Be careful which boat you book! I did my research on the internet and was led to believe that I was booking a five star boat with all the trappings that one would expect; internet access, gym, beauty rooms, sauna, multiple restaurants, big comfortable bedrooms, etc. After an hours drive away from Chongqing in a bus full of drunk Chinese men on a corporate do I boarded a boat that was far from five star. On pointing this out to the very obliging English speaking hostess she acknowledged that compared to hotels on land this was more 2 - 3 star than 5. I was led to believe that this was a trip very popular with westerners. There were 4 other westerners on a boat that held hundreds. The room I had was tiny and very basic (it was clean that was one thing in its favour) and on asking for an upgrade I was told it was impossible. I was very tempted to disembark Princess Sheena on the first night (as we didn\'t go anywhere until mid morning the following day which I was a bit disgruntled about as I had a perfectly lovely hotel in Chongqing) but persuaded myself that it would be an experience and that I should stick with it. I should have disembarked! I found out a day or so into the cruise that there were other, perfectly lovely boats full of westerners and that I had just picked the wrong boat. I am not averse to spending my time with the locals but as they don\'t speak English very well and as I was travelling on my own I thought it would be more sociable to have fellow English speakers on board. The restaurants were decidedly average. The gym was an exercise bike in the corner of the \'beauty\' room that didn\'t do pedicures or much else by way of \'beauty\' treatments, there was no internet access and everything was very much along the lines of a booze cruise ferry. The cost of everything was on board was triple that on land and while the Chinese came prepared with snacks for the first night (when it was nigh on impossible to get food) us westerners were foodless and hungry. The scenery was spectacular but we couldn\'t see much through the fog - that is the fog hanging over the river and the fog of smoke having over the boat. As I say - be careful which boat you book. It could have been great fun ... but it wasn\'t...
