The Guide of Yangtze River Cruise

Yangtze River cruise is a very splendid travel experience for many tourist at home and abroad.
The Yangtze ("long river," in Chinese) is China's greatest river and a historic transport route.
This is a huge river; it is over 6,000 km (nearly 4000 miles) long, about the same as the Mississippi. Only the Amazon and Nile are longer. It is the world's fifth largest river by volume of water discharged, at over 30,000 cubic meters a second, roughly double the Mississippi or Mekong, three times the Saint Lawrence, four times the Danube or Columbia, and more than ten times little streams like the Rhine or Nile.

Shanghai has a major international airport with connections to almost anywhere. The other major cities on the route have airports and good connections within China, but not many international flights. However, KLM flies Amsterdam-Chengdu and Amsterdam-Kunming, Lufthansa Frankfurt-Nanjing and Korean Air has flights from Seoul to several of these cities. Finnair [1] offers direct flights to Chongqing.

From Southeast Asia, the only discount flight into the region is Air Asia Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou which is also a hot destination included in private China tour package.
The most famous part of this route is the sensational cruise ships through the Three Gorges area between Chongqing and Yichang. With the recent enormous Three Gorges Dam project, this route has changed considerably but it is still definitely worth doing. However be careful of the different types of boats and classes within those boats. Traveling on a Chinese tourist boat in 'first class' may not be your idea of 'first class' (one traveler complained of "rats everywhere"). In addition, the only choice for food may be the boat itself for up to 3-days. As such, bring supplies, particularly snacks and drinks for the voyage. If you really want the good experience on the Yangtze, you'd better choose a luxury yangtze cruise in 4 or 5 star rating. These luxury cruises fare include all the shore excursions with English speaking guides and all meals on-board except the dinner on the check-in day. Almost all the tourists travelling on those cruises are very satisfied with the journey.
While one reviewer suggested not to take the Chinese Tourist boat (since they stop at destinations at 6AM, expecting all passengers to get out and look at the scenery, then arriving at 4AM at the final destination and throwing everybody off the boat), another reviewer had a positive experience despite not speaking any Chinese.
Other tips:
1.Rent a private cabin if possible (handy for the many relaxing and lazy periods traveling down river)
2. Bring supplies to wash and dry clothes (detergent and clothes line with clothes-line pins) as this will be convenient in your room (although clothes will dry slowly with the humidity.)
3. Take photos/ video at dusk or dawn when the haze from air pollution is not as pronounced.
4. Research the route before traveling so that you have some idea about the sites your boat will stop at and their significance (e.g. Fengdu, the City of Ghosts.)
5. Keep a "day bag" packed for those unexpected times when the boat stops for a site (rather than having to look for your camera, etc. and possibly missing the trip with your fellow boat travelers)
The lower Yangtze areas; from Wuhan down through Nanjing and Suzhou to Shanghai; traveling by boat is also an option, but here it is not essential. There are good rail and road connections throughout the area. See High-speed rail in China for Nanjng-Wuxi-Suzhou-Shanghai-Hangzhou routes.
As a hot destination contained in China travel packages, Yangtze River travel should be listed in your travel plan.