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Essential China: Hong Kong, Beijing, Xian and More

September 8, 2004 -- Three reliable tour operators are providing moderately priced trips to China this autumn, two of them visiting one or more of the biggest cities, the third taking you on a pleasant cruise along the historic Yangtze River.

Hong Kong

Go-Today is extending its purchase deadline at our request from early September to December 2, 2004, for their Hong Kong Special package, with departure dates from November 15 through December 8, 2004. Prices begin at $749 out of Los Angeles or San Francisco, with add-ons from $50 to $350 depending on how far away your gateway city is located. At the basic price, you stay in the pleasant Newton Hotel Hong Kong, a tourist-class place that's still very acceptable. The package includes roundtrip airfare on an available carrier, roundtrip airport/hotel transfers, five nights of hotel lodging, a half-day Hong Kong city tour, and hotel taxes and service charges. Contact the sponsors at www.go-today.com or phone 425/487-9632 to book by phone (the latter costs $20 extra).

Beijing, Xian and Shanghai

Ritz Tours (800/900-2446 or 626/289-7777; www.ritztours.com) has a ten-day China Discovery program, which starts from just $1399 per person, including air from Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Departures from New York cost an additional $150, with add-on fares available to many other North American cities, such as Boston, Miami, Dallas, Chicago and Toronto). The program runs from now through December 2004.

You start with four nights in Beijing, with visits to the Forbidden City, Ming Tomb Museum and the Temple of Heaven, as well as to the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square. Next, you spend two nights in fabled Xian, where the famous army of 6,000 life-sized terra cotta warriors has been partially unearthed. In Shanghai, you spend two nights and visit the riverfront Bund area and the Yu Garden.

For more information, contact Ritz Tours or your local travel agent.

Cruising the Yangtze

If you book select departures of the China and Yangtze River itineraries offered by Pacific Delight Tours online, you can get fare reductions of $100 to $260 per couple. There are programs for ten, 13 and 19 days. These air-inclusive packages depart New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu, and Portland OR on either Northwest or United, and are priced from $1575 to $3498 per person (double occupancy), before the discounts. Add-on airfares from many North American gateways start at $120.

Depending on how extensive you want your visit to be, you'll spend one or more nights in Beijing and Shanghai, plus three or more nights on the cruise itself. The longer packages (from 13 days) include stays in Xian, and visits to Hong Kong and Guilin. Some of these offers run through March 2005, some through March 2006, so be sure to inquire.

Each package includes transpacific air, intra-China air and land transport, lodging in deluxe and superior first-class hotels with daily breakfast and some lunches and dinners, outside cabins with balconies aboard the Victoria Cruises boat, transfers, sightseeing and entertainment, and bilingual guides.

Contact Pacific Delight at www.pacificdelighttours.com or by phoning 800/221-7179 or 212/818-1781.


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