9 Tage Lhasa Gyantse Shigatse Everest Namtso Gruppentour

Do not book with this company it is the worst with respect to being honest about travel times from one location to another and flight bookings. Road travel times were underestimated or not mentioned. The day we travelled from Tibet to Katmandu it took over 11 hours but yet their comment was just that we were “transferring from one country to the other”. The roads we travelled on were full of potholes, with no guard rails and it was a hair-raising experience! We had arranged (in July) for our October flights from Bhutan to Katmandu to be booked for a morning flight arriving from Bhutan into Katmandu by noon and we had subsequently booked a flight out of Katmandu to Shanghai in the early afternoon. The travel agent Cherry failed to book a morning flight as promised (by email in July) and we therefore didn’t arrive into Kathmandu until mid afternoon (we subsequently had to cancel our flight to Shanghai and book a later flight. We suffered a airline change fee of $650 CDN per person )for both my husband and I) and since we had to change our flight and take an overnight flight to Shanghai we were charged for an extra hotel night in Shanghai (which we were unable to cancel.) When informed of this Great Tibet Tours only offered to pay $190 US for their error. They admitted their mistake, but were not customer service focussed and did not seem to care once they had our money.

We enjoyed the perfect organized tour. Lhasa with the palace, monasteries and walking streets and the view of the Mt. Everest were the highlights of the tis wonderful tour. But not to forget the ride on the Yak. The tour guide Lobsang was excellent during the entire trip. He is extremely knowledgeable about the history, culture, Buddhism and food of Tibet. He gives excellent insides with a lot of details, shows the best photo places, recommends the fight local food. Beside this he is very friendly, flexible and joyful. Just perfect. The driver as well was always helpful. Communication before the trip started was excellent and all the questions answered in the right way. The only minor negative point was the rather small van for the size of our group and windows of the van very low what made it difficult to enjoy the landscape. All in all a wonderful experience in Tibet! Peter

Just got back from a 10 day trip with Great Tibet Tour. Our trip consultant, Catherine, was helpful and responsive with my initial questions, booking, and permit process. During the trip itself, Lobsang was an excellent guide. He's extremely knowledgable, having had 15 years experience as a guide. His insights into the local culture, Buddhism, landscape, food etc. were neverending. There was no question he didn't have the answer to, plus he was just a fun person to be around. He also wanted us to have the best experience possible - pointing out things like a sky burial site in the distance, asking if we wanted to stop by a local market not in the itinerary, or giving us the choice to change our plan slightly to save us money (staying at a nicer hotel further out that had their own hot springs vs. staying at a central hotel and paying 198RMB for a public hot spring). Our group was made up of a mixture of people on the 7 day tour and the 10 day tour. This is understandable, but it did mean that our bus was slightly uncomfortable (being filled to the max), until the 7 days was over. In terms of itinerary, it's the same as what most other agencies offer. Personally, I'm not sure that Namtso Lake was worth the extra time and money over the 7 day trip, but I did enjoy the scenery and hot springs there. Lhasa and EBC were definitely the highlights for me, as well as the scenery to and from Shigatse.