1. Check carefully before booking Halong Bay Overnight Cruise
Be careful when choosing your Halong Bay Overnight Cruise as there are hundreds choices and not all of them worth your money. If you want to save money, a 3-star cruise is totally suitable with your demand. However, budget cruise is always the one to nervous most as there are many cruises which are advertised as 3-star standard but in fact, many of them are at bad condition with old boat, unprofessional staff and poor food. Those unqualified cruises are sold at very cheap price (sometimes just a half of a truly qualified cruise’s price) but your experience will be like coming to hell. Therefore, don’t try to get a cabin with cheapest price, you should choose the one with best price. Some suggestion for good budget cruises with reasonable price such as: Swan Cruise, Glory Legend, Aclass Legend, Phoenix Cruise or Oriental Sails.
If you willing to pay a bit more for a little larger room with better meals and services or have a connecting room for your family with kids, mid-range cruises are available for you to choose. However, just like the budget 3-star cruise, not all mid-range 4-star cruises are qualified enough, some have no difference with the budget one, so be smart when choosing your 4-star Halong Bay Cruise.
On the other hand, if you have tons of money and willing to pay for the best, so you actually do not have to think too much about budget versus your needs; especially, when you have special needs about foods (vegan or Halal food), rooms (large room or connecting room), training (swimming pool or gym room), etc. However, sometimes paying a lot does not mean you can get what you need. So even though you don’t have to care about the cost, just check carefully before decide to book your Halong Bay cruise.
There are many ways to check if a cruise is good enough for you such as: TripAdvisor, reviews from experienced bloggers, reputable local travel agencies, etc. and you should check the information and suggestions from as many channels as you can.
2. Choose the right travel agency
In fact, booking a cruise through travel agency is usually much cheaper than booking directly on your own. However, among thousands travel agencies in Vietnam, just a few of them are reputable. An advice for travelers is don’t just walk in any random travel agency on Vietnam streets and the Internet or just shopping around some booths in Hanoi Old Quarter then decide to choose the one which has a (seems like) sweet and enthusiastic seller who tell you something seems magical about the cruise they offering to you and willing to discount deeply just because “it is you so I will sell with only this price” or “it is a last-minute booking so the I will sell for you with only that price”, etc. Please note in your mind that, there is no free lunch and a shock discount for a super perfect Halong Bay Overnight Cruise usually means that it is a scam.
3. Check if there is any promotion
After choosing travel agent you want to deal with, you should double check with them if there is any promotion available for your cruise or is the any deal they can apply to you. This is not really like a bargain trick; however, sometimes your agency forgets about the promotion or maybe there is a deal in the near future and they can apply it sooner for you. There are some promotions you may get such as: free Vietnam visa letter, free round-trip shuttle bus/VIP bus, free street food-tour in Hanoi, free water puppet show ticket, discount on price (20-50% usually), etc.
4. Bring along not too much luggage
Normally, the longest trip you can take with a Halong Bay Overnight Cruise is a 3 days 2 nights itinerary and most of people choose to have only a 2-day-1-night trip on Halong Bay; therefore, you should only bring enough luggage for a very short trip so you don’t have to carry a lot of things or a big suitcase which is heavy, cumbersome and uncomfortable. Besides, the shuttle bus and especially the VIP (limousine) bus which are used to transfer you from Hanoi to the harbor usually do not have a large space for big size suitcase or too much luggage, so bring a huge load of luggage means you may not find enough space to store it or just simply feeling uncomfortable with the lumbering in at least 2-hour travelling by car. In addition, you should note that with many 3-star and 4-star cruises, the lobby and corridor are really narrow; which means if you bring an oversize suitcase or lots of luggage, you may create the difficulty on moving in the public area not only to yourself but also to other travelers.
5. Be on time
Please note that most of Halong Bay cruises cannot wait for your more than 15 minutes and there are some cruises that only delay about 5 minutes for a late customer. Of course, you do not have to cancel your Halong Bay Cruise with full charged just because of being late; however, you have to pay hundreds USD for a speed boat or tender to catch up with the cruise. Therefore, if you do not want to overpay, feel depressed and wish that you woke up sooner, just pack your luggage at the night before, get up soon enough for getting dress and having a nice breakfast with a couple of tea or coffee then get to the meeting point for your shuttle bus 15 minutes soon to the harbor.
Above is some basic tips for your perfect first time travelling with Halong Bay Cruise. If you are planning to enjoy a few days on a Halong Bay Overnight Cruise, you can visit BestPrice Travel and take it as a good suggestion to book the best cruise in Halong Bay!