In the end, our cabin was smaller than your average Chinese toilet, dingy, dirty, smelly and either unpleasantly hot or cold. We were met with amazingly gruff and unfriendly (often bordering on rude) service, aggressive hawking of various wares, etc. We were provided with a "tourguide" who did nothing except show up and ask us to buy tickets. For the two times our tickets <i>were</i> included, she was nowhere to be found and we spent a good part of the time allotted for touring these boring sites looking for her. We were also made to buy a ticket (first priced at 120 kuai each, later "
discounted" to the real price of 40 once we saw that written on the ticket itself) in order to simply go to the parts of the boat where one could see the surrounding scenery, and almost none of the tickets were included. We were asked to pay for almost every one of our stops, excepting two (which noone would really want to see anyway). The worst of which was the actual three gorges dam, where we were not told that our tickets weren't included and we got off the boat, went up in the lift, and suddenly saw our boat departing. We were then completely stuck; buy a ticket to tour the damned dam for 150 kuai or buy a bus ticket to where the boat would meet us for 30.

Long story short, You could say it about doing anything anywhere, but be really careful when you embark on a tour of the three gorges. At all costs avoid 重庆市纵横旅业有限公司 (Chongqing Zongheng Travel agency ltd.), right near the train station!! Don't get ripped off like we did!

Be particularly alert when choosing a service if you're planning a tour of the three gorges area. We, despite our best efforts, were severely ripped off! We were shown luxurious, fantastic photos of first class cabins and after a week of laying low due to an unfortunate accident in which I was burned, we decided to shell out the extra cash for first class - about 1,500 kuai per ticket. We were assured our rooms were the rooms from the picture and all tickets and everything except food was included.