Had a lovely time at Tongli Water Town with tour guide Benny. A car drove me to and from Tongli from my hotel and Benny met me upon arrival for an in-depth, relaxed tour of the town. He took me through museums and the popular streets, as well as areas with zero tourists. He also found an authentic place for lunch and ordered us some local Suzhou dishes. Highly recommend!

Catherine was amazing!! We had already used her services in Beijing for one day trip and was so nice that I asked her to organize a short and last minute trip to Tongli and around! She responded immediately and arranged a trip within an hour, with an amazing driver and a great your guy, both very professional and friendly!!’ I highly recommend Catherine’s tours, she is the best! It was so easy to book the trip and so well organized!

this private tour is very good. 2-3 months before I contact with jenna and make the itinerary. the response is so fast. when we arrive the driver is so polite and helpful since pick up us until drop us to flying back. Ruby, our guide is so nice. she can explain with fluently. she choose the route n place to lunch. also give us suggestion to choose dinner. overall 9/10 for the service.... 👍

The guide and tour provided by Catherine Lu tours made this city magical and wonderful. We learned about the history and enjoyed lots of food . This was the best of all options for us a private guide, driver and lots of cool things to see and do . Much appreciate this tour option

Ruby was the best! She really showed us a flavor for the city, it's history and surroundings...Great English, fun and entertaining, we would definitely ask for her again!

I just wish to comment that I had two very pleasant days with your guide David in Shanghai and Zhujiajiao Water Village. He was very skilled, with good knowledge about the past and present Shanghai and China. And the driver took us around in a safe way!

My family of 4 spent 3 days in Shanghai. We arranged a 2 day private tour through Catherine Lu tours and Ruby was our guide. She was great! So knowledgeable about the city and its history. She is also really sweet and bubbly. Jenna, at Catherine Lu arranged 2 great days of touring for us, adapting everything to our interests. She is incredibly responsive and truly cares that a great time is had by all. We also used Catherine Lu for 3 days of touring in Beijing as well as for all of our airport and train transfers. Everything was arranged perfectly, there were no problems at all. Highly recommend Catherine Lu tours and Ruby if you are in Shanghai!

I came to know catherine lu tours from trip advisor and decided to get our whole 7 day trip in China from shanghai, xian and Beijing planned by them.got some emails exchanged and done our package. Right from airport pick up,city tours,bullet train tickets, transfers everything well planned. Our guide RUBY in shanghai and Kim in beijing were good .they had good English command and good knowledge of china history. We enjoyed our trip

We just completed a 2-day tour of Shanghai and Zhujiajiao with Catherine Lu Tours. Our guide the first day was Ruby who was fun, funny, and energetic. We were picked up at our hotel in a comfortable, clean van and provided water. Both Ruby and Lily were flexible on the start time to help us avoid some of the rain which was in the morning on the first day and the afternoon of the second day. Since we only had 2 full days in Shanghai, we felt that this tour really helped us to maximize what we were able to see. Plus, having an English-speaking guide to tell us about the significance of what we were seeing and tell us about the local culture was invaluable. Both Ruby and Lily were helpful in ordering lunch. And Lily helped us with shopping in Zhujiajiao to communicate and negotiate with the store-owners (although the prices there were super-reasonable! Our lunch at a local dumpling place was about $2 per person!). We were leaving by bullet-train for Hangzhou the next day and Lily was nice enough to write down directions for us (in English and Chinese) to the subway stops we'd need to take in Shanghai as well as Hangzhou. And she told us to text her on WeChat the next day if we had any problems or questions. It really felt like you had a local friend that was there to take you around town. Overall we give them 5 stars and would highly recommend both Ruby and Lily of Catherine Lu Tours!

This was our first trip to China and we decided to use Catherine Lu tours to arrange our tours and transportation between the four areas we visited - Beijing, Xi'an. Guilin/Yangshuo, and Shanghai. From the beginning of our communications through to the completion of our trip, the preparations for and execution of the details of our trip were handled professionally and smoothly by Catherine and Jenna in the office. They even went well beyond the call of duty to help us arrange for transportation of some of our luggage between Beijing and Shanghai, so we could travel lighter on the domestic trains and planes. This was also our first experience using only private tours in a country and we left convinced that this was the best choice we could have possibly made to maximize the value of our experience and minimize the hassles. In Shanghai, we combined a mix of modern Shanghai with what is available from the past. Our guide Ruby was enthusiastic and flexible in adapting our itinerary at our request. We enjoyed the night time boat ride down the river to see all of the flashy building lights and had a brief stroll down the Bund before moving to some of the latest modern shopping and restaurant areas. Although some additional time had been allocated the next day to other modern parts of Shanghai, we felt there were other options of greater interest, so Ruby shifted that itinerary to include visits to old Chinatown and some other areas. Our visit to the water town was interesting and we had a chance to buy some different hand-made crafts and souvenirs, as well as sample local foods. Ruby was very helpful in pointing us to the right shops to find what we were looking for and also helped us pick up on the debate that the lunch waitresses were having as they tried to guess our ages, so we could help them out and make more of a game of it. On return to Shanghai, we had a chance to visit the Little White House and view the work of artisans who have space to work there. We also walked through a park and had the pleasure to see the many (generally) older citizens who go there daily to sing, dance and play instruments. . Having such an excellent guide and a comfortable vehicle to take us from place to place helped provide an amazing and full experience for us.

