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Halong Bay


albertmc2
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Don't know the company, but have 2 comments. FIRST, you may want to research and find someone who does a longer (5-6 hr) cruise rather than the "standard" 3 hr one. It's somewhat disconcerting to be one of 100 junks all going bow to stern in a line across the bay.

 

SECOND, if it's the BAY that interests you make sure that your tour wanders the bay, and does not take you over/dump you at a cave complex/pick you up and take you to ANOTHER cave complex/then back to your starting point. (Which is exactly what a large percentage of the companies do)

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Reminds me of when we sought information from number of operators a few years back - we gave up & left it to chance on the day.

Glad we did - about 24 of us who'd met & bonded on the ship negotiated with touts on the pier on the first afternoon for a cruise the next day, and ended up with two junks for a 4 hr and a 6hr cruise. That's about a dozen of us spread out on the roof on junks similar to the ones booked for ship-sponsored cruises & which carried the max., about 30 to 40 packed into the saloon. A truly brilliant day. The price of around $90 per junk was about 8 years ago and prices will have shot up since then, but I feel sure you'll still get waaaay better value on-the-day than pre-booking - if you're willing to take the chance.

 

You really need to hear from folk who've done the same as us but much more recently.

 

I've had time to research L'Azalee, but came up with very little and what I came up with was conflicting info on different sites. Not a lot different to 8 years ago :rolleyes:

 

They do get good reviews from TripAdvisor etc.

On Booking.com - the only reviews I trust, 'cos you can only review if you've booked thro them - there's only 7 reviews, 5 good & 2 very poor. Not a big enough sample to be of use.

More important, a large proportion of reviews - and all the excellent photos on Booking.com - are for their overnite cruises.

So I wonder whether day cruises (ideal for port-of-call visits, but no good for their clientele from Hanoi etc) are a new sideline.

I did glean that they offer 4.5hr and 6.5hr cruises. But couldn't get decent info or even prices on the websites that I tried.

 

I get the impression that it's still hard work organising things in Vietnam in advance. :(

But time is on your side. :)

 

JB :)

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