Private Suzhou and Zhouzhuang or Tongli Tour from Shanghai

Our guide, Roy, is exceptionally attentive and helpful. I brought my parents, who require special care, and Roy provided the necessary assistance.

The Private Suzhou and Zhouzhuang Tour from Shanghai proved to be a convenient option for those with limited time to plan their trip. However, the experience had its highs and lows.

The Good:
- One of the undeniable highlights of the tour was the inclusion of a private air-conditioned Mercedes minivan. This not only ensured a comfortable journey but also added a touch of luxury to our travel experience.
- The guide accompanying us was knowledgeable and went the extra mile to provide detailed insights into the historical and cultural significance of the sites we visited.

Could Be Better:
- The itinerary appeared to be disproportionately focused on Suzhou, somewhat overshadowing the potentially more captivating Zhouzhuang.
- A significant part of our time was spent navigating Suzhou, including cross-city travel to places like Tiger Hill. Unfortunately, the visit to Tiger Hill was limited to a quick photo stop downstairs, without the opportunity to ascend the pagoda. This particular stop was added on the day of the tour, consuming more time than anticipated.
- The biggest disappointment came when we finally arrived at Zhouzhuang which is China's number one water town. Contrary to the promised 3hours, we were only given half an hour to explore this enchanting destination. This limited time frame left us without the chance to leisurely stroll around or experience the highly anticipated boat ride along the picturesque canals.

In conclusion, the Private Suzhou and Zhouzhuang Tour from Shanghai is a suitable choice for those seeking a hassle-free and comfortable travel experience. However, improvements in the tour's balance between Suzhou and Zhouzhuang, as well as better time management at the various stops, could elevate the overall satisfaction of participants.

We had an amazing day with Sunny. The day was designed around our needs and Sunny ensured we got to see exactly what we wanted. It was fabulous the right amount of info sharing combined with allowing us to just enjoy.

Sunny and Linda were both wonderful and friendly guides! Apart from seeing historic areas of Suzhou, Tongli and the silk museum - they also explained to me the history behind all the areas and gardens we visited which I absolutely loved! As my Chinese was limited so they helped me with simple tasks like getting the tickets to access the areas we needed to go to, ordering food during lunch and getting milk tea. Would highly recommend both to be your guides!

Our tour guide was Rita. Thanks to her we were able to get a great tour of a nice house if Suzhou followed by a relaxing walk and boat ride along the water town of Zhouzhouang. Her knowledge of history, poetry and high culture was a welcome addition to the experience. Highly recommended!

We booked this trip at the last minute via Trip Advisor, based on the reviews. Our guide was a very nice lady named Rita and the driver was a quiet young man, who drove carefully and steadily whilst fetching us from one place to another. The vehicle which we travelled in was very comfortable. Rita is effectively bilingual and set us at ease with her genuine warmth and friendliness. She is very knowledgeable and we were treated to a rich and detailed insight of the history and culture of China, e.g. the eight ancient capitals and the five most famous mountains. We discussed the destinations with her and agreed that we should go to the Master of Nets Garden and Tongli Water Town as both were representative of Suzhou, but less crowded. Master of Nets Garden was designed such that there were visions of lovely scenery almost every which way we turned and the occasional artist sketching away unobtrusively in a corner. Rita told us a great deal about the unique architectural details, in particular the carvings and the furniture styles which varied from dynasty to dynasty. We found it all highly informative and extremely interesting, e.g. the various dynasties and the depth of meaning of the Chinese language, as reflected in a carving about harmonious families. We asked to have Suzhou dishes for lunch and Rita suggested a restaurant which offered both Suzhou and Jiangnan cuisine. We enjoyed the local cuisine, which was flavourful and delicious.
Our trip to Tongli Water Town took place in slightly cooler weather. Rita explained that there are still many residents living in Tongli and they all know one another. The highlight was the boat ride, which took us through the canal that runs through the water town. There are quite a number of bridges which span the canal and most are high enough for the boatman to pass under without ducking -- except one memorable one! Tongli, with the clear canal waters, and the willow and camphor trees, makes a romantic backdrop. We saw a girl being photographed; she was dressed in period costume (we wonder if it was more fashionable than historically-accurate) and the whole setting was as pretty as a picture. We also saw what we thought might have been a couple taking photos for their wedding album.
The tour was a short one (being only a day trip), but it was made enjoyable and interesting by Rita, who was not just a guide, but genuinely engaged us person-to-person. We are very glad to have had her as our guide. Thank you so much, Rita!

