Hi again

As I said previously thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us,we found your review very helpful.

I know what you mean about the prices I am keeping an eye on our holiday online only to try and guage how full the flight will be and today our holiday price has dropped by about £200.00 per person.

Uuuuugh

Oh well - you win some you lose some!!!

Kate

Hi katie me again the price of our holiday was reduced 3 weeks b4 we were due to depart cheeky me rang up direct holidays and said hey this aint fair it has been reduced by 200 quid any way they reimburised me with the difference .You dont get if you dont try the cash is better off in my pocket so there you go give it a whirl wat you got 2 lose.

Hi M/Man,

We are thinking of going to Hainan.

we went to Bali a couple of years ago, and thought brilliant.

It had a great mix of relaxation, nightlife in Kuta, and great restaurants.

Is Hainan anything like that in respect of things to do in the evening,

Quite bars and places to hang out .

Also did you flying to Beijing ang and return to Hainan, as we was thinking London to Beijing for 6 days then Down to Hainan for 10 then straight home to London.

is that possible and did you get a budget flight from Beijing to Hainan.

sorry for all the questions but would e nice o know.

If anyone else can help that would be great to.

regards

Stuart

Hi, magoo

Glad to be of your assistance. For flights, I suggest you'd better go as this iternary: fly from london to beijing, beijing to sanya, then sanya to beijing then to london. The tickets in china cost about RMB2000/person. But different season, different rates,so may I know your exact departural and arrival time?

Btw,sanya is a very beautiful city, with white sands, pure blue sky, and colorful sea water, personally speaking, is a must-see city. If you wanna get the quite bars easily, you can choose the downtown to stay, i suggest Edry Hotel, there are a bar street outside, many foreigners would like to spend more time in evening.

Hope it helps~

Jane

Reply to Katie247 about Visas

Hi Katie

We got our Visa (single entry) from China Visa Services, which is a postal service. The one we used is based in Manchester. We could have applied for a double entry one at the time but didn't think we needed it then. The cost of the single entry Visa per person was £50 including the handling fee and postage. I suggest you go onto their website which, I think, is Chinavisaservices either dot com or UK (can't remember!). You can only apply for a Visa a month or less before flying. We downloaded the forms and then I rang to make sure I was sending all the correct stuff, like passport, passport photo on the form, who to make the cheque payable to, that sort of thing. In all it takes about 4/5 days to turn around.

As for Hong Kong, our holiday rep sorted this out for us. From memory it cost around £16 per person. They filled the forms in and arranged for the photographer to come to the hotel. As there were other people doing this, we had a Group Visa, which means you queue up as a group and apparently it has to be in the exact order of the list on the Group visa, which again our courier sorted out at the time.

Just to reply to some other postings, we heard the Edry Hotel was very good and Yes, it is in Sanya City and there are lots of places to eat and drink. I must say, though Dadong Hai is "quieter", there are also lots of restaurants and bars. Most bars stayed open until about 2 am, though we did not go clubbing or anything, we can highly recommend all the places we went to.