He is exaggerating. You just use Astrill or ExpressVPN or one of the other VPN providers that specialize in getting around the GFW. Other than the one week of the year, around a certain anniversary, when the GFW decides to shit on everything you don't really notice it.
As a counterpoint I visited in October this year and used ExpressVPN, which worked fine and was fast. No 6 layers of VPN required.
9 weeks (October and November); ExpressVPN and VyprVPN worked pretty well.