15 May 2019
When I arranged the tour from home, I read the hotel pickup and drop off which appealed to me, but after booking with the details of my hotel disclosed as required by the booking, I was told they would charge me an extra 300 Yuan for the hotel pickup, and when I asked about being returned to the Hotel, I was told buy Lillys Tours I would have to pay 450 Yuan for pickup and drop off back to my Hotel. When I checked after the first message was sent, they had already deducted the money from my account, so with the timing, and them having already deducted the money, I went ahead with it. The drivers spoke no English which made the long drive a bit awkward and their driving was very aggressive as merging lanes were not allowed to merge by the driver who honked his horn at them and the drivers rolled down the windows versus using the air conditioning which with one of my kids suffering from Asthma and my not being able to communicate this to the driver, made the trip a bit more uncomfortable than necessary. The air in Beijing near the Forbidden city is quite bad, and toward the end of the half day tour, even I was starting to develop a cough. I do recommend seeing the great wall which is in a better area and quite Beautiful in places with quite good air.
The Tour guide is very good and very informative .
If they could support their service with good transportation in and out of the city ,as most people who chose to arrange a tour online from other countries as they lack a Chinese bank account to pay electronically in china via Wechat or the DIDI(the Chinese taxipay app they use), they would have a completely good service, but at the moment, not so good.
*Offering a pickup but not a return doesn't make sense to me.