I want to add my input for the above named but I can't add it to the existing post so I"m creation a new one. There are a number of good and bad posts about him, mine unfortunately will fall on the bad side. After reading all the good reviews, I had high hopes from the very beginning having Alvin as the driver for us. We had booked him back in April for an October date and I should have seen it from the the beginning. First, the price consistantly change as I tried to work out an iti with him, mostly going up. I had wanted a quote for driver, car, gas, parking for a day but everytime I tried to confirm that the price increases. I brushed aside thinking that he just gets us confused with others as he must be really busy. We finally settled on a price and only to find out later that he did not blocked our date for us and kept on promising that he will do his best to make it work either with him or someone he recommends.

We kept our hopes up until the very end and yet he was not able to give us a firm answer as to whether or not he is available. We had hopes that even if he is not that he will provide someone else just as good. We had to call him on our first day in Beijing becuase we were still not sure whether someone will be there for us. We spent hours going over the price again and as it turns out, whether he is available for us or not depends on the price that we are willing to pay him. When we asked him if he is available for us for the following morning, he first said that he was and gave us the cost. The cost was more than what he quoted on e-mail which I pointed out to him, he said that his price is the same for everyone and asked that we give some time to check his email to see where the misunderstanding is. We stayed on the phone with him while he checked that and finally when he found it, he said that the price given is for a some-comfortable car and non-english driver. He then changed his mind to say that he might not be available tomorrow morning and this is already 7pm at night and that he will arrange a driver for us. We need someone who can speak english and at this point we were at his mercy as it was too late to arrange anything else decent. We were already behind our schedule spending time with him on the phone.

In the end, we paid much more than agreed on, wasted a lot of time and money on the phone. The car we got was a run down, dirty car. I was afraid to put my head on the back head rest. So it seems we got the "some" comfortable car. The worst part about all this is his insensitivity to our timeline. We started a little late in the morning because he spend time on his cell phone after picking us up and have us wait in his car while he sort out his other clients from what we presumed.

We spent more time at the Wall then we had wanted and as we were tight on time, we wanted to just grab something and eat it on the way to the next destination which was the Summer Palace. He kept on insisting that we go for dumpling and that it will only take 30mins. We caved in thinking that what he recommends should be good. And so we head to this dumpling place, for some reason he could not explained to us, he said that for every order we make, we had to order two. So we were not able to sample as many types of dumplings as we would liked. And the dumplings were no way close to the word "excellent".

When we finished which was over 30mins later, we came out and could not find him anywhere. We walked around looking for him and only find him driving back to the restaurant 10mins later. We not only wasted time at the dumpling place, we wasted time waiting for him. I was very upset but kept my composure because what he lacked in all aspects he was very passionate about his city Beijing and I wanted him to want to tell us more histories about the city.

We rushed through the summer palace as it was closing and we had gotten there way passed the scheduled time. We then head off to the Acrobat show where he had initially promised that he can get the middle seat tickets for cheap. When we got there, he said that they were no longer available but he has the side section for cheap. Cheap in his mind is 40 or so rmb below ticketed price. He had made it seem like he was helping us out because the ticket was cheaper than the ones in the middle section and that there was no need to get the ones in the middle as the side was as just as good. Of course it wasn't because you get disturbed by people walking up and down the aisle but he told us that after the 15min break between the show, we can go to the middle section where there are empty seats.

After all that we been through, we did just that because I wanted to end the day feeling that I had gotten my money's worth and I didn't care what others would think seeing us moved from the side to the middle seats.

This is a long post I know but I just wanted to let everyone know of our experience. Alvin is good in that he is passionate about telling the history of Beijing. Aside from that, I would not recommend him.