My tour was conducted by Rita. She was the most knowledgeable tour guide I have ever had. She knew the complete historical information and provided it in a way that was fun. We spent the day going to both Suzhou and Zhouzhuang. Both were very different from each other and very interesting.
I would highly recommend this tour, especially if you are fortunate enough to have it given by Rita. She is truly a wonderful person to spend a full day of touring with.

Sunny is a professional tour guide with patience. We are having a good time with her arrangements of this day tour.
Our thanks to you Sunny

From the onset, our tour was executed seamlessly. Sunny, our tour guide picked us up from our hotel on time. We traveled in an air conditioned minivan comfortably.
Our trip consisted of Master of the Net Garden, Tiger Hill and TONGLI Watertown plus delicious local lunch. Our favorite destination was the garden.
Sunny is very personable, patient and spoke very good English. She allowed us to move at our own pace, and was very knowledgeable.
Overall, we had a very good experience.

We really enjoyed the day trip. Sunny was very helpful in pre-trip communications and planning. Annie our tour guide was very patient and extremely knowledgeable and held engaging discussions with us throughout the day on variety of topics well beyond just the tourist spots we visited😄. Thank you for kindly searching for a recommended lunch venue which was a perfect fit to our need, away from tourist traps and good food great ambience! Our driver was also very patient and car was comfortable appreciate the long drive! This tour agency is definitely highly recommended if you are looking for a private tour, we will certainly do this again on our future trip, thanks again! Note, both Sunny and Annie are great in English and native Chinese, so they can definitely help foreigners.

What an absolutely fabulous day , Rita was very professional , friendly and flexible to accomodate us . Mr Wong was very good driver and good character .

Rita made the experience to be very positive and intersting . Highly recommend Rita

Really enjoyed my day. Beautiful scenery So interesting and sunny was lovely friendly guide. Would recommend.

I booked a trip to Suzhou and Zhouzhuang with Sunny Tours Shanghai on very short notice. They were truly flexible and helpful in planning the trip the day before departure, and really let me have a say in where to go and what to do.
Martin my guide picked me up at my hotel the next morning and we made the trip to Suzhou in about 70 minutes. Martin is extremely knowledgeable and gave me a great introduction to Suzhou old town and its Classical Chinese Gardens. We visited the main historical sights including the ancient main gate, the pagoda and a real beauty of a Classical Garden.
We had a nice lunch at a place Martin recommended before we drove to Zhouzhuang Water Town. This was a real highlight of the trip. It is an extremely beautiful place, full of Instagram moments. We strolled along the sides of the canals crisscrossed the narrow cobblestone streets, crossed loads of beautiful bridges visited the one time home of one of Zhouzhuangs rich and famous in the town’s heyday and finally took a boat trip on the canal. Martin really knows the history and was full of interesting facts and stories throughout the day. I really recommend a trip with Sunny Tours Shanghai. If you’re short on time and don’t have a whole day to spend but want to see one of the famous water towns I’d definitely go for Zhouzhuang. It is an amazing place.

Thank you sunny for a great tour, we really enjoyed it. No hassle and everything went smoothly. We booked a day trip to Suzhou during Chinese Public Holiday, a bit scared of the crowd and yes it was packed, however we still managed to visit both suzhou and Zhouzhang water town.

My family and I travelled to Shanghai during the school holidays. Our group comprised 6 adults and 5 children. Sunny was our tour guide for our day trip to Suzhou. All of us enjoyed our trip to Suzhou with Sunny. Sunny is a very knowledgeable and friendly tour guide. She was happy to show us the sights and sounds of Suzhou and suggest watertowns for us to visit. The boat ride was lovely. We also appreciate Sunny making the effort to tailor the tour to suit our needs. I highly recommend Sunny as a tour guide. :) She is sincere, warm and reliable. We will definitely ask Sunny to take us around the next time we go to Shanghai. :)

I wanted to say how wonderful and friendly Annie was on our trip. The first thing she did was ask for our expectations on what we wanted to see. From there she gave a very personalized tour. She was knowledgeable and answered many questions. She was excellent to communicate with and so receptive to our requests. It was great practicing my Chinese with her she made it flow simply. The tour did a great job challenging me intellectually both in knowledge and culturally. This is a rare quality in a tour guide. Having been on many tours with Viator this was definitely one of the top tours I have been on. The driver was quick, present, and had a lovely luxury tour bus with excellent cleanliness.

