Halong Bay

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Thanks Alexandra, might still do it, not sure right now. Not part of a cruise, but a land trip.

[John Bull]

Thanks Alexandra, might still do it, not sure right now. Not part of a cruise, but a land trip.

 

There's no "might do" about it, Wendy ;)

You'll not regret taking a junk cruise. :)

 

It's not the rainy season.

There's usually a mist amongst the islets, but that adds to the eerie surreal-ness of the place.

In the mist it's cool, but not cold, - take a sweater just in case.

 

 

Four hours is the minimum you should consider, you also have the option of six or eight, or overnite.

 

Way way cheaper on-the-fly from the touts at the pier, but pot-luck with the standard of the junk. And I can understand those who dig much deeper into their pockets to pre-book.

Three years ago 8 to 10 of us hired a junk on arrival for 6 hours. Cost (no food etc) was $100 total, but don't expect anything like that value if you pre-book.

Price is mainly per junk rather than per person (up to a dozen or so is ideal for a day-boat), & your decision whether to pre-book may depend on how you rate your chances of finding sharers in advance or on-the-spot.

You may have the opportunity to buy just seats-on-boat, but Greatham (a CC regular who knows the area well) suggests that you'd be mixing with mainly back-packers.

 

JB :)

[Wendy The Wanderer]

There's no "might do" about it, Wendy ;)

You'll not regret taking a junk cruise. :)

 

It's not the rainy season.

There's usually a mist amongst the islets, but that adds to the eerie surreal-ness of the place.

In the mist it's cool, but not cold, - take a sweater just in case.

 

 

Four hours is the minimum you should consider, you also have the option of six or eight, or overnite.

///

JB :)

 

Thanks. if we did it, it would be an overnight, for sure, so the quality of the junk is more important. At the moment it's not on the table this trip. This could still change.

[aussie tess]

Hi LdyDDS....we are doing this stop on the Millennium in December 2013. We would like to do both Halong Bay and Hanoi. I think you meant Hanoi not Saigon. If so can you give us your recommendation of tour guide?

 

We had a private tour booked for Halong Bay & Saigon. Our tour guide waited for us to get off the tender and took up directly to the boat for the bay tour. Even though we were only 6 people we had a large boat just for us. We sailed around the bay for a short time, saw the floating village, took the tour of the cave and made it back to shore just at Dusk. We were given the choice of touring the cave or a longer bay tour with no cave stop since we got off the Millennium later than expected. We then got into a van and drove to Saigon, stopping 1/2 way there for a really nice dinner. We arrived at our Saigon hotel at about 10pm. The next morning we started touring at 8:45, had a good full tour and made it back to the ship with plenty of time. I am glad we organized the private tour so that we could get both the bay and city tours in. We were also on the 3rd tender off the ship in Halong Bay.

[JoAnneV]

Hi LdyDDS....we are doing this stop on the Millennium in December 2013. We would like to do both Halong Bay and Hanoi. I think you meant Hanoi not Saigon. If so can you give us your recommendation of tour guide?

 

We used Ann Tours and were really pleased with the quality and the service. We used them for all ports in Viet Nam.