Sightseeing Tours, Hong Kong

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...

My 2nd trip to HK 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.

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 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!

I bought the ticket to the Monkey's Tale, an animated story about a monkey, along with my ticket to Ngong Ping 360 on Lantau island. The story was a very simple one projected in a small theatre. It was not worth the time and money though.

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.

Isang libo piso lang daw pamasahe sa ferry papunta MACAU cmula HK - one way. Kaya pag punta ka HK punta ka nadin MACAU para sulit. dame nakukuha sched ng alis ng ferries sa HK Airport plang. di din kailangan visa sa MACAU

HK is very easy to navigate even for first-timers so please avoid packaged tours if you can help it. Last time I was there, I bought one tour (Disneyland) to save time. I specifically asked for a tour WITHOUT the usual stop-overs and the agency promised that we will spend the whole day at Disneyland (hotel pick-up at 8:00am then proceed to Disney until closing time). Come the planned date, the bus driver was late...with the usual excuse such as missing tourists, traffic, etc. Then we were brought to the Avenue of Star. What the...? We talked to the guide...he said we will only stay there for a few minutes and we will be on our way. After that, they brought us to a jewelry store. This really ruined my day as we have no business going there...no plan of buying jewelry. It took more than an hour to get everybody back to the bus. Most of the passengers were very disappointed and just spent their time drinking the free juice and a visit to the toilet. If you think that's all, they brought us to a factory outlet. Almost everybody refused to go out of the bus but the guide forced us saying the driver needs to take the bus somewhere for checking. Not much choice. As everybody seems to be pissed off, we took every free sample and did not buy anything from that shop. About 2:00PM, we finally arrived in Disney. Me and my parents were very hungry and the hot weather did not help. We spent another 30 minutes looking for a food stall and tried to enjoy what was left in our time. And before I forget, did I mention that they forced us to buy their keychains and plates too? The nerve!!!

One irritating thing about hong kong is the "under the table" ways the tourist industry tries to milk their tourists (especially those from mainland china and first-timers). One common thing you see in the tour package itinary to hong kong is a free half day city tour. (this is 100% the case for tours and packages, even free and easy, booked from singapore. I'm not sure about the case for other countries but i suspect it's similar).
My personal example: I booked a free and easy package from singapore which included flight, hotel and airport transfers and this free city tour. Since i've been to HK before, i told the tour agent in singapore we are not going for the city tour. She says no problem just tell the tour guide who receives u at the airport. When we arrive, we tell the tour guide who receives us that we are not going for the tour. And guess what? He says that we still have to pay this supposed "tip" of HKD 50 per person even though we dont go for the tour. After firmly refusing to pay and arguing, he gave in and said that our singapore tour agent should have told us and asked for her name.
Lessons learnt:
1) If you go for the "free" tour, u have no choice but to pay the HKD 50 per head. IT IS COMPULSORY unless u really want to create a scene and spoil ur own holiday. Dont forget u still have to see that tour guide when he fetches u from ur hotel to the airport on ur last day.
2) If you dont go for the tour, which is seriously a good idea unless u are a clueless first timer, fight for ur rights and say that u were not told about the fee and DONT PAY. Seriously i dont think that tour guide is so free as to call up your tour agent to scold the girl who booked ur package.
Another warning about the city tour, if u really go for it, DONT BUY ANYTHING RECOMENDED BY THE SHOPS THE GUIDE BRINGS U TO!!!!!! everything is overpriced by at least 200% and most of the medicine, herbs, etc.... are either useless or can be bought anywhere else, even in ur own country at a cheaper price.

We did a Deluxe Hong Kong island Tour, and ended up in one of those jewellry manufacturing shops. Here we had to spend a boring hour being pressured about buying jewellry that we didnt want...This isnt the first time this has happened to us...and from now on,I will ask if its part of the itinery. It was in very small print on the brochure!