I hope that Viator keeps using quality tour groups such as Sunny Tours for future bookings in China.

My partner and I visited Shanghai as part of a two and a half week trip to China, with Shanghai being our first stop for four nights. Before we left for China, we had arranged for a series of private tours, organized by Sunny. We had three very different tours each day, and all but one included a car and driver (the other using a cab or Chinese version of Uber), with energetic guides who spoke perfect English. We had Lily for the first two days, and Annie for the third day, and both were wonderful, we felt like family with them as we went about our sightseeing, which they had tweaked to our preferences.

We arrived in Shanghai on a Monday, and used that day to catch up on the flight from the States, which was a wise decision, as we were more or less on the 12 hour time difference by the next day when we started our tours.

Our fist day of touring was on Tuesday, and Lily met us with a bubbly smile in the lobby of our hotel, the Grand Hyatt at 10am for a full day tour, arriving back around 6pm. Lily led us to the van parked out front we would tour in, and introduced us to the driver. As I said, each day was different, so not only did we not repeat things, but gained a knowledge of the cultural and geographical regions of Shanghai, with informative things about China in general as well.

We had both been to Beijing on previous trips a couple years ago (also with a private guide - really the only way to go in our opinion), and right away noticed the differences in the two cities, both in ‘feel’, architecture, and lifestyle. Lily best summed it up as saying Beijing is the political city center, while Shanghai is the financial city center. We kept saying to each other, it doesn’t feel like some 25 million people as Shanghai is so spread out land wise. The financial center for example while home to many skyscrapers, is not only new (less than 30 years old Lily told us), but nothing like New York City in the way of crowds and gridlock - again as the city is quite spread out.

Lily toured us around in both the new financial section (know as the East side), and the older Shanghai on the West side. The two sections of the city are separated by a river that runs thru the city, which we accessed via tunnel several times on our tours.

One of the stops we made was at the Temple of Confucius, which in addition to aiding in understanding his importance in Chinese culture, was a quiet and serene setting that felt spiritual and was a nice photo stop as well. As a bonus, we attended a private tea ceremony (just the two of us) that was not only informative, but a lot of fun! They had teas for just about any alignment you could thing of, high blood pressure, sinus, digestion etc - we bought several to go, as well as a mini serving set.

We later had lunch at an authentic Chinese restaurant which was served family-style (shared dishes), which was excellent. After the tea ceremony, at least now we understand the importance of tea with the meal, and we again had tea as we ate.

We explored quite a bit throughout the day, ending up on ‘the Bund’ a large boardwalk-like area on the western side (older section, and original financial district), which offers spectacular views of the skyscrapers just across the river. (We would do an evening tour the next day via boat cruise to see these same buildings lit up in a seal of lights - mesmerizing!)

We toured thru the beautiful and historic Peace Hotel, and at our request we asked to have a relaxing drink stop at the end of the day on the nearly rooftop terrace which was wonderful. Lily and our driver then took us back to our hotel, after a full and fun-filled tour.

The next day’s tour with Lily was actually an evening tour, complete with a 45 minute cruise, followed by dinner in an upscale and authentic Chinese restaurant. We met at 6:00pm for a four hour tour, which was perfect as we had the day to sightsee on our own, yet see the buildings ‘come to life’, with the magic of light shows throughout the city.

Lily really made our two days of touring with here amazingly special, and took countless photos of us, as well as pointing out places and angles for better photos. She had such a wealth of knowledge of the city, China history, and effortlessly toured us around the city, leading us to places we would have never found on our own.

On our third day of touring, we had a different guide, Annie, who provided a full day tour of Suzhou. Like Lily, Annie spoke perfect English, and provided a wonderful day tour of the city of Suzhou, which is the “Venice of the East”. My partner wrote up a separate review of our day in Suzhou, so I won’t duplicate efforts, but suffice it to say Annie gave us a fantastic tour. Our visit to Shanghai was made so wonderful by Lily and Annie’s touring, knowledge, and friendliness. Thank you both Lily and Annie -Sunny’s tours are fantastic!