When you visiting Hong Kong scenic spots, you should pay attention to the following.
1. Picture in a Ceramic Frame!
all tours whether big group or small group or personalized have a photographer that will tail you at the sites and take pictures then pester you on buying it. Don't fall for it! they will charge you 350 HKD if you are naive! now if you are good in haggling, you can bring the price to just 100 HKD. still i would not reccomend buying it ok.
Unique Suggestions: don't let them take pictures of you
Fun Alternatives: none, just ignore them
2. Hong Kong picture plate
I dunno why but I guess it's because they offer low rates on the sightseeing tours, that they just cash in on alternatives like taking your picture and have it pasted on a hong kong plate. The tour guide was so insistent, saying it's ok if we are not to buy that, just allow the cameraman to take our pictures, etc etc. After an hour the tour guide showed us the plates and the price (150 HKD!), and she says it's the cameraman's profit and appealed that we take one, etc etc. Am a sucker for appeals like that but I didn't buy the plate. And then the guide appealed that we buy some key chains as our way to show appreciation to our bus drivers. WTF.
The camera guy took a group picture (not imbedded on a plate) so I bought that. 50 HKD. Oh well...
3. NEVER EVER GO FOR A "FREE" SIGHTSEEING TOUR!!
My 2nd Hong Kong tour was with my family and the free & easy package that I had arranged comes with a "free" half day city tour. I had no intention of going for it as I know HK pretty well. Unfortunately, it rained one morning and I foolishly thought it would be easier to get around with in the rain with the tour.
3. Folks: the word here is FOOLISH.
The tour is a scam - we never made it up to Victoria Peak which is on the itinerary. We stopped 3/4 way up at this road side pavilion and we were told this is it. Next their own photographer started taking photos of the group on the sly. I was very quick to notice him lurking around and after a round of heated bargaining, allowed him to take only 1 shot of my family, which cost me HK$50 for the photo and a stupid souvenir plate with our picture on it at the end of it. Some folks in my group had to pay more as the photographer took 3-4 photos for each family/couple.
Next, they start dropping us off at jewelry shops, dried seafood shops and Chinese medicinal shops. Yeah, see Hong Kong indeed!
To add insult on injury, we were driven to a restaurant for authentic Hongkie Dim Sum. The food was good but we were then told to pay for our share at the end of the meal! (Nothing is free in life folks!)
And to add the cherry on top of the parfait, the guide started to collect "tips" from each of us in the Hong Kong travel group for their services - in the end I had to folk out another HK$50 for each person in my family.
I have never been so indignant and insulted in my life!!!
Unique Suggestions: Give them the full Hongkie treatment:
1) Sneer 2) Give snide remarks 3) give dirty looks 4) whine and complain 5) do all the above
Fun Alternatives: NEVER EVER TAKE A "FREE" SIGHTSEEING TOUR!
4. Aggressive Sampan Boat Dwellers in Aberdeen
We decided to head down to Aberdeen to check out the promenade and possibly do a sampan tour. However, we were a bit turned off by the agressive nature of several of the women offering the boat tours. Just walking down the promenade, we were chased after by four different women screaming after us to go on their boats--we were not even sure we wanted to take one! They just literally kep following us and yelling after us with their limited english. Even after we thought we had left the area, another kept following us down the road yelling at us for about 5 minutes.
It wasn't necessarily a 'trap' just a hassle that ruined our enjoyment of the experience.
Unique Suggestions: Haggle them down on the price a bit. They started out telling us 120HKD a person (our book said tours were 50HKD). While 120HKD each isn't a lot, they are willing to bargain a bit.
You can consider the above for your China tour deals.
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