What to Do: Ha Long Bay
Now, after arriving at my hostel in Hanoi, I was overwhelmed with the amount of trips that were offered, everyone from your front desk, to tour company, to shack by the side of the road had tours they could book for you, and they promised they had the most exclusive deal. I’m going to start off this post with a few tips on finding the right tour and what you can expect to pay. I tried finding this everywhere when I was booking, and although prices vary, I was hoping to find a how-to guide or at least a benchmark so I could figure out how much I would be spending. For ease of understanding, everything is in USD.
We started off looking around at places on the street and tour companies, which seemed to have a pretty competitive price, but we weren’t sure about the reputation. The four of us split up and went to different companies, trying to find the best price and dividing and conquering seemed like the best option. I ended up finding a tour company down the alley from the Old Quarter View Hostel and they promised a Lavender Cruise 3 star 2 Day, 1 Night trip for $75 USD.
Good benchmarks as of November 2018:
1 Day Trip : $40-50 USD
2 Day, 1 Night Trip: $75-100 USD
3 Day, 2 Night Trip: $125-150 USD
These prices are based on a few things, 3 star accommodation, and getting the usual trip route, which can be a bit touristy. If you’re looking for more, and you’re looking for the less traveled (still pretty traveled) routes, you can definitely go and spend more. I think you just need to be careful they don’t up-charge you too much. You can also try and negotiate these prices (or lower if you’re lucky) by booking in a group.
We ended up booking our 2 Day, 1 Night trip with the four of us for the next day, but we made the following mistakes:
We did NOT have the booking agent write the name of the cruise boat or package on the receipt
We did NOT grab the receipt and save it with us so that we had a copy (this is obvious, I KNOW).
We were given NO guarantees or money back deals.
We did NOT look up our travel agent/booking company on anything like TripAdvisor.
These seem like easy things, but in the heat of the moment, we did not take the time to think all of these things through, we were excited for the trip and thought we were being extremely careful.
Long story short, went from a 2 Day, 1 Night trip to a 1 Day, left at an abandoned hotel complex, given great food, left for the evening, almost forgotten about the next day and finally made it back where we demanded a partial refund since what we got was nowhere what we had paid for. The day trip was amazing, and the adventure as we like to call if afterward is something I’ll never forget.
Traveler Tip: These things will happen to you on your trip. If you throw a fit and cry about it, no one is going to care, and it’s probably not helpful for your poor traveling mates that are also going through the same thing. The best thing to do is breathe, make the best of it, and look for the bright sides or the funny parts of your trip instead. I still laugh thinking about how we were left there, not sure what was happening, and how a nice big bottle of Hanoi Vodka and a couple of card games turned around our evening.
Starting off, you have a few options for booking your trip. You can arrange a tour from Hanoi, or you can head down to Cat Ba and arrange a tour from there. I promise you, either way will get you on a boat. I also have to say that if you have a few days to spare, and you choose to go down to the docks and find yourself a day tour, don’t panic, and if you end up spending a day in Cat Ba exploring instead of on the boat, that’s also a great stop.
Now, when booking a trip, there are a few places that you will likely be taken to, or things that you will see, including:
Sung Sot or the Surprising Cave:
Ba Hang Fishing Village with Kayaking
Ti Top Island, where you can hike or go swimming
Thien Cung Grottos, also known as Heavenly Cave
Or other Local Fishing Villages
There are also 3 different bays that you can go to, Ha Long, Bai Tu Long and La Han Bay. The last two are just as beautiful and often times less touristy, but you’ll pay for the luxury of being one of 15 boats instead of one of 50.
In summary, here’s a few tips for booking you Ha Long Bay tour:
Do a bit of research on what you want to do and how long you want to be there
Shop around for a few different prices. Make sure once you decided who you want to go with, there is some sense of trust. Hostels are usually pretty good because they value their reputation and booking score. Use TripAdvisor or blogs to check in on the tour operators and tour booking companies.
Make sure to get confirmation on what you’re getting and with who
Remember to go with the flow. This isn’t a western tour group and you’re bound to run into hiccups. Keep a cool head and just roll with the punches and make the best of it.
It’s okay not to see everything. I already want to go back and I just left last week. It’s not a checklist, it’s an experience.
I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions or any other tips!
-E