Beware of Asia Transpacific Journeys

I hired Asia Transpacific Journeys to organize a small-group trip to China last Oct.-Nov. for myself and eight friends. The company%26#39;s performance fell far short of its advertising.

Here are some problems we encountered:

Safety

The mountain road from Chengdu to the Wolong panda reserve is notoriously bad. ATJ, however, made our journey downright dangerous by sending us on this road at night and while heavy construction was going on. In the dark, our driver dodged piles of gravel, earth-moving equipment, huge boulders and 10-foot deep caverns cut into the roadbed while overloaded trucks passed us thisclose. Additionally, a traffic jam halted our progress for over two hours, so our supposed four-hour trip became a seven-hour nightmare (without bathroom breaks).

Customization

The company promises custom journeys but we didn%26#39;t go anywhere or do anything that every other tour operator offers.

I repeatedly discussed with ATJ my interest in China’s minority groups and their textiles, but the company arranged nothing enabling me to explore that interest.

Guides

The company claims to have knowledgeable local guides, but ours were very young and inexperienced. Our guide in Wolong had been there only once before! None had expertise in minority textiles. The guides knew the number of hectares in a garden, but couldn’t answer more in-depth questions.

Food

ATJ’s brochure touts its gourmet cuisine, but on our “VIP” tour we ate at the same tourist restaurants as every large bus tour. Although there were only nine of us, ATJ would not accommodate requests for the Chinese food we preferred. Instead they insisted on serving us things no one liked.

Coordination

Communications between Colorado and the local tour operators regularly failed thus leaving me to find solutions or to fight the same battle in every destination. One example, the company told me I could ship luggage from Beijing to Shanghai via Fed Ex or DHL for about $50 for 50 lbs. Our cost was more than double that and we had to rely on China Post to do the shipping.

My best advice: go to China, but avoid Asia Transpacific Journeys.

Beware of Asia Transpacific Journeys

We deeply regret we were unable to meet the expectations of these travelers. While we have an exceedingly high client satisfaction ratio in general, travel to our destinations is not always easy, experiences can be subjective, and obstacles can and do occur. In rare cases where individuals are not happy with our services, we pride ourselves on going the extra mile to make sure we do whatever it takes to remedy the situation. We again regret those efforts were not enough in this case.

If you are interested in learning more or traveling with Asia Transpacific Journeys please contact us and we’d be happy to furnish you with an extensive client reference list, built over twenty years of creating life changing travel experiences for thousands of travelers throughout the Asia/Pacific region.