My Husband and I just returned from Shanghai and Beijing where we booked Catherine Lu Tours in both cities. All we can say is WOW!! Our tour guide in Shanghai, Cathy, was one of the most charming, knowledgeable and fun tour guides we could have hoped for. After two days of seeing all the wonderful highlights with her, we found it hard to say good-bye. If we could give a rating higher than 5, we would absolutely do so. Our tour days in Beijing were equally remarkable!

In October 2018 we were on a Viking cruise along the coast of China, starting at Beijing and ending at Hong Kong. We hired Catherine Lu tours for a two day tour of Shanghai since we had already arranged for a two day tour of Beijing with her company (reviewed in TripAdvisor for Beijing). We had two different tour guides for the first and second day, Kathy and Cecelia. The car and driver were the same. The first day we visited a Shanghai city park and a water village at Zhouzhang with Kathy. The city park (Fuxing Park) was fun since many retirees congregate there and dance, practice tai chi, etc. My wife danced with one of the retirees who may have been a retired dance instructor (he was that good). We then saw the French concession area, including a walk past the Communist Party of China birthplace in 1921. Next we visited the Little White House and spent maybe an hour wandering around its rooms and looking at some beautiful carvings made of various materials, including ivory, jade and wood. Then we drove to the water village and strolled around its narrow streets full of shops selling a variety of things, including food, artwork, handicrafts, etc. After a nice lunch overlooking a canal, we explored more of the village and shopped a bit. We had a very nice first day, and Kathy was an excellent guide, providing clear and interesting descriptions of the places we were visiting, helping select dishes for lunch, and answering our questions. The second day in Shanghai our guide was Cecelia. In the morning we visited the Longhua Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Shanghai, followed by a visit to Shanghai Tower, with beautiful views of the city and the waterfront (riverfront) area. In the afternoon we visited Yuyuan Garden and strolled around for an hour or two before returning to our ship for a 3 PM departure from Shanghai. Cecelia was very knowledgeable and explained the sites we were visiting very clearly. For a quick lunch Cecelia selected a very small restaurant/food stand that had excellent dumplings and also provided an experience of working people in Shanghai having lunch. All in all, I highly recommend Catherine Lu Tours, both in Shanghai and Beijing. The guides were uniformly excellent (all spoke English extremely well), the drivers were also very good, the itineraries are as varied as you wish and flexible, and the convenience and comfort of visiting sites in a private car/van is well worth the reasonable cost of the tours.

Our trip plans suddnely changed (nothing to do with Catherine Lu tours), so we ended up with a day and a half for sightseeing in Shanghai. We booked this all day tour, but were able to expand it to another half day plus airport transfers without any trouble. Ruby and the team at Catherine Lu tours were friendly, flexible, and spoke excellent english. Our guide, Ruby, knew all kinds of great information about Shanghai. We were picked up promptly after each stop, and Ruby knew just the right amount of time for us to be at each place. She is also a bit of a foodie, which made the meals she took us to extra special. She also was happy to take some photos of our group and promptly email them after the tour. I highly recommend Catherine Lu tours, especially if you get Ruby in Shanghai (or Steven in Beijing). We had never done a guided tour like this before, but it was definitely well worth it.

We spent a wonderful day on Oct. 30th with David as our tour guide. He and the courteous driver arrived at our cruise port at promptly at 7 am and we were off on an amazing day! First, we went to the beautiful Zhujiajiao Water Town and walked through the town, market and temple. It was at our pace and we managed to avoid the large crowds. David was an interesting guide adding both historical and current information throughout the day. We then traveled back to Shanghai and toured the French Concession area (including the Little White House) and ate a delicious lunch. David was very mindful of the time to ensure that we would arrive back at our port in time for the departure. At the end of the day, we felt like David was a friend who had shown us around his hometown! We had been to Shanghai about ten years ago but that was on a bus tour---this experience is so much better! We went with this company because they had received great reviews from other travelers. We weren't disappointed with the level of service or ease of booking the transaction. We also used Catherine Lu Tours in Beijing and that was great too. If we are lucky to return to China, we hope to use them again (and maybe try other locations they serve as well).

We spent two full days with Ruby touring Shanghai and wish it could have been longer! She is a great guide for many reasons! She has a great upbeat, enthusiastic personality and is full of information, history and great stories! Ruby was sure to customize each day to suit the interest of our group of 6 and recommended fabulous stops for shopping eating and going out. She treated us like VIP's and we HIGHLY recommend Ruby for a wonderful visit to this super city Shanghai!